Category: Yelly Eats

Everything and anything about food, cooking, baking, and recipe-testing

Yelly Eats

Baking pan de sal!

Yelly

The pan de sal is ubiquitous (HUGE word alert!) in the Philippines.  It is sold in every corner bakery, in every panaderia, in various shapes and sizes.  It is bread that has been enjoyed in the Philippines for centuries, as apparently, it was introduced by the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century.

Since moving to the UK, I have been looking for a British equivalent and there have been near misses, but not quite like the real thing.  Pan de sal, when translated from Spanish, means salt bread.  Funnily, it is more sweet than savoury.   I wrote about baking pan de sal last year and since then I’ve been trying out various recipes from online sources.  Now, though, I can finally say that I’ve perfected my version of the Philippine bread staple.  I’ve tried several recipes and have now found that putting the recipes together in a system that works for me does really work.  Here’s my take on the pan de sal:

Ingredients:

  • 500g strong bread flour (can also be substituted with whole wheat or gluten-free flour)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 75g butter
  • 150ml milk (full fat, semi-skimmed or skim milk)
  • 70g sugar
  • 1 packet active dry yeast (or 7g)
  • 1 egg
  • 15ml vegetable oil
  • 1 cup bread crumbs (or dry polenta/corn meal)

Directions:

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.  Mix until well combined (I use a balloon whisk to do this because I find that this mixes the ingredients quickly) and set aside.
  2. In a sauce pan, heat the milk over low heat.  Add the butter and sugar and mix until the butter and sugar are melted.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool until lukewarm in temperature.  Once lukewarm, add the yeast and stir until the yeast is dissolved into the milk mixture.
  3. Add the egg and oil to the flour mixture and mix well.  Mix the milk and butter mixture with the flour until a wet dough forms.
  4. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.  If you’re kneading by hand, this should take about 8-10 minutes.  Steps 3 and 4 can be done in a free-standing mixer with a dough hook attachment with step 3 in the lowest speed setting and turning up the mixer to the next speed to add the butter and milk mixture and knead the dough for about 5 minutes.
  5. Place the dough in an oiled bowl and allow to proof for an hour or until the dough has risen to double its size.
  6. After proofing, punch the dough to deflate it and turn it out onto a floured surface.  Knead the dough by hand for 5 minutes then form it into a ball.  Cut the dough in half using a pastry cutter or a knife.  Form the dough pieces into a ball and repeat until you have 8 dough balls.  Once you have 8 dough balls, cut each in half and roll in bread crumbs.  This makes 16 large rolls but the recipe can make up to 20 rolls.
  7. Line a baking pan with parchment paper and place the dough pieces cut side up on the pan.  Allow for enough space for the dough ball halves to expand.  Allow to proof for another hour or until it doubles in size.
  8. Preheat the oven to 190ºC (375ºF).  If using a fan oven preheat to about 160ºC (320ºF).  Place the baking pan in the oven and bake the dough for 15 minutes.

Pan de sal

Yelly Eats

Fig squares

Yelly

I’ve been under the weather for quite a while and it’s been a very difficult week.  I was admitted to hospital overnight on Monday night for observation.  But they didn’t find anything, so that, in itself, is a relief.  I still have my headache though, which is a bit worrying.

My favourite thing to do when trying to comfort myself is baking.  Sometimes how I feel affects my baking results, but more often than not, I find comfort in the baking process.  I felt the need to bake yesterday and I had dried figs in my cupboard that needed using.  I intended to use the dried figs to make fig bars ala Fig Newtons but I wasn’t sure if I had all the ingredients.  So my fig squares were born.

They are lovely and squidgy and crumbly at the same time.  They remind me slightly of Fig Newtons which made me excited to go home because I’m sure my mum would love them (she absolutely loves Fig Newtons!).

I’m being very careful with my sugars so I’ve only had one tiny piece (yes, really) of the fig squares.  But I’m happy to share the love, so here’s the recipe!

