The Great Bread Making Adventure: Scottish Morning Rolls & a St. Andrew's Day Feast

 

To honour my Scottish ancestry, I thought of observing St. Andrew's Day, November 30. Unfortunately, I have been so busy making quilts that I didn't get around to it until now. I had, however, done an internet search on how the Scottish celebrate St. Andrew's Day, and one of the things mentioned was eating haggis and Cullen Skink. I knew what haggis was but Cullen Skink? The name doesn't give me any clue as to what it is. Well, neither does haggis for that matter. But the internet is such a useful thing and not only did I find recipes for vegan haggis (Ultimate Vegan Haggis and Easy Vegan Haggis), but I also found out that Cullen Skink is a creamy smoked haddock soup, named after the village of Cullen, where it apparently originated. And skink? It is a Scots word that refers to a shin, knuckle or hough of beef that would traditionally be used to make a broth. But somewhere in its history, it must have been switched to fish. Whatever, at least it's not lizard soup, which is what a skink is in English in the rest of the world. And I was able to find a vegan version of Cullen Skink as well. And I was very thankful that the recipe didn't include seaweed to make it taste "fishy". Seaweed probably ranks higher than cilantro in my list of what not to eat. 
What else to serve? Well, my research said some type of bread and greens - cabbage or kale - and tatties and neeps. I already knew that tatties were potatoes and neeps were turnips or rutabagas (known as Swedes in Great Britain), often served together in the same "mash". I had some cabbage in my fridge, so I googled once again to find how the Scots served it, and found a recipe for Rumbledethumps, which is a mixture of mashed potatoes and cooked cabbage, topped with cheese and browned in the oven. That recipe was easy to veganize and incredibly tasty. You'll see it at the top of the picture. And that took care of the "tatties" part of the "tatties and neeps", so I just made mashed rutabaga as another side dish (on the left in the picture). 
The Cullen Skink was also very tasty. It called for a can of banana blossoms, which I didn't even know were a thing. Maybe I could find it in an Asian food store or one of the large supermarkets in the city. But I wasn't planning a trip to the city any time soon. Fortunately, the recipe did offer the options of artichoke hearts or green jackfruit, both of which I had. And I chose the artichoke hearts, which I should have rinsed as they had a bit of a tang, which I don't think was needed in the soup. But it was still delicious. 
I chose the Ultimate Vegan Haggis recipe and certainly, the ingredients are far more palatable than in the original haggis. I don't imagine I would have ventured to try it even when I was a meat eater. But, to me, nutmeg is a sweet spice, belonging in desserts. And I'm not even that fond of it in desserts. So, to put it in a savory dish just isn't my thing. The flavour is not horrible, but I think I might try it with a sauce or gravy to try and tone down the nutmeg. And if I ever decide to try it again, I might switch to sage or poultry seasoning instead of the nutmeg. I'm really not sure why people like that flavour in a savory dish. I'm also not to sure about the texture - is haggis supposed to be crunchy/tough? Because my steel-cut oats did not get well done, and I don't know if it's supposed to be that way. 
And since it was a Scottish meal, I decided to try the Scottish Morning Rolls for the bread, even though this wasn't a morning meal. The odd thing about the recipe on page 140 in The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making is that it includes no added fat: no lard, even though the description on page 55 states that they are made with lard; nor any butter, shortening or vegetable oil. That left me scratching my head, and wondering if the person writing the recipes actually corroborated with the one that wrote the descriptions. And also wondering how authentic the recipes actually are. And even though I had no intention of using lard, I wanted a more authentic recipe, and I would choose how to modify it. So, once again, I resorted to the internet, and found a more authentic recipe for Morning Rolls, which gave me the option of lard or vegetable shortening. I also switched out the white flour for whole grain (using a combination of hard red and hard white wheat flour) and adding extra water, since whole grain flours absorb more moisture than white flour. I probably should have added more as it was a rather stiff dough, and I'm wondering if there was sufficient liquid in the original recipe, as it says that it should form a "sticky dough" and it definitely was not, even with the extra water. Either that or I had very "thirsty" flour. 😁 One thing I found rather amusing in both this recipe and the one in the cookbook was baking sheet size. This recipe, which makes 8 rolls, says to grease a "large" baking sheet, and the one in the book, which makes 10 rolls, says to grease 2 baking sheets. For 8 rolls, I used one of my smaller baking sheets, and even then, there likely would have been room for a dozen rolls. And my largest baking sheets would hold enough rolls for a banquet. So, just how big are baking sheets in the United Kingdom? For that matter, how big are their ovens, if my smaller baking sheet would be considered large over there? Anyway, you'll see my results in the centre in the picture above. The taste was good, but I think the texture could have been a little softer. I also found that working in only 30 g of shortening into 500 g of flour did not yield a breadcrumb-like texture. I could barely tell that there was any fat in the flour at all. But I wouldn't want any more fat, especially since shortening is a particularly unhealthy fat. 
So Rumbledethumps and Cullen Skink are definite keepers. The haggis could use a little work, as could the morning rolls. 

