Category Archives: Special Occasions

December 24th, 2015

Pompe à l’huile

Pompe à l'huile (4)

The Pompe à l’huile is a traditional french Pastry which is part of the “Les treize desserts”, the thirteen desserts served on Christmas. It is a very rich, sweet Bread and flavoured with orange blossom water and Orange peel. It’s crumb reminds on a rich brioche but it is not prepared with butter but with olive oil. Since I made the Schiacciata di Pasqua for Easter I knew that olive oil in a sweet bread is not a strange but a very delicious idea.

The recipes which I found in the net where all made with a lot of yeast. As this is something I don’t like so much, I decided to use some of my sweet starter as preferment, as I was feeding it anyway to make it strong for the Pandoro I plan to bake. The sweet starter is so mild, that even with this long fermentation it just gives a complex flavour to the bread, but with no sour tones. It harmonize very well with the orange flavour and the subtle spiciness of the olive oil.

 

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October 31st, 2015

Reformationsbrötchen

Reformationsbrötchen (1)I can not tell how I learn about the Reformationsbrötchen (reformation rolls). But the idea somehow stuck in mind and so I had to bake them just in time for the 31. October (Reformation day).

This rolls originate from the area around Leipzig and are baked in Saxony, Thüringen and Saxony-Anhalt. It is made from a buttery yeast dough enriched with a lot of raisins, candid orange and lemon peel and almonds. The square form with the red jam in the middle is said to symbolize either the Luther rose, the seal of Martin Luther, or a bishops hat.

My variant is made with a biga preferment for a complex flavour and is rich with raisins and almonds. The candid orange and lemon peel I added in a smaller amount. The crumb is soft and moist due to cream and butter and the tart cherry jam is a great counterpoint to the sweetness of the dough and fruits. A great pastry for the last day of October.

 

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April 5th, 2015

Schiacciata di Pasqua

Schiacciata (1)Sometimes you stumble over a recipe and then it catches you so much, that you change all your plans just to bake it. For me this happend when I read about the Schiacciata di Pasqua, the Tuscan Easter bread similar to Panettone. It is baked with olive oil, what tempted me very much. And because I was feeding my sweet starter anyway to bake a Colomba pasquale I decided to make to festive breads for Eastern in parallel.

For my recipe I checked many formula available in the net but had to realize that the amount of olive oil varies a lot. At the end I placed my recipe somewhere in the middle. A little change to the original formula is that I avoided to add anise seeds which I do not like at all. But I added them in the recipe in brackets, because the traditional Schiacciata di pasqua has to contain these seeds.

It is a very delicious bread in the end, sweet with a subtle hint of olive oil and very slight sourness from the sourdough. The crumb can be teared into long fibers and is very light. A perfect gift for the family on Easter Morning!

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March 28th, 2015

Bread baking for Beginners VI: Zuckerplatz (Sweet Bread)

Zuckerplatz (2)Last weekeend I realized how near Eastern is when my mom told me on the phone about her plans of dyeing eggs with her kids at school. And so I changed my plans for the bread baking course and developed a sweet recipe perfect for the Easter Breakfast. It is a sweet bread called which is made with the biga preferement. The subtle acidity of it helps to strengthen the gluten network. For a tender crumb the dough contains cream, egg yolk and some butter. By replacing the butter with cream the dough can rise in the fridge if needed.

For all doughs with a lot of sugar or butter it is important to develop first the gluten network before butter and sugar. Both can inhibit the gluten development. The fat in the butter can coat the gluten proteins so that they can not connect with other gluten proteins to form strands while the sugar draw the water away from the proteins which again strongly reduce the forming of gluten strands. That’s why we will add the sugar in small increments after 10 min of intense kneading. You will realize while kneading in the sugar that the dough will become softer. This is due to the water which is no longer bound by gluten proteins because of the sugar. Continue reading

January 1st, 2015

Little Pigs (Glücksschweinchen)

Glücksschweinchen (2) The pig as lucky charm is very common in Germany on new years eve and new years morning.  They are called “Glücksschweinchen” which literally means “Lucky pig”. Often they are made with marzipan and used to decorate the table. For the first day of 2015 I baked in a muffin tin some little pigs made of sweet yeast dough.

I can not remember where I got the idea. A quick search in the internet just provided the side from the Doktor from Bielefeld but I’m quite sure that it was not this side… But wherever I got the idea in first place it is a very sweet one for sure!

