I have been out from Daring baker’s challenge for a long
time, during pregnancy with my prince; first three month was full of morning
sickness and then bleeding scares made my life complicated. Then after that I
was even tired to cook, something which is a daily routine for me. Last month I
made bread, but Dutch crunch looked like some failed artwork, and taste was not that exciting. So
I threw the entire bread in the garbage can.
I was curious as always what is this month’s challenge was.
It turned out that this month daring baker’s challenge was hosted by Jason of
DailyCandor.com
http://dailycandor.com, he
challenged to make an Armenian pastry and Armenian nutmeg cake. Since it is
about food from a country which I am not familiar I decide to try them. Further
it was an easy recipe. As both are sweet
I like to make them between few weeks as if I make the two together, then I
have to finish it as a punishment, my
hubby won’t touch, little one try to eat
25 % of piece and
put 75% pieces on flour. She follows strict rule that, she
will feed entire ant population around our house. On the top of if an ant comes near to me I get swelling where it
touch and I will be scratching skin for hours leading to blisters and finally
bleeding. So why in the world I am entertaining myself to ant bite.
I also read a lot about Armenian nutmeg cake, since nutmeg
is favorite spice. The common fragrant nutmeg
Myristica fragrans, originated
from Banda islands of Indonesia, it also grows in spice land of India, Kerala.
We add this spice to our spice mixture gram masala as well as sweet dishes like
Boli (stuffed sweet flat bread). If
nutmeg is used in low quantities it is fine as in culinary uses, if it is used
in large quantities, it is known to affect brain functions read from
here.
I used freshly grated nutmeg as powder known to lose charm
when stored for a long time. I only made a 6 inch cake and reduced ¼ cup of
sugar, still it is sweet for us, and added whole egg as halving the egg is
difficult. This cake consists of two layers, bottom crumb and upper cake. And
in original recipe half of the ingredients are used to make bottom crumb layer,
but when I read reviews in another board, I found out that if you put half of
the ingredients crumb going to thicker and it is sometimes hard and even there
is chance of losing tooth. Why hurt our already disturbed tooth. I used only
1/3 of the ingredients for the crumb and the rest I used for cake. Another
point I found that we need to slightly beat the eggs to make the cake fluffy
and prevent nuts on the top to stinking into the cake. Traditional nut used in
this cake is walnuts however I used pecans. Added along with nutmeg added some
cardamom to make it more aromatic. Cake
turned out very delicious. If I didn’t try this one, it will be real miss of a
wonderful traditional recipe.
Then another recipe given to try is Nazook/ an Armenian
pastry. I know pastries are not good as they contain loads of butter. This one
wins my heart because it is yeasted one. It has yeast and sour cream and you
can make dough in one day and refrigerate and make rest of fillings and bake in
second day. Again I halved the original recipe and made traditional filling
which is vanilla, all-purpose flour, brown sugar and butter and another filling
with sweetened coconut and cranberries. In order to prevent drying of sweetened
coconut, egg white was used. Yolk was
used as egg wash along with yogurt. I
tried to reduce butter by 2 tablespoon from both dough and filling. I added ½
teaspoon of sugar in the dough to make yeast happy.
My hubby told me he like coconut cranberries filling 52% and
traditional dough filling 48%. That means both are good. It is hard to stop
eating this little goodies one, you are going to eat few at a single sitting.
These pastries are good companion for tea or coffee. Try it at least once. Here goes the recipe.
Nazook/ Armenian
Pastry
What you need
Pastry dough
All purpose flour/Maida sifted: 1 ½ cups
Active dry yeast: 1 ¼ teaspoons
Sour cream: ½ cup
Unsalted butter: 5 tablespoon (softened)
Sugar: 1 teaspoon*
Salt: 1/8 teaspoon *
Water: 2 tablespoon*
* My addition
Filling
Traditional
Version
All purpose
flour, sifted: ¾ cup
Brown sugar:
1/3 cup
Unsalted
butter: ¼ cup
Vanilla
extract: 1 teaspoon
Filling 2 ( My version)
Cranberries: ¼
cup
Egg
white: Of one egg
Vanilla
extract : ½ teaspoon
Wash
1 egg
yolks with 1 tablespoon of yogurt
How I made
First day
Make the Pastry Dough
In a
medium bowl add sifted flour with salt and set aside.