Celtic Dragons

 

Earlier this year, my daughter, grandson and I visited a large fabric store in the city. Damian and I went in search of dragons, and found them in the form of a 6-dragon panel, with Celtic motifs at the top and bottom of the panel.

I purchased the panel, and later decided to continue the Celtic idea, using the Celtic Twist quilt block that I had used in the Tales of Ireland quilt. Since the individual dragon panels were 10" square, I decided to reduce the size of the quilt block to match. 

It made for some relatively small pieces. And it is a rather challenging quilt block. Nevertheless, I made 14 of them. Originally, I had thought to incorporate the Celtic motifs from the panel into the quilt top, but didn't see any way to make that work. I may later make use them in a pillowcase to coordinate with the quilt. 
Damian and I chose colours from the dragons to use in the quilt blocks. He said that he wanted the quilt to be slightly larger than Dancing Snowflakes, that I made him for last Christmas.I used my Quilt Pro 6 design software to plan the layout and calculate yardage. (I purchased my software, but you can now download it for free because they're not making it any more), and included a narrow border of each fabric. I ordered what I was hoping were the best colours online, but when they arrived, the red was more pinkish - definitely not a dragon red. Fortunately, I also had an orange-red in my stash, so we substituted it for the pinkish one.
When we went to the close-out sale at our local quilt shop, we found a thick black minky with an arrow design. They didn't have any of the regular black minky left, or not enough, and I figured since dinosaurs are rather medieval and arrows were used during medieval times, shooting them from slit windows in castle walls, the arrow minky was appropriate. 
The original plan was for this to be a joint project - me making the blocks, and Damian stitching the blocks together. But recently, when I thought about making it for him for Christmas, I didn't want to leave him out if he still wanted to be part of the project. He didn't. So, I went ahead and made it up. 
I've been going to the local Lutheran church for their weekly craft/sew day, and made up the first block there. I like to have one block made, especially for complex blocks, to see how it looks and use it for reference when I make up the remaining blocks. But since it is rather complex, and I tend to get sidetracked by the socialization (I make more mistakes there than I do at home), I decided to finish the quilt top at home, rather than at the church. 
One night when I was having trouble sleeping, I got up and finished the binding on a couple of quilts, and added the first two borders to this one. 

When I got up the following morning, and went downstairs, I was rather startled to discover that one of the links in the quilt top appeared to be glowing. It was an almost perfect square of light from a window in another room, highlighting that one link. 
I chose Irish Swirls as the most Celtic-looking pantograph I own and quilted it with a variegated thread that featured the colours in the quilt top. 

