Tag Archives: Giersch

April 11th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners VIII: Wild Spring Herbs Bread

Frühlingswurzel In the last days, the weather was warm and sunny and it finally feels like real spring. The first trees started to flower and the leaves will develop soon and the world will be green once again. And already the first fresh herbs can be found in garden and forest, like wild garlic, ground elder  and salad burnet. Blended together this herbs yields an aromatic paste which adds a great flavour to this crusty bread and turns the crumb slightly green.

As preferment I used a poolish. A poolish is made with the same amount of water and flour and a tiny little bit of yeast. It rise for 14-16 hours and has to used while its surface is still doomed. In contrast to a biga, which is really forgiving when used half a day later then planned, a poolish has only a limited time window in which it can be used. After that it starts to degrade and collapse.  But it helps the dough to rise well and adds a mild, complex flavour.  The name poolish comes from the polish bakers who brought this kind of dough to France in former times. Here he is used often for baguette dough.

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April 24th, 2014

Wild Herb Fan Rolls

Wildkräuter-Fächer 2

The Inspiration for this wild herb fans was Michas wild garlic pesto. But instead of using only wild garlic I used other wild herbs I found when I strolled through in my parents garden: wild garlic, ground elder, sorrel and salad burnet. From the domesticated herbs I choosed – like Micha – some leaves of mint and lovage. I can strongly recommend to make a bigger batch of the pesto, it is great for seasoning risottos or pasta dough, to season a salad sauce or for a spring time variation of remoulade.

But back to the wild herb fans…  I decided to make another dough then for the herb fan rolls, using sweet starter and making the dough stripes a little bit longer, placing them as a “U” shape in the muffin form. This give the rolls a nice shape.

The rolls are delicious, perfect to start the barbeque season.

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