Ingredients:

  • 150g all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 175g brown sugar
  • 125g unsalted butter, softened
  • 250g dried figs, chopped

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
  2. In a mixing bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder together with a balloon whisk until well combined.
  3. In separate a mixing bowl (am using a free standing mixer but you can also do this by hand with a balloon whisk), combine softened butter and sugars and beat until the mixture is smooth and fluffy (about 4 minutes by mixer and about 7-10 minutes if beating by hand).  Add the eggs one at a time, making sure that the egg is well-combined before adding the next one.  Add the flour mixture in quarters.  It will look like you don’t have enough batter but it will be fine, I promise!  Add the chopped figs and mix until everything is well-distributed.
  4. Spread mixture in a greased 17.5cm x 26.5cm (or thereabouts) pan lined with baking parchment (I learned that lining the baking pan with parchment is good because it makes it easy to release the cake from the pan) and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  This recipe makes up to 24 squares.

This recipe will also work with prunes, dates and raisins.  If using raisins, it would be best to soak the same amount in about 75ml of water overnight until the raisins are plumped up.  If you want a boozy version of the fruit squares, soak the fruit in about 30ml of either brandy or rum and add the fruit (with the brandy or rum) to the mixture.

Figbars

Yelly Eats

The Bell & Brisket Fix

Yelly

I remember really craving salt beef sandwiches.  And I remember the great salt beef sandwich search.  It was quite the exciting thing, trying to find the best place for salt beef sandwiches in London (I wasn’t expecting to find it in Essex–I’m glad to be proven wrong though, so if there are good purveyors of salt beef sandwiches in Essex, can I get a shout out?).  I now have two favourites for salt beef sandwiches:  The Bell and Brisket and Monty’s Deli.  But the sentimental favourite will always be The Bell and Brisket because it was the first place I’d gotten the long-awaited sandwich from.

My first salt beef on rye sandwich with American mustard in the UK was from The Bell and Brisket and even now, I still smile when I remember how good it was when I took that first bite!  It was so good!  And the sandwich looked sooooooo pretty!  I remember wanting to take a picture for posterity.  Considering that this sandwich traveled from London to Harwich, I thought it traveled quite well!

BrisketBel

One of my favourite salt beef sandwich incarnations is the salt beef with kimchi either on rye or on a bagel.  I remember having it first at Queen’s Head in Soho when Bel had her pop-up shop there.  She had meal deals and served a selection of pickles with her salt beef sandwiches.  I was a bit dubious about the kimchi with the salt beef, but it was two of my favourite food things: salt beef and kimchi.  It wouldn’t hurt to try it!  It was a salt beef eureka moment.  It was quite the East meets West food fusion moment.  Who knew salt beef would work amazingly well with kimchi.  Well, obviously, Bel knew!

BrisketBelQH

It was ages since I had a salt beef sandwich from Bel.  Last week, on Friday, I saw a tweet from Bel saying she was at KERB in Kings Cross.  I quickly sent her a tweet to ask her how long she was going to be there.  I thought it was the best time to catch her since I hadn’t had a Bell and Brisket fix in ages!  I was quite relieved that we managed to catch her there.  I had my salt beef and kimchi bagel and was in salt beef heaven!

Salt Beef and Kimchi

The meat is wonderfully flavoured and is meltingly soft.   There is something fundamentally comforting about hot salt beef sliced fresh right in front of you.  The salt beef sandwich is quite an experience and I would recommend The Bell and Brisket to anyone and everyone!   The Bell and Brisket is at Kings Cross with KERB on Fridays, every week, until 2:30PM.  If you’re there, make sure you get one of the sandwiches offered because they are dee-vine!!!

The Bell and Brisket at KERB

Yelly Eats

Just saying

Yelly

I logged on knowing that I hadn’t written anything on the blog for a considerable amount of time.  I didn’t really realise that the last blog entry I’d written was the day before Easter.  My how time flies, even when one isn’t having fun.  I’ve been battling a throat infection and a bad bout of flu for the past few weeks.

