Bread Baking Babes do it all: Ethiopian Injera plus!

This is posting day. I know that. Which is quite funny because I had my special BBB-panties all twisted some time ago. It's too confusing -even for me- to repeat the whole thing but I mixed dates and deadlines and even months and I think at one point of time asked the Babes to postpone the deadline and suggested a date two weeks earlier. Do you follow? They didn't. I didn't.

Anyhoo..

It's here, the day the Babes Bake Bread and listen up.... they're cooking as well! Breadchick Mary is head of the Kitchen this month and she whipped up a challenge! Wow! Thoroughly intimidated I was. So I did what I usually do when faced with something intimidating; postponing while thinking about it indefinitely.  

Then close my eyes and jump right in. Late.

Situation as of now is such:

- the batter for the injera is ready to be baked.

- there's a special bread in it's final rise, which I will post about later separately.

- the wot is cooking

Question son nr. 1, 2 and 3:

Wot's cooking Mam?

Yes honey that's right.

They think I'm a complete dork, I have fun! I will update live as the day continues.  

(secret ingredient for an additional bread.... stay tuned!)

Continue: It's getting even worse, now they think we will be having pancakes for dinner. Ai! As you will understand by now the injera is ready, the stew is ready, and the bread has been baked..

I gladly refer you to Mary for the full recipes for this dinner, she has step by step pics to make

 injera and if you wish to present your family with a -tr-additional Ethiopian meal she has even more things to make. The butter mixture is wonderful btw!

About teff; the first bag I grabbed from the health food store turned out to be a ready mix, consisting of all kinds of different non-gluten flours and baking powder. It is still in the pantry. The next bag was the one I was looking for: brown all teff flour, in Holland it's a very very finely ground flour contrary to the flour Mary used I think.

To get a headstart on the starter (dôh) I used two tbs of a very active sourdough I had somewhere in the back of my fridge. Fed it with teff and off it went. Very lively, but with a teenage tendency to slump, frown, and roll eyes when confronted with authority... in other words, quick to bubble, quick to form the liquid brown on top. Another thing that comes to mind when looking at the evolving starter is quicksand.

Baking injera is easy.... if only I could get used to NOT flip the darn things over! Very confusing, I've been baking pancakes since I was 12 and all of a sudden I have to think while baking. I guess every other pancake was flipped. Sorry Injera!

(Sourdough Bereketei dough)

Ah yes...the secret ingredient? It's present in the other dishes as well, the bread I made with it is called Sourdough Bereketei and I'm not entirely sure this is going to be a hit, (it smells good though). On it's first rise it went crazy, doubled in an hour. Second rise equally good and then.... no ovenspring! Nothing. Like a 70's girl on the beach, just lie there and get a tan. Tap me on the shoulder when I need to turn. 

Later!

It's later now, after dinner coffee. Dinner was enjoyed by all! "pancakes" in whatever form or shape are a sure hit but I wasn't too sure about combining it with stew, (one of them dislikes tortilla with a vengeance) but no worries! They loved it! A bit of nagging about spicy but plates were cleaned.

A little dinnertime story? Table set, Ethiopian dishes pointed out, these aren't pancakes but injera made with a special kind of flour (2 boys sniffing at their pancakes, affirmative nod). Explained the Ethiopian way of eating with the hands, yes you're allowed but NOT with the wrong hand mind you!

Remark boy 1 to all: Why can't they invent cutlery in Ethiopia?

Remark boy 2 to boy 1: They'd better invent toiletpaper and soap first!