Can you believe it? The year 2010 is nearly gone. And like last year I would like to remember not the political crisis, weather chaos and volcanic eruptions but bread and rolls, delicious pastry and great quiches. And when I look through the post of the last year I realize that I tested a lot of new recipes. And I realize that I should bake some of them again. And like last year I picked 12 of my favourite recipes and make a Collage out of them.

Beginning in the upper left corner of the collage I will tell you a little bit about the recipes. mehr…

After Christmas I start normally with checking my pantry and fridge. We spent the holiday at our parents homes and at a huge family get-togther and everywhere we get delicious lunches and dinners so my fridge was nearly empty. But I found a bottle of milk which was a little bit over the date of expiry. I want to use the milk before it goes bad. So I used half of it for confiture de lait but for the other half I had another plan.

Since beginning of December there was a Chocolate Santa standing in the living room and no one wanted to eat him because the chocolate was a cheap quality. And what is the traditional fate of not eaten Chocolate Santas (or easter bunnies)? Right, put them in some chocolate custard. mehr…

For raclett with the family on christmas eve I volunteered to bring some bread. I decided fastly, that I want to bake Sacaduros. But then I feel that I would like to bring something with whole wheat, too.  Simple rolls are to boring for Christmas I thought but then I remember something I saw last year on Cindystar: beautiful Christmas tree rolls.

They are not so difficult to make: Rolls in the shape of stars in different sizes are pilled on each other and fixed with a wooden skewer.

Because I do not own big cookie cutters in form of a star I used Bertinets Methode to form Stars. The holes in the middle of this star I filled with small dough balls.

These little Christmas trees are a nice Eye catcher for the Christmas table mehr…

I wish all readers of “Hefe und mehr” a merry Christmas!

When I saw the Black&White Kisses from foodmayhem at Tastespotting  I fall in love with this little meringue puffs. I had to bake them directly! And because I planned to bake linzer cookies I used half of the dough for the kisses instead.  And some left over egg white I always found in my kitchen during Christmas baking.

I use all my left over chocolate which I grind finely. I used about three times of the chocolate amount the recipe ask for.

To make the cookies lactose free I prepared the dough with margarine.

The small kisses are beautiful, delicious and easy to do. I like the feeling when the kisses melt in the mouth. Chocolate and meringue are a perfect couple. Another new Christmas favorite.

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I planned to bake “Kletzenbrot” this year. Kletzenbrot is named after the Kletzen which are added to the dough and this Kletzen are dried pears. But then I remembered that I have to big glasses filled with dried apples in the pantry because this autumn  I dried a lot of the apples we harvest. (I mentioned before that we harvest lots and lots of apples this year, didn’t I?)

So I decided to use some of this dried apples in the bread instead of dried pears. And so I call it Fruit bread and not Kletzenbrot.  The dough I used is a simple bread dough with sourdough. The sweet of this bread comes from the added fruits and nuts. It tastes most delicious cut in very thin slices and spread with some butter. It is my favorite bread for breakfast at the moment and it keeps fresh for a long time because of the fruits and the sourdough.

This fruit bread is my post for the last Bread Baking Day of 2010, which theme is “Bread with dried Fruits”. mehr…

Vanilla crescents without nuts or almonds? And then made with margarine instead of butter, too?

When baking for friends and family members with special diets like lactose free and with as less histamine as possible you have to consider some details: You can not use any kind of nuts and diary products are not permitted.

But what is Christmas without Vanillekipferl? To me this cookies belong to Christmas like candles and Christmas trees. So I started to search the web for alternative recipes. I found few and all said that the crescents are not as brittle as the original version. I could not accept this and started to create my own recipe basing on my usual Vanillekipferl-Recipe.  I replaced the almonds with starch which made the cookies as brittle as the Kipferl made with almonds.

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I fall in love with Lussekatter – Lucia cats – already last year. This little buns are from Sweden and are a traditional treat on 13. December. Last year I had no time to bake them but this year I made the little saffron buns punctual for Saint Lucia’s Day.

Looking for an recipe in the Internet I realize that there are to groups of recipes: one using kesella – a kind of curd, the other one being a normal yeast dough. Adding curd to the buns helps to make them softer. But I decided to use no curd but to add some water roux to the dough which adds more moisture to the dough and makes it soft, too. Then I reduce the amount of yeast found in most recipes, and let the dough rest overnight in the fridge. The cold dough is much easier to handle at the next morning.

The lussekatter are a beautiful treat for the breakfast table during christmas time, with a beautiful yellow crumb and the gentle taste of saffron.

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I tested already some new christmas cookie recipe this year but not one was as good as the ones I bake every year during my christmas baking. But this weekend I came across the recipe for “Thüringer Spitzbuben”. The name Spitzbube left me puzzled because I knew the term Spitzbube as an alias for Linzer Cookies, the delicous cookies filled with red currant jelly.

But the “Thüringer Spitzbuben” are not filled with some jelly, instead an almond is pressed in the middle of the cookie and glazed with some egg yolk. The dough is seasoned with cacao and cinnamon and smells irresistible during baking.

It has no similarity to his namesake but it taste delicious. I like the combination of almonds, cacao and cinnamon very much and so there is a good chance that this recipe will be added to the recipes I bake every year. mehr…

When Petra posted the recipe for Ulmer Laugenspatzen (Lye sparrows of Ulm) I thought instantly “I have to bake this!”. But then I baked a lot of other breads and forget about the little sparrows. But last weekend they told of lots of snow in the weather forecast so we knew that we we would stay better at  home and do little beside of shovel snow and drinking hot tea afterwards. When snow is falling outside I like to be in the kitchen baking Christmas cookies and bread. After baking a lot of cookies I wanted to eat something salty and so I remembered the Laugenspatzen.

I changed the recipe a little bit (of course!) because I used a different preferment then Petra. That was due to the fact that I plan to bake some toast bread and thought that it would be easier to use the same preferment for both dough.

The Laugenspatzen are very delicious, soft and salty.

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