Your Cheese Needs Bread

Since we were making Fondue from scratch this year (I really think the ready made ones are fine, but a splash of Kirsch and a little fresh nutmeg would make it fantastic), I decided I would try making bread from scratch as well - though I did go buy a loaf just in case. And part way through, I thought I would need it. I found this recipe on Facebook through one of my groups, however, tracked it back to its source, here.
Making this bread was super simple. The only thing we noticed was that the cheese preferred to stick to the store bought bread better (and that may have been because I did not get it to rise properly)

What you need:

250 g flour
200 ml water
50 ml olive oil
10 g of fresh yeast (the cake yeast you can get in 42 g blocks)
1 tsp salt
extra flour for sprinkling.

Ok, the original recipe told me to mix everything together and let it sit. However, after reading about cake yeast, I think you need to do things a bit differently.

First, crumble the yeast and put it in a small bowl with your water - make sure it is warm, but not hot. Let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until it starts to bubble.

Add the rest of the ingredients. Let sit for 20 minutes.

On baking paper, form the dough into a rectangle. Using a round pizza cutter - if you have one - dip it in flour so the edges do not stick, and cut the dough into a bite sized grid. Mine were a little on the large size and I would make them smaller next time.

not having used the proper yeast activation method..it still formed a rough rectangle

Sprinkle the top with a little water (or use a brush) and then sprinkle with a bit of flour.

Let sit for 10 minutes.


Cook at 210 for 20 minutes.

As you can see, it rose in the oven anyway

It was really good, even though I didn`t let the yeast sit out first. My dough didn`t actually rise like I imagined it would, so I will be making this again soon.

Perfect Pita

I made this pita bread about 5 years ago. I used US ingredients to do it and I remember thinking that it was easier just to buy the already made pita bread in the store. This weekend, I tried again, but used Swiss ingredients. It was much easier than I remembered, and the taste, with the hummus that I previously posted, was fantastic. I also made chicken skewers that I stuck inside with the hummus. I`ll post that recipe later this week.
One of the best things about this recipe is that after you make it and it rises, you can stick it in a bag and put it in the fridge. Just tear off as little or as much as you want and you can have fresh pita for every meal. How fantastic is that??

What you need:

3 cups of flour, plus extra for rolling and kneading (maybe a cup)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1 package yeast, 7 g
1 tsp sugar
1-2 Tbls olive oil






Now, the reason why I thought this was so easy, is that the back of my package of yeast says I can just mix it in with the flour, so there was none of the waiting like with other yeasts. If yours doesn`t say that, you may want to check the original recipe which states you need to mix the yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup of water and let sit for 15 minutes.

Mix the yeast, sugar and 1 cup of warm - not hot- water together. Add the flour and salt.

Mix until well combined. 

Take the dough out of the bowl and then add a tablespoon or two of olive oil to coat the inside of the bowl and prevent sticking. 

Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let sit for 3 hours. After the dough has risen, sprinkle some flour on a hard, clean surface and then knead the dough for 5-10 minutes.

If you are going to cook the pita now, then tear off into small balls. I got 13 out of this. Do fewer if you would like larger pitas though. Let the balls sit for 10 minutes. 

At this point, I decided I wanted to make them fresh the next day, so I put them in a zipping bag and stuck them in the fridge. 

If you would like to continue on to cooking, set the oven to 230 C.

Put some flour on a hard surface and roll the dough out into a rough (or perfect if you can manage it) circle.

Place on a baking sheet and put in the oven. I think this next part was the hardest. You have to let it cook for 3 minutes, then flip it over and cook for another 3. I forgot with the first batch, so they got a bit browner than I was expecting.

Then, just remove from the oven, stack up and serve. Nothing better than warm pita and homemade hummus for an appetizer, or lunch, or dinner, or snack...

Enjoy!

You can see the bottom ones were the ones that got extra love in the oven :-)