A few days ago I was in Notting Hill, mostly to find a Filipino restaurant that I’d been looking forward to trying.  I think I’m not alone in saying that if it was a Filipino restaurant, run by Filipinos, Filipinos would flock to it because Filipinos would, if they could.  I had eaten in another Filipino restaurant in London, in Charlotte Street, called Josephine’s.  The decor was a little dated but I didn’t mind it because the service, and of course the food, was wonderful.  Despite the fact that there were other customers, I felt well-looked after, not ignored.

That wasn’t the case in this other restaurant.  I know I definitely looked Filipino and made the point of mentioning that I was Filipino and read about the restaurant which was why I wanted to try it but I got an indifferent response.  Colder than lukewarm.  Most Filipinos would ask where you lived, how long you lived there and what you did for work.  This wouldn’t really be intrusive, it’s just the way Filipinos connect.  There are about 300,000 Filipinos spread all over the UK, a mere drop in the ocean compared the general population.  My experience, so far, has always been Filipinos wanting to connect with each other.  But funnily enough, the warm and effusive welcome for a fellow Filipino that I was hoping for was not what I got.  There was no effort to connect, there was no effort to engage.

The food was okay but the ordering wasn’t explained (the menus were on clipboards on the wall and you took one to the table then ordered at a make-shift looking counter), I had to ask.  The options weren’t explained but after I asked if I could have water instead, I was told they could serve me water.  I just felt like they weren’t interested in the business that I brought in.  And I was massively, massively disappointed.

There was another person in the restaurant, a person who, from the conversation I could overhear was a friend.  The person at the counter talked to this friend more than he talked to me.  I think most restaurants, in this day and age, would fight tooth and nail for punters.  I didn’t feel important to this establishment.  I felt like I was an interruption to their conversation.  I felt completely unwelcome.

Even now when I think about it, I feel like crying.  The entire experience was that awful.  I know I only paid £10 in total for my food.  But I would’ve rather not gone now.  I hope they treat other paying customers differently.  More importantly, if they’re going use a Filipino word for their restaurant name, I pray that they treat fellow Filipinos better because the Pinoys that come to them want to come in and feel like they’re in a Filipino oasis in the hustle and bustle of London.

Service is as service done, but this was badly done.  Very badly done.  I’m certainly not going back to this Filipino restaurant.

Yelly Eats

The Breakfast Club tribute pancakes

Yelly

It’s supposed to be Spring.  The sun is supposed to be out.  The weather should be warming up.  But Mother Nature didn’t seem to get the memo.  It is snowing almost everywhere in the UK today.

I’ve been craving The Breakfast Club‘s HamSoEggcited for some reason.  I think it was because of the weather and the fact that I wasn’t feeling very well (I’ve got a bad cold, if anyone’s interested in offering tea and sympathy!).  In my head, HamSoEggcited would cure all my ills.  I had visions of lovely fluffy pancakes, melting cheese sandwiched in ham slices and a perfectly fried sunny side up egg with the yolk all gooey and runny!

HamSoEggcited - The Breakfast Club

But because London wasn’t exactly a hop, skip and jump away, I thought I’d try to replicate it in my tiny kitchen.  I found a great recipe for fluffy pancakes recently and tweaked it so that the pancakes were how I wanted them to be.  I had gammon ham in the fridge and cheese that needed using up so I set about recreating the sweet-savoury pancake stack.

My recipe for fluffy pancakes is below:

Ingredients:Fluffy pancakes

  • 135g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp caster sugar
  • 150ml milk
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 30ml melted butter or olive oil
  • butter to cook pancakes

Directions:

  1. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl with a balloon whisk (I love using a balloon whisk to mix dry ingredients because it does it really quickly and really well!).
  2. In a jug, whisk the egg and milk together.  Then add the olive oil.
  3. Combine the flour mixture and the egg-milk mixture and beat until you have a smooth batter.  If there are any lumps, this should disappear soon with a little more mixing.  Let the batter stand for a few minutes.
  4. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and add a knob of butter and swivel the butter around to coat the pan, until all the butter has melted.  Add a ladle of the batter to the pan.  The batter will be thick, but don’t worry because this is how the batter should be.  Wait for the pancake to bubble and for the bubbles to burst.  Loosen the edges with a fish slice and flip over.  Cook until both sides are slightly golden brown.  The pancake should rise to about 1 cm thick.
  5. Repeat until all the batter is used up.  This makes 4 large pancakes.  I know that might not sound like much but a stack of 2 pancakes are more than generous for one person!
  6. Serve with lashings of syrup of your choice, and extra butter if you are so inclined!

