Weekend Cookbook: It's Brunch-time!

As you all probably know, I love having people around to my house and cooking for them. Every few months I like to have a group of girls around either for a dessert night, afternoon/morning tea or ...my favourite.....a brunch.

Brunch is a slightly ridiculous word (combining breakfast and lunch), but it allows me to cook lots of sweet and savory treats. Last weekend I held a brunch at my place for about eight people. I am always worried that I will under cater but without fail there are always lots of left overs. The good thing about brunch left overs is you can have them for lunch...and afternoon tea!

The Leftovers

For this brunch my menu was:

Breaky Bread (see recipe below)

Egg and Bacon Tarts (basically puff pastry rounds in a mini muffin tin filled with bacon and egg and a little milk and baked in the oven)

Raspberry and White Chocolate Friands from the Creative Gourmet website 

Fruit and Yoghurt

Brioche (see recipe in a previous post)

Scones (that a friend brought along)

By far the most popular was the Breaky Bread so here is the recipe:

Breaky Bread

1 1/4 teaspoons of dry yeast

1 teaspoon of caster sugar

2/3 cup (160ml) of warm water

1 1/2 cups (225g) 00 flour

1 teaspoon of table salt

1/2 tablespoon of olive oil

4 eggs

8 slices of pancetta

250g of cherry or truss tomatoes

1 cup of grated gruyere cheese

1 teaspoon of dried chilli flakes

1/3 cup of basil leaves, torn

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Place yeast, sugar and water in a bowl and set aside for 5 mins, or until bubbles appear on the surface. 

2. Place flour, salt and olive oil into a large bowl, mix and then add the yeast mixture and bring together to form a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 mins or until smooth. Place in a bowl and cover with cling wrap. Leave for 15-20 mins.

3. Roll dough out to make a 25cm square and place in a deep sided 25cm square pan lined with baking paper. Push the dough into the corners.

4. Crack the eggs onto the dough, top with pancetta and tomatoes. Sprinkle with cheese, chilli flakes and basil.

5. Bake for 12-14 mins or until golden

My guests gobbled this up and I had even made a double quantity. I also made a kids version recently with ham, mozzarella cheese and tomatoes (it is basically a pizza) and they loved it.

KIds version (with random added rolled out dough)

What have you been cooking this week?