Cake 28, Bagels?

The question mark is more about the bagel-as-cake thing than about the are-these-really-bagels thing.

Bagels (definitely) Cakes (maybe)

I used a breadmaker to mix the dough (I love anything that makes my life easier), so I just chucked everything in and set it to "dough".
3 tsp surebake (or equiv) yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water (blood temp is about perfect)
2 Tb honey
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup wholemeal flour
2 Tb gluten flour (not really needed, I've never used it in all my years of bagel-making)
2 cups high grade flour

Measure the first five ingredients into a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover and leave in a warm place (not hard at the moment...) and leave it for at least 15 mins. Stir in the other flour(s) to form a dough. Knead for 10 mins, then leave to rise for 30 mins in a covered oiled bowl, again in a warm spot.

Knock back the dough (aka briefly knead it to release any air bubbles) and cut into 8 or so equal pieces. Form into bagel shapes, and allow to rise for 10-15 mins. Meanwhile, turn the oven to 220C, and bring a pot of water to the boil (with about 5-10cm water). Lower the bagels in using a slotted spoon, in batches of 2 or 3, and cook for 30-45 seconds on each side. Drain on paper towels (at this point I recommend prodding them, they have such a strange texture) and arrange on a well-oiled baking tray (mine stuck anyway). Brush with egg or milk, and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds. If you used oil instead, then these would be vegan (if they were for a vegan who ate honey).

Bake for 10-15 minutes until browned on the top and bottom.

I had mine with cream cheese and pastrami, and it was good.

Cake 17, Baked Pasta Bake Cake

Since we had masses of leftover pasta from last night, I decided it'd be fun to make it into a cake, and it worked really well. I wish I'd made twice as much.

Baked Pasta Bake Cake

1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
oil
10 mushrooms (button)
1/2 capsicum
1 can sweetcorn
leftover pasta and sauce
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup grated cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 C. Heat oil in a pan, and fry onion and garlic. Add mushrooms and capsicum, and cook until softened. Add corn, and continue to cook for a few minutes. Take off heat and mix through pasta (ours had a tomatoey/curry sauce already on it). Put into a greased cake tin.
In a bowl, combine eggs and milk. Season, and pour over the mix in the cake tin. Sprinkle cheese on top, and bake for about half an hour or until browned on top and hot the whole way through. Allow to cool in the tin, then slice.

"Cake" 10: the appropriation of cheese muffins

So my flatmate offered his cheese muffins as an antidote to cake. I was muchly pleased. The recipe is from "Jenn's Baking Chamber" (um...), but they were pretty nice. He altered the recipe a bit, since it was deemed "too strange".

Cheese Muffins

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar (changed to 1/6 cup)
2 tsp baking powder (oh dear, he asked me before if I thought it was unreasonable that there were multiple "tablespoons" of baking powder in this mix, but I guess he misread the amount.... at any rate, the one I ate tasted fine)
1/2 tsp baking powder (omitted entirely)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk (changed to 1 cup)
2 Tb sour cream (omitted)
1/3 cup melted and cooled butter (changed to oil instead of butter)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups grated cheese,  plus 1/4 cup for "garnish"

Preheat oven to 350 F (176.6666 C), and grease a 12-muffin tin. Combine all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine all the other ingredients apart from the cheese. Mix the wet into the dry, don't over mix. Add cheese, and gently fold in.

Bake 15-20 mins, or until lightly golden. Sprinkle extra cheese on top of hot muffins as soon as you take them out of the oven.

They were pretty tasty, slightly sweet though (I suspect the amount of sugar has been altered in light of this). Not bad for cheese muffins.... I actually used to loathe savoury muffins, so these ones are pretty good considering.

Day 5, Cakes 4 and 5

I'm a bit sick of sugar, so today I've decided to make a savoury cake/loaf. And since I didn't get a chance to make one yesterday, today I'm gonna split it between two tins :)
I found this recipe just by googling "savoury cake", and it seems good so far (it's in the oven at the moment). It's from the blog "My Daddy Cooks"...

Savoury Loaf

Preheat oven to 180 C, and line a large loaf tin (or two small ones...) Combine all the following ingredients:
250g flour
1 heaped tsp yeast
4 eggs
100ml olive oil
100ml milk
100g pitted olives, chopped in half
250g bacon (I used mushrooms instead)
200g grated cheese (no cheese in the fridge, so I used about half a can of creamed corn for flavour)
Bake 1 hr

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I've just taken it out of the oven, and spread some butter on a few slices.......... it's pretty delish. The cheese would have made it so much better, though. Since I did mine in two smaller tins, I found 45mins to be about right. Mmmm juicy olives and sweet corn...