To make the HamSoExcited, I kept each pancake warm in a low oven and each time I made a pancake, I stacked it with a folded piece of gammon with a slice of cheese inside (the gammon).  I did a stack of 3 pancakes and doused the pancakes (VERY liberally) with golden syrup (because I’d run out of maple syrup).  Leaving the pancakes in the oven while I cooked the eggs gave the pancakes a little crunch.  When I placed the fried egg over the pancake stack I had to take a photo because it was soooooo pretty.  Probably not as pretty as The Breakfast Club’s HamSoEggcited but it was close enough, I thought.  It certainly tasted like it!

tribute pancakes

I posted the photo on Instagram and the people managing The Breakfast Club’s instagram account thought it was a pretty impressive effort!

TheBrekkyClubComment

Yelly Eats

Remembering The Cavendish

Yelly

It was horribly busy at work today and tomorrow is going to be an even longer day.  It’s Budget Day tomorrow and the firm I work for has a post budget presentation for its clients.  Tomorrow will be a long day because we’ll be prepping materials for the presentations.

Ah well!  I’m in my happy place though because I’m still thinking about last Tuesday when I had afternoon tea at The Cavendish.

I’d never been to The Cavendish but it was easy enough to get to because it was right behind Fortnum and Mason.  The hotel was understated but it was quietly elegant.

We gave our names at bar concierge and I felt fairly special as we were made to feel like they were expecting us.  We were led to a quite corner of the Lounge Bar and were given menus so we could choose our teas.Tea - Afternoon Tea at The Cavendish

Afternoon Tea at The Cavendish is from 2 to 5PM everyday and they charge £18 per person.  This includes a pot of tea for each person, a selection of finger sandwiches: Wicks Manor smoked ham with whole grain mustard, egg mayonnaise with rocket salad, Scottish smoked salmon with cucumber and cream cheese, and cheddar cheese and pickle; a selection of pastries, tartlets and chocolate truffles and scones with jam and clotted cream.  The £18 also includes a glass of champagne but I opted for the non-alcoholic option of passion fruit juice.

Passionfruit Juice - Afternoon Tea at The Cavendish

On the menu it looked like a substantial amount of food but I wasn’t prepared for the amount of food that was brought to the table.  It was a LOT!  We ordered afternoon tea for two people but the food that was brought to the table could have easily fed four people very generously.

Sandwiches - Afternoon Tea at The Cavendish

I loved the service because the staff were wonderfully friendly and attentive.  We were looked after well.  I appreciated the fact that they offered to refill our teapots with hot water.  The teapots held about two cups worth of tea and water costs next to nothing, but not ever establishment will offer to refill your teapot.  I loved that about the Cavendish.  While it is expected for most establishments to offer a non-alcoholic option, not every place does.  We were given a lot of options to replace our glasses of champagne and I must say, the passion fruit juice that I had was wonderfully fresh!

Scones Jam Cream - Afternoon Tea at The Cavendish

When the afternoon tea tray was brought to the table, it was brought to us with a slight flourish and the waiter explained the contents of each plate.  There were 2 scones for each person with large pots filled with delicious clotted cream and lovely jam.  There were more than enough sandwiches which were generously filled.  I love smoked salmon and the sandwiches were stuffed to bursting!  You certainly get what you pay for and more!

Am now looking at my calendar and planning my next visit!

The sweet element was the mini cakes, tartlets and chocolate truffles and they were lovely!  They were cute, individual pieces and very beautifully made.

Sweet treats - Afternoon Tea at The Cavendish

At one point during the meal, I certainly worried about not being able to finish the food (we couldn’t manage it in the end) because there was so much of it.  I would definitely recommend having afternoon tea at The Cavendish.  The venue is quiet and has the element of privacy even though the space is quite open plan.  You get wonderfully attentive service from the staff and the food is definitely value for money.

