Individual choc chip brioche

My kids love pain au chocolat for breakfast but my baking skills haven’t quite reached that level yet. So instead I came up with individual choc chip brioches. They’re about the same size as pain au chocolat but made with spelt flour and so keep the teens going longer. They’re also not that difficult to make although you do have to get quite physical with the dough.

 

Ingredients:

250 gms white spelt flour

2 tsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp Vitamin C

3 tbsps warm water

2 eggs

75 gms unsalted butter

75 dark choc chips or dark chocolate, chopped

1. Activate the dry yeast. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm water and cover. Leave for about fifteen minutes until it is frothy and then stir.
2. Mix the flour and Vitamin C in a large bowl. (Add quick yeast at this point if you are using that instead of dry yeast.)
3. Add the yeast mixture and the eggs. Mix and knead into a smooth and pliable dough. This is messy but nothing to what’s coming!
4. Roll the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a draft-free place for an hour or until it has doubled in volume.
5. Cut the butter into small cubes and add this and the choc chips to the dough.
6. Work the butter and chips into the dough, squeezing and kneading to incorporate the butter.
7. This is the fun bit! Pick up the ball of dough and throw it back into the bowl. 200 times! Don’t worry, once you’ve done it a few times your arm won’t ache so much. The dough will go from being moderately sticky to really sticky by the time you’ve finished, and that’s just what you want.
8. Oil the brioche tins. (I actually use silicon brioche trays as they are flexible and you can pop the brioche out by pushing from underneath.)
9. With floured hands, break off chunks of dough big enough to half fill a mould, roll into balls and place in the moulds.
10. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise. This will take about an hour. After about half an hour switch on the oven to 180 degrees fan, 200 conventional. It's important that the oven is good and hot so that it doesn't cool down too much when you pop the brioche in.
11. Gently brush the surface of each brioche with milk (or egg if you’re feeling extravagant).
12. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Some kids might find these are not quite sweet enough, what with the lack of sugar in the dough and the dark chocolate. If that’s so, add a little sugar to the flour before the first knead and see how they like it then. In our family we like them just as they are. They keep for a few days and spruce up nicely if blasted in the microwave for 20 seconds per bun. That’s just enough to melt the chocolate a little and let its flavours suffuse the dough. Is your mouth watering yet?

Super chocolatey biscuits

All kids love double choc nibbles. You know, the ones made from chocolate flavoured dough and enriched with chocolate chips too. Here are some made with nice protein rich wholemeal kamut flour. They’re easy to make and yummy to eat. 

Ingredients:

250 gms olive oil spread

250 gms kamut flour

125 gms sugar

25 gms cocoa powder

50 gms dark choc chips or dark chocolate, chopped

1.       Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees fan, 200 degrees conventional

2.       Cream the fat.

3.       Add in the flour, cocoa powder and sugars. I do this gradually as it makes it easier to mix by hand but if you are using a mixer then you could add it all in at once. Mix to a smooth and sticky paste

4.       Add the chopped chocolate and mix in thoroughly.

5.       Line a baking sheet with baking parchment

6.       Break off golf-ball sized pieces of the dough and roll into balls. Place on the baking parchment leaving space for them to spread.

7.       Flatten each ball into a circle a bit over a centimetre thick.

8.       Cook for 20 minutes until golden and then place on a rack to cool.

These might be wholemeal but you’d never know it. They’re crispy on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside, a lovely deep chocolate brown and not too sweet.  What’s not to like?

Choc chip and walnut biscuits

Everyone loves biscuits but on the whole they pretty much come into the category of empty carbs and your average teen can hoover a whole packet and still feel hungry. So I came up with these chunky little darlings. The flours are protein rich and they’re full of nuts, both of which mean that they keep the teen going for longer and they don’t need as many to feel full.

 Ingredients:

250gms olive oil spread

175 gms kamut flour

125 gms einkorn flour

175 gms sugar

50gms walnuts, chopped

75gms dark choc chips or dark chocolate, chopped

1.       Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees fan, 200 degrees conventional

2.       Cream the fat.

3.       Add in the flours and sugars. I do this gradually as it makes it easier to mix by hand but if you are using a mixer then you could add it all in at once. Mix to a smooth and not very sticky paste

4.       Add the chopped nuts and chocolate and mix in thoroughly.

5.       Line a baking sheet with baking parchment

6.       Break off golf-ball sized pieces of the dough and roll into balls. Place on the baking parchment leaving plenty of space for them to spread.

 7.       Flatten each ball into a circle a bit over a centimetre thick.

 

8.       Cook for 20 minutes until golden and then place on a rack to cool.

These will fill the kitchen with the most wonderful aroma while they’re baking but, beware.  Don’t eat them too soon.  The chocolate burns!

Chunky Bread Sticks

All kids love bread sticks and they are awfully good for dipping too. So when I was on my ‘must cook savoury nibbles’ kick, I thought I’d give bread sticks a try.

 

 Ingredients:

175gms spelt flour

75gms kamut flour

1 tsp Vitamin C

1 tsp dry yeast

1 tsp sugar

175 ml warm water

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp olive oil

1.       Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees fan, 225 degrees conventional.

2.       Activate the dry yeast. Add the yeast and sugar to the warm water and cover. Leave for about fifteen minutes until it is frothy and then stir.

3.       Mix the flours, Vitamin C and salt in a large bowl. (Add quick yeast at this point if you are using that instead of dry yeast.)

4.       Add the yeast mixture. Mix and knead into a smooth and pliable dough.

5.       Roll the dough into a ball, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a warm place for an hour or until it has doubled in volume.

6.       Punch back the dough, add the olive oil and knead until the oil has all been incorporated.

7.       Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

8.       Break off golf ball sized pieces of dough and roll them out with your fingers into long thin sausages about 20-25 cms long and less than a centimetre in diameter. Lay them on the parchment about a centimetre apart.

 9.       Cover with a cloth and leave in a warm place for 20-25 minutes.

10.   Bake until golden, about 15-20 minutes and allow to cool on a rack.

This will produce chunky bread sticks that are crisp on the outside and soft and fluffy inside. If you want thinner cruncher bread sticks then roll them out thinner.  They don’t stay fresh for long, but they can be brightened up the next day by sprinkling with water and popping in a hot oven (180 degrees fan, 200 conventional) for 5 minutes.