Showing posts with label filled bread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label filled bread. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Ham and Cheese Elephant Rolls #BreadBakers

Children and adults alike will love these soft ham and cheese elephant rolls. They are cute AND tasty! I mean really. Look at their golden ears and currant eyes!

Food Lust People Love: Children and adults alike will love these soft ham and cheese elephant rolls. They are cute AND tasty! I mean really. Look at their golden ears and currant eyes!

I have no idea what I was browsing the internet for when I came across bread dough shaped like animals last year. There were hedgehogs, bunnies, puppy and kitty faces, even some starfish and so much more. 

That gave me this idea for a Bread Bakers theme and, bless their hearts, my bread baking friends were up for the challenge to start off the new year. Make sure you scroll down to the bottom to see the menagerie they’ve created! 

Many years ago, while we were living in Malaysia, we had several opportunities to visit an elephant sanctuary a short distance from our home. Whenever we had visitors to entertain, it became a highlight of their holiday. We’d put on our swimsuits topped with t-shirts and shorts, load up the car with fruit to share with the elephants and make our way through up the highway, then into the jungle. 

The sanctuary showed small groups of visitors a short introductory film where we learned about their work rescuing orphaned or threatened elephants and then came the exciting part, we got to feed and bathe them! 


(Hence the swimsuits – the latter part was a wet job! If you got really lucky, you got to ride one of the elephants down to the river for the bath. We all got lucky a few times over the years.)


Possibly due to this frequent early exposure, our younger daughter became a collector of elephant statues, big and small. I thought it would be fun to create some of those wonderful creatures and take photos of the elephant rolls with some of her collection. 

Ham and Cheese Elephant Rolls

This recipe is adapted from one I found originally on the Japanese site Cookpad. Fortunately they also have a sister site in the UK which has been translated into English - which still took me a while to work through. I got there in the end!

Ingredients
For the dough:
1/3 cup or 80ml milk 
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 cups or 156g bread flour
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 egg, separated into white and yolk

For the filling:
3 oz or 85g thick sliced ham (I used leftover spiral cut cooked ham.)
1 3/4 oz or 50g extra sharp cheddar or your favorite aged cheese

For the eyes:
6 raisins or currants

Method
Warm the milk and butter in the microwave or in a small pot on the stove until the butter is melted and the milk is lukewarm to the touch. 

In a mixing bowl, combine the milk with the yeast and sugar and set the mixture aside to prove. Within a few minutes, you should see bubbles forming which assure you that the yeast is indeed active. 


Sift the flour and salt into the bowl, add the egg white and mix well to make a soft dough. 


Knead until your dough is smooth and elastic. Set the bowl in a warm place for the first rise of about 45 minutes till it doubles in size. 


Meanwhile, slice your ham into rounded pieces about 1/4 in or 1/2cm thick and 2 x 2.5 in or 5 x 6.5cm. Cut your cheese into similar size slices and lay one piece of cheese on each slice of ham. I also trimmed the top corners of the cheese off to match the curve of the ham. 


Once your dough has risen sufficiently, cut it into six equal pieces. (My dough weighed about 284g so each piece was about 47g, if you are a user of a digital scale.)

Roll each piece into balls and then roll them into long ovals a little more than twice the length of your ham.

Place the ham and cheese on top of the oval, a little closer to the right to leave room for cutting the trunk. Fold the dough up over the ham and cheese, pressing any air out and sealing the edges all around. 


Use a sharp knife to cut a triangle on the left side to form the trunk and a small slit on the right side for the tail. According to Feng Shui, elephant trunks pointed up indicate a good mood, so I turned mine up! 


Roll the little triangle of dough into a ball then roll it out in a small oval to form the elephant’s ear. Lightly press the ear on to attach it. 


Continue the process until all six ham and cheese elephant rolls are done. Use the end of a chopstick to press an eyehole into each. 


Place them on your baking pan lined with a silicone liner or baking parchment and put them in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes. I’ve discovered that my microwave oven is large enough to hold my pan so I heat a small bowl of water to almost boiling, then pop the pan on top and close the microwave door. Game changer for those of us without proving drawers!


In a small bowl, soak the six currants for the eyes in a little hot water. Leave them to plump. 

Depending on how long your oven takes to preheat, start that process setting the oven to 350°F or 180°C sometime in the 30 minutes of rising time. 

When the little elephants have risen sufficiently, whisk your egg yolk with two tablespoons of water and brush them with the elephants with the mixture. 


Drain the currants and dry them off. Use the end of your chopstick to poke one into each eyehole. 

Food Lust People Love: Children and adults alike will love these soft ham and cheese elephant rolls. They are cute AND tasty! I mean really. Look at their golden ears and currant eyes!

