June 13th, 2011

Breakfast rolls

Frühstücksbrötchen (2)I like Martins simple “overnight dough” Method very much. In the last month I modified it a little bit so it fits more to my taste. I added a poolish to add more aroma to the bread and folded the dough three times to improve the crumb structure. I used this modified version first time for the simple wheat bread and my mum varied this recipe in the last month – baking it with different flours and seeds – and she was always pleased with the success.

For the rolls I stayed with Martins simple Overnight recipe for a long time, but now I wanted to test my poolish variant with the rolls, too.

I planed to bake buttermilks rolls, because buttermilk makes rolls delightful fluffy. But there was nothing but a tiny little bit of buttermilk sitting in the fridge, so I had to fill it up to the amount of liquid needed using some whey.

The resulting rolls are delicious, with a very thin crust and a soft crumb. This is a recipe I will bake again.

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June 8th, 2011

Wedding cake for my little Sister

DSC_1721

My little sister married end of april. And to my great joy she asked me if I would bake the wedding cake.

After talking a little bit with her and my (then still future) brother in law we decided that I bake a three tired wedding cake consisting of a raspberry white chocolate torte (28 cm diameter), a Sachertorte (24 cm diameter) and a lactoste free vanilla cream torte (18 cm diameter).

I calculated that I would need two days to make the cake: one for baking the raspberry white chocolate torte and the vanilla cream torte and one for decoration. Our Mum baked the Sachertorte after the recipe of Oma Bucholtz (fund at Schnuppschüss) 10 days before the wedding because this cake needs a long rest before serving.

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May 29th, 2011

Soft Curd buns

QuarkweckchenThe Theme of this month’ bread baking day is “Bread with Curd”. You can find bread and Pastry made with curd very often on our table and I bake already two recipes for BBD with curd.

Because I like sweet buns ( they are called “Weckchen” in cologne”) very much I decided to bake some “Quark-Weckchen” (Curd buns) for bread baking day.

Curd makes bread moist and adds a subtle tartness to the dough. To prevent a to sour dough I decided to use a poolish as preferment. I kneaded the dough very long to make the crumb fluffy and regular and because of butter and egg the crust stays soft.

I do not use so much sugar for this buns, so if you like a more sweet bun like Pani di cena you should increase the amount of sugar.

The buns are everything that I love for a quiet breakfast: Soft, slightly sweet and slightly sour. Prefect for sunday mornings!

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May 28th, 2011

Madeleines

MadeleineMarcel Proust connected the taste of Madeleines with memories of his childhood, as he described in “Remembrance of things past”. I do not have any associatations of the taste of Madeleins with memories of my days as a child because the first time I ate a madeleine is only some weeks ago when I used my new madeleine pan for the first time.

But it was love on the first bite. They are a little bit crisp when they are fresh from the oven with a spongy crumb.

Their taste a little bit eggy and my sister told me that their taste reminds her at the egg cookies we ate when we were children (and there he is, the “Proust moment”). My recipe is fructose reduced and lactose free because I used rice malt syrup and Margarine. Of course you can replace the margarine with butter and the syrup with a mild creamy honey like spring flower honey or fruit flower honey when you don`t have to think about such restrictions.

I made the madeleine at the moment often, they are so delicious, beautiful and so easy and fast to bake!

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May 22nd, 2011

Sandwich bread with 2 preferments–very soft and fluffy

Toastbrot(3)I don’t like Sandwich bread so much – normally. Especially I am not a big friend of toasting sandwich bread – but thats the kind of bread that my boyfrind love and so I bake this kind of bread, too. And I like the challenge to create a soft and fluffy light bread.

To archive a regular crumb which you can tear away in long fibres you have to knead the dough intensively and degas the dough very well before forming a loaf.

This tricks I used for sandwich breads before, but when I saw the extra soft Sandwich bread of TXFarmer at Yeastspotting I note all the Tips and Hints in Handling the dough. The Sandwich bread of TXFarmer contains egg white instead of whole eggs. That’s add extra protein to the dough which makes the crumb more stable without changing the look or taste of the bread like adding whole egg or egg yolk would do.

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May 15th, 2011

Elderflower jelly

Holunderblüten-GeleeThis year is a good year for elderflowers and due to the warm weather of the last weeks they are flowering very early.

Because I like their taste very much I already picked a lot to bake elderflower pancakes, make elderflower vinegar and elderflower jelly.

For the elderflower jelly I changed the recipe I used last year a little bit. Last year I soak elderflowers and lemon slices for 24 hours in water and used this extract to cook a jelly. It tasted good bad had a slightly bitter aftertaste. So this year I decided to use lemon juice instead of lemon slices.

The taste of the jelly is much better now. The taste is milder and the flavour of the elderflowers is more dominant in the jelly.

 

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May 9th, 2011

Seeded bread with sourdough a la Hamelmann

Saatenbrot mit Sauerteig nach HamelmannWhen Lutz describes a bread with the words “a new favourite” then I know that I have to try this bread by myself. And a bread with sourdough, whole wheat and seeds is always tempting for me.

And so I did not wait long until I bake this recipe. I made some small changes, like roasting the seeds before soaking them and I made the sourdough with freshly milled wheat. My third change is that I bake the bread a little bit longer, so that I get thick aromatic crust.

The resulting bread is delicious, an easy to handle dough, with a very good ovenspring and a great taste. I can just repeat what Lutz already said: A new favourite! Continue reading

May 8th, 2011

Windmill rolls

WindmühlenbrötchenWhen Susan blog about how to shape a bread to a pinwheel I was hooked. I liked the form very much and thought directly about using this shape for rolls. And on saturday I tested this Idea.

Because rolls are much smaller and I did not want to roll them to thin  I decided to lay them just crosswise without curving the blades of the wheel. So they look more like a windmill now. Thats why I call them windmill rolls.

This rolls are perfect for barbeque or to be served with soup or salad. Continue reading

May 2nd, 2011

Radish Leaf Pesto

Radieschen-Pesto

At this days, when the whole world wears a beautiful late spring time green. And I do not like to waste a tiny bit of the green leaves you can find in our kitchen. And when we had radish with nice green leaves in our weekly organic vegetable bag I feed our guinea pigs with the leaves or we eat the leaves ourself.

As a pesto radish leaves are an enrichment for our table and pasta with this pesto is a dish which is made quickly. That makes it to a favourite dish for dinner on long workdays.

Additionally to the leaves I add some radish to the pesto, too, to enhance the radish taste.

When you have leftover pesto you can add an oil layer above the pesto and keep it in the fridge for some days.

 

Radish Leaf Pesto

  • 70g Radish leaves
  • 3 radish
  • 70g almonds
  • 50g Parmesan
  • 40g olive oil
  • 2 garlic gloves
  • 5g Salt

Wash the radish leaves and pat dry. Then place all ingredients in a food processor and mix until homogenous.

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