In a small bowl add warm water
1 teaspoon sugar and active dry yeast, let it proof for 10 minutes and set
aside.
In a kitchen aid mixer fitted
with paddle attachment add sour cream and softened butter beat very well.
To this add yeast mixture and
flour mixture; mix everything to form soft dough.
Switch to a dough hook, continue to
knead for about 10 minutes, or until the dough no longer sticks to the bowl or
your hands. If it remains very sticky, add some flour, a little at a time.
Cover the dough and refrigerate the overnight.
Second day: Make the filling 1
In a medium bowl mix the flour, sugar, vanilla extract and
the softened butter until it looks
like clumpy, damp sand. It should not take long. Set aside.
Filling 2
In a small
bowl mix unsweetened coconut, cranberries, vanilla extract and egg white and
set aside.
Make the Nazook
Preheat the oven to moderate 350°F/175°C/gas mark 4. Line baking sheet with silpat or parchment paper and set aside.
Cut the refrigerated dough into two equal pieces.
Form one of the quarters into a ball. Dust your working
surface with a little flour.
Roll out the
dough into a large rectangle or oval. The dough should be thin, but not
transparent.
Spread first
filling mixture across the rolled-out dough in
an even layer. Try to spread the filling as close as possible to the edges on
the short sides, but keep some of pastry dough uncovered (1 inch/2.5 cm) along
the long edges.
From one of the long sides,
start slowly rolling the dough across. Be careful to make sure the filling
stays evenly distributed. Roll all the way across until you have a long, thin
loaf.
Pat down the loaf with your palm and fingers so that it
flattens out a bit (just a bit).
Apply your egg yolk wash with
a pastry brush.
Use your crinkle cutter (or
knife) to cut the loaf into 10 equally-sized pieces. Put onto an ungreased
cookie sheet.
Continue
process in second dough piece with second filling.
Place in a preheated moderate
oven for about 30 minutes, until the tops are a rich, golden
brown.
Allow to cool and enjoy!
Preparation time: Dough and filling preparation: 30 minutes.
Dough chilling: overnight. Pastry prep: 30 minutes. Baking: 30 minutes.
Yield: 20
pieces
Verdict:
Yummy
Will
you make it again: Yes I will
Armenian Nutmeg cake
with Cardamom and Pecans
What you need
All purpose flour/ Maida: 1 cup
Milk: ½ cup
Baking soda: ½ teaspoon
Baking powder: 1 teaspoon
Brown sugar: ¾ cup
Unsalted butter: 6
tablespoon
Nutmeg: 1 teaspoon (I used freshly grated nutmeg)
Egg: 1 no
Pecan: ¼ cup
Cardamom: 2nos
How I made
I made traditional way, if you want to do easy way you can
done all mixing in the food processor.
Preheat your oven to moderate 350°F/175°C/gas mark 4. Lined
and butter and flour 6 inch cake pan with parchment paper and set aside.
Sift together the flour and the baking powder into a large
bowl. One sift is fine.
Mix the baking soda (not baking powder; that's for the next
step) into the milk. Set it aside.
In a medium bowl add brown sugar and flour mixture and cubed
butter. Then mix the butter with fork into the dry ingredients (you can also
use your fingers if you want, I used my hands). You'll want to achieve a
more-or-less uniform, tan-colored crumbly mixture.
Take 1/3rd of this
resulting crumbly mixture into 6 “cake pan. Press a crust out of it using your
fingers and knuckles. Make sure that you won’t press to hard it makes crust to
hard. (It will hard on tooth).
Crack an egg into a bowl. Beat egg for about few minutes and
then toss the nutmeg along with egg and milk –baking soda mixture and set aside.
Start mixing slowly with a whisk attachment and then increase
to medium speed, or mix with a hand whisk if you're doing it manually. Once
it's mixed well and frothy (about 3 minute using a standing mixer, or about 2-3
minutes of vigorous beating with a whisk). Continue to mix until uniform.
Pour in the rest of the crumbly mixture. Mix
that well, with either a paddle attachment it won't make much of a difference,
since the resulting batter is very liquidy.
Pour the batter over prepared
crust the base in the cake pan.
Gently place pecans over the
batter.
Bake in a preheated moderate oven for about 40 minutes.
You'll know it's done when the top is a golden brown, and an inserted toothpick
comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the pan, and
then release. Enjoy!
Preparation time: 50 minutes
