I hope you're having a sweet day, preferably low-sugar 馃榿
The recipe I want to share with you today is a homemade bread crust, pie shaped, topped with homemade spiced and low-sugar pinepple jam that I served this morning with roasted almonds and a strawberry for garnish.
I rememeber telling my husband to eat the almonds first so dessert was not the first meal his stomach would have that morning, even when it was low in sugar.
I had this huge pineapple on my kitchen table; it had been there for almost a week offering its skin and crown for Horacia to comb her whiskers, and I thought it was time to give it another use.
In my opinion, fairly ripe pineapples are an excellent choice when making my own jam; they have an intense, lingering aroma, a distinctly vibrant tropical fruit taste, and they're both sweet and tart, everything jam needs to lighten up my day.
I also love guavas, strawberries, blackberries, mangoes, papaya, grapes, oranges, and peaches to make jams, but lately, I've been meaning to choose fruit to which I had to add a minimum of sugar, and pineapples happen to turn really sweet when they are fully ripe.
Ripe fruit makes delicious jam and it helps you add less to no sugar. Here you can check out my recipe for homemade blackberry and ripe mango jam.
I didn't use many ingredients or much time.
This is the simplest bread You'll see me make. I just put everything in a platic container with a lid, mix, cover to avoid light, and let it raise twice, which happens really fast. No kneading needed.
First, I added the warm water, sugar, and margarine into the mixing container. I mixed it all well with the help of hand whisk.
Then I sifted the flour into the same container, mixed well and added the yeast. I mixed it well, put the lid on and covered it with a kitchen towel to keep out the light.
It takes 15 to 20 minutes to rise, depending on room temperature. Ours is at hell temperature right now, so yours will probably take longer.
The dough is more like a batter. It's supposed to be like this so that it soaks up some of the jam when you cover it with it.
You have to pinch the dough twice, which means it's going to rise twice. This helps it to be soft and make big holes--always you don't knead it.
Next thing was to grease the baking pan. I used my favorite 18" pyrex for pies and greased t with a mixture of margarine and olive oil.
You should know by now, I only used half of the dough. I saved the rest for another recipe.
I "poured" the dough into it carefully.
It was time to take it immediately to the preheated oven and let it bake for a couple of minutes at 350 掳F, top and bottom heat.
The purpose of this is that the dough does not become sticky when it comes in contact with the jam. We will open a few holes on the surface to let the jam in a little without creating a sticky and unpleasant texture.
By this time the jam should be ready and still warm to hot, to make it easier to spread it on the surface of the bread without caking it. Now you can see below how I made the jam while the bread dough was rising.
This is how I cut the pineapple to make jam.
I peeled it and washed it under the tap to get the chunks clean.
Then I made cross cuts so that there were no long strands of pineapple fiber. You don't want those to get in your teeth while you are eating 馃構
I cut all the pineapple I needed in small pieces, added the sugar, and the salt. Mixed everything and took it to a simmer over medium heat for a couple of minutes.
Then I added the cinnamon and the vanilla essence. I mixed it well and let it cook for 40 minutes over low heat. There is no need to stir. The sugar becomes liquid and mixes with the pineapple juice as it cooks.
After the 40 minutes were over, and while still hot, I took 3/4 approx of the half cooked jam to the blender and processed it a little to make puree.
The puree went back to the pot so I could mix it all together to get a chunky jam.
I carefully spread this jam in chunks over the pierced surface of the still raw and warm bread.
This pie shaped bread topped with half cooked chunky pineapple jam went into the oven to bake for 30 minutes at 350 掳F, top and bottom heat.
I like it to finish cooling outside the pan, since it's not a pie dough but a bread dough, so when it stays inside the mold, it gets moist and loses the light crunchiness on the outside.
As you can see, this is a fairly simple process considering that, had you followed this recipe, you'd have made bread and jam from scratch by now.
The house smelled of pineapple, caramel, cinnamon and freshly baked bread. If you try it, I'm sure you'll love it.
I served this for breakfast today, with roasted almonds and a strawberry for garnish. We had it with our morning coffee, and it was just delicious and satisfying.
@andresromero 馃枻