Tasty and Easy Recipes

Ingredients:
1 kilogram bread flour
1 1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 ounce (15 grams) active-dry yeast
2.5 cups (.6 liters) lukewarm water
2 ounces (60 grams) canola oil

Method:
1. Sift flour into a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients. Mix with an electric mixer until a unified ball of dough has formed.
2. Put the dough in an oiled bowl. Cover with a towel. Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
3. Punch down the dough. Knead the dough for a few minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper and spray with non-stick spray.
5. Break the dough into 3 portions, and roll the dough out until it covers the whole sheet.
6. Let the dough rise for another 10-15 minutes on the cookie sheets.
7. Spread olive oil and coarse sea salt on the dough. You can also spread chopped herbs such as thyme or rosemary on the dough.
8. Bake at 200°C for 15 minutes, or until golden on top.

For pizza, bake for 10 minutes without cheese, add cheese and then bake another 5 minutes.

Cut the bread into squares. Serve the bread hot out of the oven or at room temperature.

Ingredients:
1-1/4 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/3 tsp. baking powder
2 or 3 tbsp. Dutch-process cocoa, the more, the better
1/4 tsp salt, optional
1/4 tsp cinnamon, optional
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/4 to 1/3 cup. water

Method:
Mix the dry ingredients until well integrated.
Mix well the wet ingredients, EXCEPT water, until thoroughly integrated. Add the wet ingredients, mix into the dry ingredients and mix until integrated. You will have a lumpy granular batter. Add water gradually, mixing until batter is smooth and glossy.
Pour into baking pan and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean or cake has pulled away slightly from sides of pan.

Variations:

White Cake:
Omit cocoa, double vanilla in wet mix.

Chocolate Chip Cake:
Omit cocoa, double vanilla in wet mix, mix in 1/2 cup mini-chocolate chips to finished batter before baking.

Spice Cake:
Omit cocoa, add 2 to 3 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, dash white pepper to dry mix.

Lemon Spice Cake:
Omit cocoa, add spices as above, add grated lemon rind–the more the better–to wet stuff. NB, don’t substitute lemon juice for any of the wet ingredients in an attempt to get more lemoniness–it’ll throw the leavening off kilter.

Almond Spice Cake:
Omit cocoa, add spices as above, add 1/4 cup ground almonds to dry mix.
If disaster strikes, almonds are also good if you find you’ve added too much water; just throw in ground almonds until your batter’s texture comes right. (Adding flour won’t work because flour is too dry. Almonds, because they have oil, won’t make your cake dry out.)
For the enterprising among you, I don’t know why you couldn’t mix up a triple or quadruple set of the dry ingredients as your own cake mix. Store it in an airtight canister, then take out 2 cups or so, add the egg, oil, vanilla and water, and you’re away to the races!