Broa

Suddenly there was a Broa making opportunity for me today. Joao went downstairs to make his coffee and heard that the bread oven is being heated and ready to bake in 1 hour. I had to move fast and mix together the dough and hope that it has enough time to rise.

Couple of days earlier I had searched out some Broa recipes and adjusted it to the amount of ingredients that I had available

500ml warm water

8g instant dry yeast

190g white wheat flour

400g corn flour

1/2 tl salt

1/2 sugar

Mix the flours together, add salt. Mix water, yeast, sugar and let it rest 10 min. Add water-yeast mix to the flour and knead it into a dough. Cover and let it raise.

Since I had very little time left thats really all I did. Kneading time was minimum too, maybe 2 minutes max. I let it grow for 1h and was called, because oven was ready. I divided the dough into 2 balls and laid them in the oven floor (outdoor wooden oven). I have no clue about the temperature there.

Long story short now. It's delicious!! The corn and wheat ratio is just right for my taste.

Loquat cake

After a long long brake from posting, I have something experimental to post now. Since living in Portugal now and getting to know all the fruits of the land I have many culinary experiments ahead of me.

Loquats have just ripened here and I had tried few commercial ones last year in Dublin, so I wasn't completely blind folded about the flavor. However, I must say that the ones from grandmothers loquat tree are so much more sweeter, juicier and also smaller, but that doesn't bother me much.

Since I haven't seen or heard anyone talking about making a cake with it here, I proudly took the challenge. Such a delicious fruit, so it must make a good cake.

Few days ago I spotted Martha Stewarts Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake somewhere in the internet pages. My loquat cake was made after this recipe, replacing rhubarb with loquats. I used about 400g peeled and deseeded loquats. That was about 20 fruits. And as usual, I reduce the butter and sugar amounts little bit.

Spreading the cake batter on loquats

Crumb topping which becomes a bottom