I used the dough from my my new favourite braid (with some minimal modifications) because after some time in the fridge the dough is so easy to handle. And when you let the pigs rise long enough before placing the nose, eyes and ears on it they will not loose their face! And so you will have a delicious and sweet looking treat for breakfast, which hopefully brings good luck for whole 2015 for us!

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December 27th, 2014

Panettone (pure Sourdough)

Panettone (2)

When I bake my Sourdough Pandoro with the special (not sour) sourdough called sweet starter last year I knew already that I would have to make my own Panettone recipe for the following christmas. Similar to the Pandoro recipe I planed to build the dough in some steps so that the yeasts in the sweet starter would get used to sugar and fat which would help to let the dough rise fast. The sweet starter I kept during 2014 alive and baked rather a lot of different breads with him.

On 22. December I refreshed the sweet starter tree times to make him strong and fast rising. He was so strong and fast rising that he only needed two instead if three hours to double his volume when I started the sweet starter for the Panettone at the 23. in the morning. And even the sugar and the butter in the following first and second dough did not slow him down, and tripled its volume in 90 minutes instead of 2 hours. But anyway the third (and last) dough had to take 3 hours for rising because I had to run some errands. Coming home again I formed the Panettone (Susans Tip to grease hands and counter with a lot of butter is really helpful!) and during forming I calculated: I’m now two hours earlier then planned… but it will need about 12 hours at least to proof… and at seven in the morning I’m normally already awake. So there is no problem at all…

Panettone (3)At five o’clock the next morning, on my way to the bathroom, I quickly checked the Panettone in the kitchen. And turned the oven on. Ten hours were what they needed to reach the rim of the form. And who needs sleep?

One hour later the panettone was already hanging between two chairs and I crawled back into bed to have another little nap. Later that day we took some pictures and sliced one cake. And it was so delicious: soft and fluffy, the crumb could be teared into long strands, flavours of orange and vanilla and subtle, but complex notes from the sweet starter. And it keeps fresh for a long time, we eat one with my family on the first christmas day, and had some on second christmas day as well and it still tasted like freshly baked. It is a fussy cake and I could less sleep then normal but it is worth everything! It is the perfect christmas cake!

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December 13th, 2014

Santa Claus Bread

DSC_2740

My entry for the christmas party in the lab looked like that: Bread (of course homemade). That was an easy decision. It was more difficult to decide what to bake. We are a very international team and everyone should bring something special from his country. And so I decided to honour the swabian part of my family history and baked pretzels. For the second kind of bread I chose my favourite bread. With this dough you can do every “mischief” you can imagine when forming a bread. And so I decided to bake a Santa Claus bread. I saw similar breads before but I did not like the fact that they were painted with food colouring and the way how they were formed did not fit to my ideas complexly either. But I had my own ideas already…

… and the ideas worked well and the breads turned out to be the most photographed part of the buffet. And one colleague asked me to bake such a bread for christmas eve  for her (what I will love to do).

About the bread itself I can just repeat what I said before: It is delicious crusty with a soft crumb and great flavour.  It is my personal favourite. And that makes it a good candidate for Michas new permanrnt blogevent where she looks for “Undiscovered Blog Buster” (german: Der Unendeckte Blog Buster =DUBB)!

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November 8th, 2014

Weckmann

Weckmann

The Weckmann is a tradtional bread baked in germany between Saint Martins Day and Christmas. In the Rhineland they are given to children after the Saint Martin procession.

It is five years ago since I posted the last Weckmann recipe.  I baked them than for my first blogbirthday. This year I felt that I would like to try a new recipe, with cream, egg yolk and a biga as preferment. The cream makes the dough very tender and the dough is easy to handle, too. And using cream instead of butter makes it easy to let the dough rise in the fridge, so you can bake them freshly the morning if needed.

They have a tender crust and soft crumb and a perfect to enjoy them together with a cup of hot cacao.

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October 24th, 2014

Stollen 2014: It’s time to start planning

Saftiger Stollen

One thought hits me every year out of the blue at the End of October: Its only a month left till advent! And because my family has the tradition to eat christstollen at the first advent Sunday, I have to start my stollen baking early enough because a good stollen needs two to four weeks storage to develop the perfect flavour!

The recipe I use is unchanged since five years and I will use it this year again.And when I stop changing recipes then this means something! In the last years I collected my recipe, tips and tricks on the blog. Last year I although added two variants of my stollen which I baked ADDITIONALLY to the traditional one.

To give you a guide to recipes and tips is here a overview: Continue reading