I’m certainly looking forward to the next visit!

Yelly Eats

Coffee and walnut brownies

Yelly

I am doing something yummy for money!

Our office is doing a week-long bake sale to raise money for Comic Relief.  Comic Relief is a charity based in the UK that was set up in 1985 that aims to raise money to tackle the root causes of poverty and social injustice.  The money that gets raised each year helps so many people and I enjoy doing my bit to contribute, albeit in a very small way.

I’m going to bring coffee and walnut brownies tomorrow.  It’s still chocolate but it’s got a distinct coffee taste that cuts through the chocolate quite nicely, or at least, I think so!  I love the recipe enough to share it.  I think this would be great with a cup of milky tea or, what else, coffee!  If you try the recipe, please tell me what you think!  I’d love the feedback.

Ingredients:Coffee and walnut brownies cooling
200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
175g butter
25g instant coffee granules
200g caster sugar
125g brown sugar
150g plain flour
100g walnuts, roughly chopped
3 eggs

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 170°C.
  2. Prepare a baking tray by greasing and lining with parchment paper and set aside.  I learned that when you grease the baking tin that you plan to use, it’s a good thing to also grease the parchment paper you line the baking tin with.  It prevents the parchment from sticking to the cakes and makes for easy removal.
  3. In a bowl, mix flour and choppped walnuts together, making sure that the walnuts are completely coated in flour.
  4. Place chocolate, butter and instant coffee granules in a heat-proof bowl over a sauce pan of simmering water.  Leave until melted completely but making sure you stir once or twice to make sure that everything is combined properly.  Remove from the heat once everything is melted completely and well-incorporated.
  5. In a free-standing mixer (this can also be done by hand or a hand-held mixer), mix sugars and egg and beat until the mixture is smooth and fluffy-looking.  I read somewhere that this usually takes about 5 minutes, but what I look out for is a change in colour, the batter becomes a paler shade of what you when you started to cream the sugars.  Pour chocolate mixture slowly into egg and sugar mixture and mix until everything is well-combined.  Add the flour and walnut mixture and mix until the batter is thick and smooth.
  6. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  The top will look shiny and flaky.  Be careful not to over cook as the brownie can become hard and very chewy.
  7. This can make up to 24 squares, depending on how large your slices are.

Coffee and walnut brownies

Yelly Eats

Mango Love!

Yelly

Presenting (finally) the recipe for Mango Love!

I created this recipe to enter the Emerald Street Cupcake Challenge.  While I didn’t make the shortlist (I was disappointed, but I knew my recipe was more tropical than American), the whole process of creating and designing a cupcake was a very enjoyable and very delicious one!

This lovely golden cupcake is offers you a burst of tropical mango sunshine.  The twists of lime in the sponge, frosting and mango jelly are added to bring out the mango flavour.  The cupcake is moist and full of fruity mango sweetness.  The mango flavour theme continues in its golden yellow frosting.  It is topped with a heart-shaped mango jelly piece.  This luscious burst of tropical sunshine during the cold winter months that will have you reaching for another…and another!

Cupcake Sponge:P2100839
90g sugar
50g butter, unsalted
1 egg
180g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
200g mango pulp
2 tbsp lime juice

Frosting:
300g icing sugar
80g butter
1 1/2 tbps lime juice
40g mango pulp

Mango jelly (for decoration, optional):
50ml hot water
80g mango pulp
1 tbsp lime juice
15g granulated sugar
1 packet gelatin

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C
  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt until well combined with a balloon whisk and set aside.  In a small bowl, mix together the mango pulp and lime juice.  Set aside.
  3. In a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until this becomes fluffly and light yellow in colour.  About 5 minutes.  Add egg and mix until mixture is creamy.
  4. Add the flour mixture and mix until a heavy batter forms.  Add the mango pulp into the batter and mix for 5 minutes until the mango pulp is distributed well.  You may have to scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is well combined.
  5. Spoon into a lined muffin tin.  Makes 8 – 10 cupcakes.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
  6. To make the frosting, cream butter and the icing sugar together.  Add mango pulp and lime juice until the mixture is creamy.  Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.
  7. To make mango jelly for decoration, mix hot water with 1 packet of gelatin until gelatin is dissolved, mix in the sugar, mango pulp and lime.  Allow to set (leave for about 4 hours for it to set properly) and cut into cubes or shapes and use to top frosted cupcake

This recipe makes 10-12 cup cakes.

