Category Archives: hand kneaded

March 14th, 2015

Breadbaking for Beginners IV: Buttermilk Loaf

Category Bread, Bread baking for beginners, hand kneaded Tags: Anfänger, Buttermilch, only with yeast, Rye 53 Responses

The next recipe for beginners is a bread made with buttermilk and some rye flour. These ingredients make the bread hearty and if you proof the dough over night in the fridge, the flavour will be even more complex. But if you need a fast bread, it is possible to let the dough rise for one hour instead.

In contrast to the other breads we prepared in the little series, the dough will be a little bit sticky after kneading. This is due to pentosane in the rye flour and because of the higher water content. When kneading sticky dough I tend to leave the dough in the bowl and knead the dough by pulling the sides of the dough into the middle. One hand holds the bowl, the other do the folding. After 10 minutes the dough should come together nicely and can easily pulled away from the bottom of the bowl. Continue reading →

February 27th, 2015

Bread baking for beginners II: Simple bread

Category Bread, Bread baking for beginners, hand kneaded, Overnight Tags: Anfänger, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Über-Nacht 79 Responses

I got a lot of positive feedback to my idea of making a small virtual bread baking course. I’m very happy about it and will start to post more beginner recipes on the blog in the next weeks. And if you have questions, ideas or wishes: Please tell me! I will do my best to include it.

The bread we will bake today is a simple one, and similar to the recipe last week it is a “no kneading” bread. The dough rises overnight in the fridge and we can concentrate on forming the loaf. For a plus on flavour I added some rolled oates.

The bread is baked seam side up. The seam is created when forming the bread and is the weak point where the crust can expand during the oven spring (the rising of the bread in the oven). This is important because it ensures that the bread can rise to its maximum and helps to create a bread with a good volume, good crumb and good look, too.

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February 14th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners I: Sour Cream Rolls

Category Bread baking for beginners, hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Schmand, Über-Nacht 114 Responses

For quit some time I have an idea in my mind. I would like to start a small series of blog post with recipes and explanations for bread baking beginners where the single posts build on each other, explaining all the basics need. I would start with rather fast and simple recipes without kneading or forming and end with more complex recipes with a preferment.

What do you think? Would this be interesting for you?

For the beginning I come up directly with a recipe. It is a recipe for rolls made with some sour cream. They are delicious with a crisp crust and a soft crumb and perfect for breakfast on lazy weekends.

For me, baking these rolls is a good start to begin with bread baking. There is no kneading or shaping involved, only some time is needed because the dough rise overnight in the fridge. But we are sleeping during this time anyway so it does not matter so much. This long cold rise has some advantage. The gluten (that are the proteins that keeps wheat based dough together) can develop without kneading, the rolls develop a deeper flavour because of fermenting by-products which the yeast releases into the dough and the next morning we only need another 45 min between preparing the rolls and pulling them from the oven.

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January 18th, 2015

Pure Spelt

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Brühstück, Cold Autolyse, Hand kneaded, Poolish, Spelt, wheat free 47 Responses

A reader asked for pure spelt recipe here on the blog and I realized that there a only few and that recipes without sourdough are even fewer. And so I baked a pure spelt bread last weekend. It is a light bread with a little bit whole spelt flour, a poolish and a long rise to enhance the flavour. I put the whole spelt floor into the poolish, so it had enough time to soak properly. Another part of the flour I mixed with water and placed it overnight in the fridge. The next morning I mixed the autolysed dough together with the poolish and a hot soaker. The hot soaker prevents the dough from baking dry, an often occurring problem with pure spelt bread.

The bread turned out to be a highlight: Great oven spring, crisp crust, soft crumb and a fantastic flavour.

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October 26th, 2014

Wheat Spelt Baguette

Category hand kneaded Tags: Baguette, Hand kneaded, Poolish, Sourdough, Spelt, Wheat No Responses

This Weekend I planed to bake the Baguettes which Sara posted on her Blog. But when I mixed the poolish I ran out of white flour. It was already late evening, it was cold and raining and I did not want to leave home again to run to the supermarket. Instead I checked what was left: rye flour was no alternative, but white spelt flour and a darker wheat flour was looking very good. And because the planed recipe was now out of discussion I mixed a bigger batch sourdough with the darker wheat flour and made an autolysis dough with the spelt flour.