Bake the elephants in your preheated oven for about 18-20 minutes or until they are puffed and golden. 

Food Lust People Love: Children and adults alike will love these soft ham and cheese elephant rolls. They are cute AND tasty! I mean really. Look at their golden ears and currant eyes!

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for as long as you can resist before eating.  

Food Lust People Love: Children and adults alike will love these soft ham and cheese elephant rolls. They are cute AND tasty! I mean really. Look at their golden ears and currant eyes!

Enjoy! 

Check out all of the other animal bread my Bread Bakers are sharing today!
BreadBakers
#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our lovely bread by following our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated after each event on the #BreadBakers home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

Pin these Ham and Cheese Elephant Rolls!

Food Lust People Love: Children and adults alike will love these soft ham and cheese elephant rolls. They are cute AND tasty! I mean really. Look at their golden ears and currant eyes!
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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Tiganopsomo - Feta-Stuffed Fried Bread #BreadBakers

Tiganopsomo is a traditional Greek bread, so named because it is bread or psomi that is fried in a pan or tigani. Easy, right? It’s made of soft yeast dough, filled with cheese, then pan-fried in light oil. The finished bread circle is crispy and light, perfectly complemented by the salty filling.

This month’s Bread Bakers is being hosted by my friend Jenni, from Jenni Field’s Pastry Chef Online and her chosen theme is Stuffed Breads. Initially I signed up to make Char Siu Pau but when those didn’t work out so well, I started hunting around the interwebs for something new to try. And I found a winner!

Here’s my disclaimer: I have never been to Greece. I have never tasted tiganopsomo made in a Greek restaurant or by a Greek cook. Truth is, I had never even heard of tiganopsomo before. I have no idea if mine turned out the way they are supposed to. But I can tell you this: They are divine. And this is a dangerous recipe to have found and learned. It’s quick to put together and the dough only needs a  30-minute rest before you are ready to fill it and fry. Time enough to crumble or grate some cheese and chop some mint. And get the cocktails ready. Cut into small triangles, tiganopsomo would be perfect finger food for a cocktail party.

I used this recipe from My Greek Dish and made a couple of the suggested additions, mixing a harder yellow cheese with the feta – I used a sheep’s milk Kashkaval along with a sheep’s milk feta – and some fresh mint. Next time I am going to add some fresh chopped hot chilies. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it in time, this time.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup or 160g flour, plus a little extra for kneading
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons dried yeast
1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil
1/2 cup or 120ml lukewarm water (You may not use it all.)
7 oz or 200g feta cheese, crumbled or a mixture of feta and hard cheese
(I used 3 oz or 85g feta and 4 oz or 115g Kashkaval cheese.)
About 8-9 fresh mint leaves
Vegetable oil for frying

Method
Add the flour to a large mixing bowl and make a well in the middle. Add in the yeast, salt and sugar.

Pour in the olive oil and use your hands or a spatula to mix the flour in a little at a time.



When there is still quite a bit of dry flour showing, start adding the water, mixing as you go, until you have a soft dough.

I didn’t use quite all the water before my dough already looked really wet and sticky but I was surprised as I started kneading it because it wasn’t actually sticking to me at all. That’s what oil in your dough will do, it seems.



Knead your dough on a very lightly floured surface for just a few turns. Cover the dough with cling film and allow to rest for half an hour.



Meanwhile, wash and dry your mint leaves and cut them into thin strips, chiffonade-style.

Grate or chop your harder cheese, if using, and crumble your feta. Add the mint into the cheese and mix well.



When the rest period is up, cut your dough into four equal pieces and use a rolling pin to roll them into thin circles about 1/4 in or 1/2 cm thick. Any thicker and you risk the dough not cooking through before it gets brown. We are looking for light and crispy.


Top two of the circles with the cheese mixture and cover with the other dough circles. Use your hands to squeeze the air out from between them before pressing the edges together.



Seal the edges well, using a fork to add a decorative pattern all around the outsides. This is important, as you don’t want your filling leaking out.



Heat your skillet over a medium flame and add just enough oil to cover the bottom.

Fry the stuffed breads one at a time.



Turn when golden on the bottom.


Put them on paper towels to absorb any excess oil when they are crispy on both sides.


Cut into wedges to serve. These are fabulous warm but can also be eaten at room temperature or reheated till crispy once more in a dry non-stick skillet after being refrigerated. (I’ve tested all three ways!)



Enjoy!

For appetizers, cut the circles into eight or 12 wedges instead of just four!



Many thanks to our host, Jenni from Jenni Field’s Pastry Chef Online for a great challenge! My fellow Bread Bakers have exceeded themselves this month and I can’t wait to try all the stuffed breads they’ve made.

Sweet Breads
Savory Breads

BreadBakers

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme.  Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.