I love gathering all my family recipes so that I never have to question how to make my favorite things. I called up grandma and asked her how to make bake.
Bake is something grandma would often make when we were together growing up. It’s a fried dough, or you can bake it in which case it would be called roast bake lol. She always made it as a part of breakfast. I haven’t had it baked before, but grandma recommends putting shaved coconut into it if you bake it (yum). *you’ll also need more butter if you bake them
So here’s how we do it:
4 cups of flour
2tbs of baking powder
1 tbs of baking soda
1 tsp of salt
1tbs of sugar
cut in a small piece of butter, less than a quarter of a stick
2 eggs
and you’ll a little bit of water and milk to mix in. In true grandma fashion, we just eyeball that part
Mix the dry ingredients, then mix in the eggs and then the butter and begin to knead the dough with your hands. You will see it is dry so that’s where you mix in milk or water or both (your choice, I like both) until it gets wetter and softer and turns into a moist dough. Don’t over saturate it of course. Your hands will be sticky, thats ok.
Take pieces of the dough and roll them into small balls and set the balls aside in a bowl. They can touch, they won’t stick together. You can choose your size, just remember two things: the larger the balls are, the longer it will take to cook through and the less in total you’ll have.
Let the balls sit for 20mins to rise a little bit. I covered them with plastic wrap at this time.
In the meantime, fill a deep fry pan with regular oil for frying, I used vegetable. You want enough oil in the pan to cover the bake when they sit in the oil at least half way or a little more. The pics will help with this.
After the 20mins has passed, take each ball and gently flatten it. Then make fork holes in them. Fry them on medium heat (if your stove has numbers Grandma recommends 4).
You want to fry them until brown but not burnt.
For me it was a little difficult in the beginning with the heat on the gas stove because they would be brown on the outside but still slightly raw at the very center so then I would have to put them back in the oil for a little bit. Honestly, even with that going on, these bake came out PERFECT. Super tasty, I was very proud because it was my first time making them alone and I don’t think they could’ve come out better. *these go hand in hand with ackee and saltfish so make sure you check out that recipe too!
So with that being said, please enjoy this little taste of Trini with your breakfast! I think I'm going to go make some more right now!
See ya!