The next morning I kneaded the dough by hand and let it rise for the hours at room temperature with some folds in between. Then we left home to buy and plant some apple trees with my spouses parents. When we came home late afternoon I heated the oven and formed the dough to baguettes. When I pulled the loaves from the oven they smelled divined. So we ate one while still warm. And it tasted as good as it smelled. Crunchy crust, middle open crumb and a deep, complex flavour due to the two preferments and the cold fermentation. A unplanned bread which turned into a favourite!

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October 19th, 2014

Quinoa Baguette

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Baguette, Hand kneaded, Quinoa 7 Responses

The pseudo grain quinoa is a fast side dish I like to make instead of rice. The flat seeds stems from the Andens and are packed with protein and minerals and they are delicious! So I was directly hooked when I saw a bread made with a relative high percentage of quinoa because they contain no gluten. Sadly I can not remeber anymore, where I saw the bread. But I could not get the thought of quinoa bread out of brain and so I decided today spontaneously quinoa baguettes.

I used 30% of home milled quinoa and was surprised how well the dough behaved. It needed a little bit more water then I expected but after some folds it developed a good gluten network. The flavour of quinoa was well recognizable when I knead the dough and while baking the whole kitchen was filled with the aromatic nutty smell. I was really exited when I cut the bread after cooling down. The crumb is not as open as a baguette but moist and flavourful. The nutty taste harmonizes perfectly with some goat cheese and honey mustard!

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September 14th, 2014

Potatoe Bread (not only for Beginners)

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Altes Brot, Anfänger, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Potatoes, Rye 28 Responses

Vanessa asked for beginner frindly recipes and so reminded me that it s about time to post such another beginner recipe . And so I started to create a recipe which can baked without a lot equipment. And that I could use up the potato flakes which I had in the cupboard since christmas is a bonus point!

Potato flakes are great for beginner breads because they can bind a lot of water so the bread will be moist without struggling with sticky dough. You can either order them online or use organic instant mashed potatoes which contains mainly potato flakes plus salt and some spices (I used the one from Alnatura).

For some extra flavour I added a Pâte Fermentée and a stale bread soaker made from toasted stale bread. This adds a lot of roasting flavour to the bread.

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August 3rd, 2014

Kefir rolls

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Honey, Kefir, Über-Nacht 6 Responses

I own milk kefir grains since some months. In such a kefir grain you can find a lot of different lactic acid bacteria and yeast and making homemade kefir is even more easy then making yoghurt. You just have to put the grains into milk and leave them for about 1 day. It is a fresh, slightly sparkling refreshment – especially during summer – and is good for health, too.

Like always I ended at some point whisking to put this milk product into a bread dough. And so I bake delicious kefir buns this weekend. I made a no-knead version, it just involves mixing the dough and let it rise over night. The next morning I rolled the dough into a long band, rolled it up into a long log and cut it into pieces. That is way faster then rolling each part up alone.

I baked them seamside up and they crack open very nicely along the seam during baking. They have a rather soft crust and moist crumb similar to my favourite Yoghurt rolls. Some Emmer flour gives the rolls a nutty flavour and the kefir adds a certain freshness to the buns.

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June 27th, 2014

Light Spelt Bread

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Hand kneaded, Poolish, Sourdough, Spelt, wheat free 43 Responses

With the new oven I had to bake a bread immediately. I didn’t have a pure spelt bread for some time and so I decided that spelt bread should be the first bread baked in the new oven! With some sourdough and poolish for a good, complex flavour and a hot soaker to keep it moist.

But really existing was the moment when I placed the bread in the oven. I turned the oven to “Hydrobake”, which is the oven programm that traps the steam inside and throw some ice cubes inside to create some more steam. And then I sat in front of the oven and watch the bread rise the same way like other people would watch a thriller. The oven spring was indeed nicer then in my old oven. But the most impressing thing is the great colour and shine of the crumb which shows the importance of steam for a the maillard reaction.

I’m really happy with the new oven. And I’m happy with the bread as well. It tastes great, has a nice open crumb and a very crisp crust! It tastes so good, that I had no change to freeze one loaf because we it so fastly!

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June 24th, 2014

Sesame Flowers

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Anfänger, Hand kneaded, Mituns, Sesame, Über-Nacht 21 Responses

Some month ago, my colleagues had the idea that I should asked the editorial stuff of our coworker journal if they would like to publish one of my recipes. After some very nice mails I started to develop a recipe. And because I’m working in the botanical institute I decided to bake rolls in form of flowers.

The dough follows my favourite principles: a little bit yeast and a long fermentation in the fridge, which helps to build a great flavour.

And for all who do not read the “Mituns” (which should be most of you), here is the recipe which is printed in the current issue:

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