Mango Love cupcakes

Yelly Eats

Love my Mango Love!

Yelly

Over a month ago, I saw an advert on The Stylist magazine about a cupcake competition.  The instructions were to create a cupcake made of a sponge cake base, frosting and decoration.  The prize was what attracted me the most: if you were in the top 5 finalists, you won a Kitchenaid artisan mixer, a copy of the new Hummingbird Bakery cookbook and the chance to attend a baking masterclass.  If you won, your cupcake would be sold in all the Hummingbird Bakery branches for 2 whole months.  To be honest, it was mostly the masterclass that I wanted to attend.  I wanted to attend classes so that I could improve my cupcake decorating skills.  They also said that you would learn baking skills at the masterclass and I was definitely up for that!  Any chance at increasing what I know about baking was a chance worth taking.  I already have a Kenwood chef so getting a Kitchenaid mixer would have been a wonderful bonus.

It was a cupcake challenge and I was definitely challenged!

I sat down and started reading up on flavours and looked at recipes.  I checked my baking notes and set about improving a cupcake recipe I already had.  I also knew that I had to create a flavour profile that was consistent with every bake.  So I tested and retested the recipe I had in my head and when I was happy with how the sponge tasted, I set about creating the frosting.  And slowly but surely, the cupcake that I imagined became not only an idea but a real, live cupcake!

I suppose I couldn’t have won the cupcake challenge because the brief was for the cupcake to embody Hummingbird Bakery’s American roots.  I think I was missing the Philippines and missing Philippine mangoes too much that it came out in the cupcake I created!  I called my cupcake Mango Love.  I said that the cupcake gave you a burst of tropical mango sunshine.  And it did!

I’m grateful for the experience, because it’s made me trust my baking instincts more.  I’m more confident about my baking and I know that my goal is now to constantly improve my baking.  This whole experience of putting together recipes and making sure the flavours were sound has encouraged me even more to bake and create.  I’m thankful to Hummingbird Bakery and to Emerald Street for issuing the challenge.  Even thought I didn’t win, when I look at the pictures I took of the cupcakes that I made, I still feel like, somehow, I won a prize.

The recipe will be up on the blog in the next few days! 🙂

Mango Love cupcakes

Yelly Eats

Easy-peasy cornbread V2!

Yelly

I did a slow-cooked joint of pork on the weekend.  I haven’t used my dry rub recipe in ages and I thought it was time I did.  I dusted off the dry rub recipe and had a critical look at ingredients.  I did a little tweaking and the pork turned out even better than I remembered.  The barbecue sauce that was made out of the leftover barbecue rub tasted even better as well.

But the dry rub recipe wasn’t the only recipe that experienced a few tweaks.  When one does a slow roast with barbecue sauce, the best accompaniment is cornbread.  I looked at my original cornbread recipe and I thought the flavours needed enhancing.  The new recipe has a better sweet-salty balance and I love my cornbread slightly crumbly and this new tweak added the right amount of crumble to my cornbread.

Here’s the tweaked recipe:

Ingredients:Cornbread

  • 200g polenta (fine ground)
  • 150g all-purpose flour
  • 120g sugar
  • 2 teaspoons  baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 280ml buttermilk
  • 80ml vegetable oil
  • 1 large egg

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Prepare 12 x 7.5 pan by lining with baking paper and greasing with butter and set aside.
  3. Mix polenta, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl with a balloon whisk until well-combined.  Set aside.
  4. Beat egg, milk and vegetable oil together until well-combined.  Add to polenta mixture in 3 parts.  Once liquid mixture and dry mixture has been mixed together completely, allow to sit for 30 minutes so that polenta can absorb the liquid.
  5. Place in oven and cook for 20-22 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
  6. This recipe makes 18-20 squares.