I used a black Glide 60 in the bobbin, so I was close to finishing the quilting before the bobbin ran out. After I changed the bobbin, the top thread broke, so I rethreaded it, did a machine tie-off and started quilting again. And it seemed to be quilting fine without any issues until I was further down the row. That's when it started skipping large areas, so I knew that there was a bobbin issue. Somehow the bobbin thread had come out of the slot/guide (whatever you call it), so I rethreaded it, did another tie-off back before the stitching had started skipping and finished the quilting without further problems. 
While I was attaching the binding, I noticed some of the stitching in the quilting was really loose, so I figured I would have to re-stitch that area. But when I pulled on the loose stitching, the thread kept coming and coming. The entire length of quilting between those two tie-offs had come loose. And it had looked like perfect good quilting. But there apparently was no bobbin thead. What I later concluded was that the bobbin thread must have come loose with that thread break and the upper thread was rather rough-textured, compared to Glide, and that the extra thick minky was holding it in place until I started handling the quilt during binding. 
But now I was left in a quandary as to how I was going to replace all of that quilting. My Red Snappers would not snap over the thickness of the quilt in order to load it back onto the longarm. I don't own corsage pins (except for a few in some corsages that I still have around) and my regular pins were not heavy duty enough for the job. So, I ended up doing the job on my Janome sewing machine. There are a few zigs and zags where they don't belong, but it's really not noticeable unless you're looking for it. 
Finished, thankfully, and ready to gift on Christmas day. 

Tea Time

 

Several years ago, I bought my daughter this quilt kit as a gift. But it sat unused for the intervening years (like mother, like daughter). Earlier this year, when we were having a sew time together at my place, she did the strip cutting of the fabrics, but then got sidetracked by a garment sewing project (also not yet finished) and didn't get back to this quilt. I bought minky for the backing during our local quilt shop's close-out sale, and more recently offered to finish it for her for Christmas. After all, it was still at my place, and I have enough UFOs of my own, without having hers here as well. And so, that's what I've done. 
If you look back over my blog for the High Tea quilt, you will find that I made a nearly identical quilt previously.

The only differences are that High Tea had a teapot fabric for the focus fabric, whereas this one has teacups, and High Tea has a regular quilting cotton backing, and Tea Time has minky.

I also used a different pantograph for the quilting, Coffee Break for High Tea and High Tea for Tea Time. I didn't own the High Tea pantograph when I made the High Tea quilt, otherwise, I likely would have used it. 

I'm not going to bother repeating myself, so if you want to know my thoughts on this quilt kit, just read my post on High Tea. There you will also find that I used the same trellis setting pattern for Where the Charming Roses Bloom, only I used the square design instead of rectangular. 

The nice thing about this quilt design is that it's actually a setting design - in other words, it provides a setting for either focus fabrics or blocks. And since I like the aesthetics of blocks set on point, I decided to use this setting for a queen sized quilt, starting with the blocks I made in a sew-along back in 2021. 

Hopefully, some day, I will get it finished for my own bed. The original sew-along only made 8 - 12" blocks, and for this quilt top, I need 17, plus 14 - 6" blocks. My choice was to make the most challenging 12" blocks I could find in Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns. So, it's been slow going, especially when other projects keep interrupting. And then I'll have to tackle the 6" blocks...

The Great Bread Making Adventure: Kugelhopf, Challah, and Cheese and Onion Loaf

Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've made a bread post. I don't even remember if I mentioned that I finally dumped all of my sourdough starter and discard. I hadn't touched either for months and it was just taking up space in my fridge. I figure if I want to tackle sourdough again, I will just start from scratch. And I might, but not right now, not with Christmas so close. I have too many other things to deal with. 

