A mix fruit kuchen, a galette or a fruit filled bread?
Happy 2011 to all my readers, and stumblers! It's been a short year, hasn't it? Time always seems to be in a hurry, or is it me?! 2010 has been a difficult year in terms of keeping up the posts and hopefully I will remedy that this year and keep them coming more often. Thank you all for keeping in touch with me through comments, mails or even phone calls - you totally rock, people and motivate me every time when I feel that I am overwhelmed by the pace of life!
This time of the year is a pleasant one with many vegetables and fruits gracing the stalls. Some seasonal fruits have caught my fancy so much that I cannot wait to incorporate them into cakes or breads. These days imported black plums have been making their presence felt a lot and it seemed the right thing to pick them off the shelf during one of my 'mall jaunts'. P totally loves the yeasted plum kuchen (pflaumenkuchen) I make and was hoping I would do that but unfortunately three of the six plums were not fit to be used. With only three in hand I could not hope to make a juicy kuchen and that is how the accidental galette was made. It is not exactly a galette because the dough is not a tart dough. It is just that the black grapes I added were very juicy and it struck me that folding the edges (if one can use that term for a circle!) was a good way to seal the juice in and also have the folded edge moist. The result was so good, I know I will do it again.
It is not much of a variation, infact it is still a yeasted mix fruit kuchen, but the cake looks really cool with hints of purple, black and wine. I wanted this to be a bread more and a cake less so I made it a dough that could be rolled like a pizza and not poured like a cake batter. A tad different from the plum kuchen but equally tasty - more a bread, less a cake. Ummm.... I probably shouldn't call it a galette but it does look so much like one and hence the name - yeasted fruit galette! I prefer this to the tutti-fruity bread that is found in shops any day. I avoid them because they are extremely dry and I do not like the artificial colours contained in them. I don't like tutti-fruity either! All the more reason to love this version, so full of juicy fruits! Maharashtra has a tasty haul of grapes every year all through December and January, so I make the most of it, and I think this was justice to their sweetness.
I made this when my son had a special evening program at school. He wanted a cake but I decided this was better, and in the end he too decided it was, not before devouring the wedges of course!
Dish: Yeasted fruit galette ~ A fruit filled bread (adapted to suit vegans from a pflaumenkuchen recipe here)
Yield: One 8" galette and four 3"pizzas
Yeasted fruit galette
Yeast - 1 tsp.
Warm water - 1 tbsp.
All purpose flour - 3 level cups
Baking powder - 1.5 tsp.
Salt - 3/4 tsp.
Sugar - 1/2 + 1/4 cup
Soy milk/Rice milk/Nut milk - 1.25 cups (I used cashew milk)
Oil (I used sunflower oil) - 6-8 tbsp.
Chopped plums - 3
Halved black grapes - 1 cup
Ground cinnamon - 1/2 tsp.
Vanilla stick, scraped - 1
Method:
Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside till frothy.
Combine flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder and salt.
Stir in milk, 5 tbsp. oil, vanilla and yeast mixture. The batter should be a dough that can be easily rolled, somewhat like a kulcha dough. Smooth, not sticky and tacky.
Shape and press dough gently into a circle about 1/2 inch thick, and 9 inches in diameter on a buttered cookie sheet, and four smaller 3 inch pizzas. Or roll.
Brush with a little olive oil. Cover 8 inches of the dough with chopped fruit saving some for the smaller pizzas. Brush plums with a tbsp. of oil. Fold the one inch on the edge over the fruits, pleating the dough where necessary. Brush the folded edge with oil very lightly. For the smaller pizzas, just top them with some of the fruits.
Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over top of the fruits.
Bake at 180 deg. Centigrade for 40 minutes or until brown on the top and the fruits are bubbling. The center should be done.
Cut into wedges and serve with a sprinkling of sugar on top and fruits on the side.
Come, have a bite!
Bite into a tasty tea time bread or breakfast bread, whichever you choose it to be! Is it not better to bite into real juice and real fruit rather than tutti-fruity or candied fruits? My son took four wedges for his friends too and they all loved it. The poor girl was left out as it was not gluten free. The alternatives are in 'testing' stage. The result has not been the same each time so I have not been able to post them so far.
Off to being 'yeast spotted' by Susan!
How about a fruit pizza?
Next on my mind is a schiachatta - one more reason to celebrate the abundance of grapes!
Choices of other vegan/vegan friendly sweet breads from Tongue Ticklers can be found on this link.
Labels: Food Photography, Fruit filled bread, Fruit Kuchen, German Yeasted Bread, Ing. - Yeast, Pflaumkuchen, Potato filled vegan bread, Sunshinemom, Tongue ticklers, vegan breakfast, Yeast bread
