Monthly Archives: August 2015

August 27th, 2015

Zwetschgenstreusel

Zwetschgenstreusel (2)Der Liebste ist puristisch, wenn es um Zwetschgenkuchen geht: Hefeteig, Zwetschgen und vielleicht ein bisschen Zucker. Ich hingegen mag Streusel sehr, auch auf den Zwetschgen. Bis ich ihn aber von der Idee eines Zwetschgenstreusel überzeugt hatte, dauerte es. Ich musste versprechen, dass die Streusel keinesfalls hart und das Teig – Zwetschgenverhältnis ausgewogen sein würde. Das tat ich leichten Herzens, denn die Streusel für meinen liebsten Streusekuchen (mit oder ohne Pudding) haben die perfekte mürbe Struktur. Zusammen mit einem dünnen Hefemürbeteigboden (der nicht durchsaftet) und einer kräftigen Portion Zwetschgen ergeben sie einen köstlichen Zwetschgenstreusel, der auch den Zwetschgen-Purist sehr gut schmeckt hat!

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August 23rd, 2015

Buttertoast

Buttertoast (1)I do both rather seldom: Baking soft sandwich bread and baking during the week. Normally my bread baking day is at the weekend and so I need special circumstances to take the flour from the cupboard during a working week. But an tooth emergency leaded to a small oral surgery and subsequently to chewing problems. After three days of soups and purees I was longing for a really soft bread which is easy to chew.

The sweet starter is always great in such situations. Coming home from work I went straight to the kitchen and started the starter. Two hours later its volume already doubled and so I could already knead the dough. The dough contained some yeast (as I wanted to bake before going to bed) and a good portion of butter and a pinch of enzyme active malt. Both helps to make the crump tender. The good amount of butter as well as some sugar also leads to a good browning when toasted. But although untoasted the bread has good, slightly buttery flavour.

 

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August 19th, 2015

Blackberry Jam (without gelling sugar)

Brombeermarmelade (2)The sunny and hot days of the last week turns the first blackberries into dark and delicious treats. And so we went to pick berries early on Saturday morning . Natures plenty was very overwhelming and in little more then an hour we picked three kilogram. And because I read Christine Ferbers “Marmeladenbibel” we picked some red, unripe blackberries as well. The reason for this the fact that blackberries contain less pectin then red currants or blueberries. Adding some unripe fruits increase the pectin content because they contain much more pectin then ripe fruits. They add some acidity as well which support the gelling process as well.

The rest of the recipe is 100% me, as I does not like to macerate blackberries with sugar (as Madame Ferber suggest), because this turns the blackberries into hard, small pieces. And so I cook the jam similar to the red currant and raspberry jam. And after 20 min of simmering even the unripe fruits softens completely and I’m very happy with the delicious jam I got in the end.

 

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August 16th, 2015

Wheat and Rye Bread 80/20

Weizenmischbrot 80 20 (1)

I’m tempted to call this bread a fast bread. It “just” takes 8.5 hours from mixing the sourdoughs to pulling the baked loaves from the oven. So if you (like me) decided at 8 am to bake bread you can serve the already cooled loaf for supper. This is possible because of the short time needed for ripening of the sweet starter and of the “Berliner Kurzsauer”.

The Berliner Kurzsauer is a rye sourdough and was invented by Pelshenke and Schulz in 1942. It is kept at high temperature (ideally 35°C) which promotes the activity of homofermenting lactobacteria (homofermeters are that kind of lactobacteria which produce only lactic acid). It yields a aromatic, mild tasting sourdough. The only backdraw is the fact, that the yeasts in this sourdough will not develop well and so I combined it with a strong sweet starter and a bit of commercial yeast.

 

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August 9th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginner XIX: Baguette with Pâte Fermentée

Baguette (4)Another wish for the Bread Baking Course was Baguette. And Baguette dough is a simple dough: You need just flour, water, yeast and salt.

But when it comes to forming and slashing, it gets way more complicated. Only one thing can help with this: Practice! For slashing you actually don’t have to even bake baguette, one can start practicing with paper and pen! As PIP onces wrote: “If you can draw them, you can slash them!” And so I made two practice sheets for you. One with reference lines and one without. You can print them and start practising right away. Try to draw the slashes on the “Paper baguette” in fluent movements without stopping while drawing a slash. Repeat this until you feel comfortable with drawing the slashes, then try it with the real one. And other ways then the traditional cuts are possible as well. In France I saw Baguettes slashed lengthwise as well!

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August 2nd, 2015

Spelt Rolls with Sweet Starter

Dinkelbrötchen (2)

Some weeks ago a reader asked me if it is possible to bake pure spelt rolls with sourdough. The reason for this question is a histamine intolerance and so I thought directly of using my sweet starter, as the sweet starter fits well in the “shortly riped” scheme. I feeded a part of my starter four times with spelt flour which reduces the wheat in the starter to 0,26%. If you want a pure spelt starter, you can start a starter from a spelt sourdough and some spelt flour as well.

To avoid a dry crumb (what can happen with spelt so easily) I added once again a hot soaker. Some egg yolk and fat makes the crumb more fluffy and the malt helps to deepen the flavour. But using egg yolk and malt is not necessary, if you can’t eat one or the other. Just replace the egg yolk with water. The crumb will be a little bit more dense but the rolls will be still fine. And if you are looking for wheat free recipes, there is a new tag for you: wheat free  🙂

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