Recipe: Coconut scroll-lol-lols

These.

I think I started making these in year nine or ten when I was at home. Went through a phase of manic breadmaking during the school holidays and they. Were. Good.
Still are.

Anyway. I had resolved to make bread yesterday, which, once I consulted the Fridge and realised we had coconut milk that had to be used, kind of escalated a bit. It's per-serving, relatively cheap, and easy to make. Fast as bread can be.

Also, the bread recipe I'm supplying is one that I use for any time I am making bread. It's pretty good, so you might get redirected to this one in the future.

~50 mins prep time, plus proofing and rising time
(This is a good one for multitasking to, or if you have to study and want to get up and do stuff in between sessions.)
Makes 8 scrolls.

Bread recipe:

1 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 tablespoon yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups plain white flour

Filling recipe:

Half a can of Cocount milk (or one of the little ones. Or double the recipe and use a whole one)
~1/2 cup dessicated or shredded coconut
~1/3 cup raisins or sultanas
~1/4 cup sugar
Some butter

I filled the scrolls in a manner akin to cooking rather than baking. More like "oh, about that many".

Grab a large bowl, cup and spoon measurements, a wooden spoon or spatula, sieve, small bowl and knife. Probably a chopping board too.

Make the bread first.

Grab the large bowl. Dissolve the sugar in the water, stir in the yeast. Give it enough time to do its own thing and foam up. It'll make the house smell like yeasty beer bread funk.

Once it has a small head, mix in the salt and oil. Then sift and mix the flour in one cup at a time until everything is combined.

Notes on breadscience:
If the ratio seems a little bit out and is too dry, add a small amount of milk. If it's too wet, add a small amount of flour. Make sure you are enthusiastic about combining before making that decision; it's very easy to end up with a monster that is continually too dry or too moist.

Is it combined? Good. Cover the bowl with clingwrap and stick it somewhere warm to rise for roughly an hour. Go study or something.

When you come back to it, it should have magically gotten quite a bit bigger. When it's about twice its initial size, flour up the chopping board and tip it out. Knead it until it's slightly stretchy but still soft.

Funfact: the more you knead bread-dough, the more like pizza base it will become (elastic but tough). The least-kneaded yeastbreads are cakes. So, somewhere between a yeast cake and pizza dough is good.

Cut the dough into 8. If you happen to own a rolling pin, or a glass jar/tumbler, roll the sections out until they're...dunno. About 20cm is the longest I think. A little rectangle of dough.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.

Melt the butter. Spread on the dough-rectangles. Sprinkle the dried coconut, raisins and sugar on. Roll the rectangle up from the short sides and put it in a floured breadtin.

Sorry. Should have mentioned the breadtin earlier. Also, a cake tin will probably do the trick too; you just need something with high enough sides to stop the bread from going places it shouldn't.

Once the breadtin has been stacked with scrolls of dough, pour over about half of the coconut milk, plus any sugar that might be leftover from the filling.

Sling it into a medium oven (160 degrees C) for about 40 minutes. Pull it out at twenty and pour the rest of the cream over it. Or save that for the moment when you pull it out to be served and then drizzle it over the top.

Like any cake, you can tell when these are done by poking one of the scrolls with a skewer or knife. If there's dough on it, the middle isn't cooked.

Don't expect these to stay around for very long. They're the goods.

I think...it costs probably about a dollar for me to make a loaf of the bread. So, a bit more to fill it.
The thing is that the fillers are the type of ingredient that you buy and then they sit in the cupboard for ages. The coconut was left over from when I made the cake from Portal for a mate's birthday. The raisins were from my first attempt at hot cross buns. So having them sitting in the cupboard meant I could create food from what was lying around.

Which is always good.

These go great at gatherings, at celebrations for a constructive day of study, or when you want to eat something warm and sugary.

Omnomnom.

Recipe: Cobbled-together Bruchetta

Bruchetta is one of my favourites for four delicious reasons.
Minimal ingredients. Takes about fifteen minutes to make. As long as you own a knife and an oven, it is pretty easy.
The only problem with this one is that I usually make it and then eat half of it before I remember that it needed a photo for the blog.

Exhibit A. I'm not sure why I sliced the tomoto.

So. Anyway:

15-20 mins prep time
Serves 2 (this stuff does not make good leftovers)

4 slices bread (cob loaves, sourdough or turkish bread taste best, but it works just as well on sandwich bread)
1/2 an onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
2 tomatoes
Savoury herbs (eg. basil, the glass jar of 'mixed herbs', oregano/thyme/etc)
          (not essential but it does make it better)
Salt and Pepper

If you want something a little more extravagant:
baby spinach
feta cheese
olives
balsamic vinegar
pesto
ham or something

Gather:
chopping board and knife and turn on the oven to a low heat.

I appreciate that phrases like 'low heat' aren't on the oven itself. This irritates me too from time to time. 120 degrees should be fine

Put a little bit of olive oil on both sides of the bread slices and stick them on a tray in the warm oven. Leave them in there for five minutes.

While it's toasting away. Dice the onion. Thinly slice the garlic. Or use a garlic press if you have one. (Bec and I don't). Dice the tomatoes. It's okay if you pour off a bit of the juice; it'll only make the meal soggy.

If you happen to have ham, then grab a small quantity and shred it.

The bread should have finished toasting by now. Pull it out and (if you have pesto, spread a little bit on it now). add the onion and garlic. Herbs if they're there. A bit of salt and pepper. The ham and the tomotoes.

Back in the oven for another ten minutes.

If you have those other ingredients on standby, chop the feta into small cubes and mix it with the baby spinach and olives. Put them on the plate.

If not, I'd recommend finding the extent of everything in the kitchen that the tomato juice got on and cleaning it up. This is still a mighty dish without the presence of salad.

DING! Goes the oven as you leap like a puma to the oven. Pry it open and force it to give up your prey. Remember that writing a recipe in poetic tense is way more fun than imitating a robot and move the slices of tomato-heaped delicious to your plate.

Utensils are optional.

Oh. The balsamic vinegar? Drizzle a little on top if you want. It will be more delicious if you have not previously tried eating the crumbs at the bottom of a pretzel packet. (Salty.)
Add extra salt and pepper if you want.

Consume.

Cost? Um. Probably less than $5, if you're not buying salad. $2.50 per serving.


Protip: Because the plug-in oven that Bec owns is too small for four slices of bread at once, I toast two at a time. Also, this means that by the time you finish the first slice, the second is ready and above all, hot.

If you happen to have tomato paste, that can be substituted for the pesto. We have some in the fridge because my grandfather gave it to us.

One of the other reasons why Bruchetta is such an excellent recipe is that it is mostly constituted of things you have on standby in the pantry anyway, except the tomato.