Back in August, I picked up this pan at a thrift store. I did a reverse image search to see what kind of pan it actually is. It's supposedly a muffin pan, but I knew better. So, I shared it on Facebook, asking if anyone knew what it was. One of my French/European/Canadian friends said that it's a gugelhopf pan. I don't think that's how she spelled it, but I don't remember. And it doesn't really matter because it can be found under various names. I decided that I wanted to try it (otherwise, why would I buy the tin?) And I found it in my World Encyclopedia of Bread, where it's "Kugelhopf". It's in the French breads section, even though it has a German name, and the book has this to say about it, "This inviting, fluted ring-shaped bread originates from Alsace, although Germany, Hungary and Austria all have their own variations of this popular recipe. Kugelhopf can be sweet or savoury; this version is richly flavoured with nuts, onion and bacon."
Because this was the first time I was making this bread, I decided to stick to the recipe (at least the veganized, whole grain version of it), and make it as a whole ring-shaped loaf, rather than as individual rolls in this tin. I used hard red whole wheat flour in place of the white bread flour and quick rise yeast (2¼ teaspoons, mixed in with the flour and salt) rather than fresh yeast, which I don't even think is commercially available in Canada. I substituted veggie bacon (store bought, not homemade) in place of the bacon and plant-based butter to replace the butter. For the eggs, I used 1¼ cups of aquafaba (garbanzo cooking water), ¼ cup for each egg, as per the instructions on the King Arthur website. I generally use ground flax seed and water, but "King Arthur" says that aquafaba was the best substitute, and better from canned chickpeas than homemade. I bought store brand chickpeas and found the aquafaba rather watery, so I added 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed to it. In addition, because I wasn't using fresh yeast, I skipped the semi-proofing step for the yeast, and went straight to mixing all of the wet ingredients in with the dry (aside from the bacon, onions and walnuts, which I added at the appropriate time, after the first rise). 
I've also been wanting to make Challah for awhile, planning to use canned pumpkin to substitute for the eggs to give the bread the slightly orange hue that the egg yolks would impart. Unfortunately, the leftover pumpkin from Thanksgiving went moldy before I had a chance to use it. However, I used part of a butternut squash in another recipe, so baked the remainder to use in place of pumpkin. I made some squash muffins to take to the sew/craft day at the local Lutheran church. And then used some in the Challah.
This bread is found in the "Breads of the Americas" section. I'm not sure why, since Wikipedia says that Challah originated in Europe, which is what I figured. Bagels, which originated in Poland, are also in this section. I think both should be in the Eastern European section, or Middle Eastern, but I didn't write the book. The World Encyclopedia of Bread and Bread Making has this to say about Challah: "Challah is an egg-rich, light-textured bread baked for the Jewish Sabbath and to celebrate religious holidays. It is usually plaited with 3 or 4 strands of dough, but 8 strands or more may be used to create especially festive loaves." Before I go on, I just want to point out that it is not the "Jewish" Sabbath. It is God's Sabbath, as given to humanity in the Garden of Eden and was "made for man" (or all humanity), according to Jesus, in Mark 2:27. As a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I do choose to "Remember the Sabbath day", the seventh day, or Saturday, according to the 4th commandment. Anyway, many people do call Challah "Sabbath bread". 
Again, I used plant-based butter, whole wheat flour and ground flax seed and water for the glaze, in addition to the squash to replace the eggs. 

The challah made a beautiful loaf, moist and tender on the inside with a nice crunchy crust. 

The kugelhopf was quite tasty, but a little too crumbly. And I found the inside of both loaves were like store bought bread - if I squashed them up, they would likely turn back to dough. So, I think if I make these loaves again, I will bake for the longer period of time suggested in the recipes. I might also knead both a little longer. I'll give that more thought because, technically, kugelhopf is considered a yeast-raised cake, so perhaps the crumbly texture is what is desired. 

Back in July, I made the Cheese and Onion loaf, which I hadn't blogged about, until now. I used Daiya cheddar shreds in place of the dairy cheese and it was very tasty. But it was also very high in fat, so I would likely use less cheese if I were to do it again, and maybe less butter. My loaf looks like it has a lot more cheese than the picture in the book, although I did weigh the Daiya, and only used as much as the recipe called for. I also found that the loaf tended to separate between the sections and that it was very soft and a little underdone inside. I would likely choose to make it as a whole loaf, incorporating most of the cheese into the loaf, sprinkling just a little on top, and perhaps adding more flour and/or baking longer at a lower temperature. 

Now my blog is up to date with my bread adventures. I'm going to try to continue with the British Breads section of the book. I just got slightly side-tracked to try the kugelhopf and the challah.