June 22nd, 2013

Rhubarb Syrup and Lemonade

Category Drinks  Tags: ,   4 Responses

Rharbarbersirup

One last recipe before the rhurbarb season is coming to an end…

In the last days summer shortly decided to turn on the heat, changing from 12°C at the weekend to 37°C during the week. When I come home after work, I’m always feeling very warm after a one hour ride in a train without air-condition. And so I started to prepare a elderflower lemonade similar to Virgin Hugo each evening and kept it in the fridge during the day. When I come home, it is well infused and refreshing cool.

But a girl needs a little bit of adventure in her life and everyday elderflower lemonade gets boring sooner or later. And that’s why I did not hesitated when I came across rhubarb in the supermarket this week. I made rhubarb syrup out of it and then used it to mix Lemonade. And this is very delicious, too. Not to sweet and not to sour, with a hint of vanilla. I’m now prepared for the next hot days!

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June 20th, 2013

Spelt Baguettes

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight  Tags: , , , ,   32 Responses

Dinkelbaguette

For me summertime is Baguette time. Or Wurzelbrot– and Ciabatta-Time. I just love to have a light bread together with a big bowl of salat for supper on hot days.

After I baked the delicious Baguettes a la Ridha Khadher I thought about trying a similar recipe with spelt. The gentle folding of the dough is perfect for the fragile gluten network of spelt dough. And so I kneaded the dough really short and then started to fold the dough repeatedly. When the gluten network was nicely developed,I put the dough in the fridge  for a long and cold fermentation.

This long and cold rise created a deep and complex flavour which I liked even more then the Kadher-Baguettes, because the spelt flavour adds another layer of complexity to the taste. It was a baguette with a lot of character. Or as my beloved partner (who’s normal praise for homemade bread is eating it rapidly but silent) said: “It is so delicious!”

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June 16th, 2013

Pizzadough (Overnight)

Category hand kneaded, main courses, Overnight, Tartes & Quiches  Tags: , , , ,   46 Responses

Pizza(3)I know, I know … there is already more than one recipe for Pizzadough on this blog. But this dough is so simple and good, I had to post this recipe as well.

It is a “What I have in the cupboard” recipe, when I was to lazy to go to the pantry to fetch another bag of wheat flour. So I used some leftover spelt flour instead. I mixed the dough and folded it for some times, and put it then in the fridge, similar to the Wurzelbrot or the baguette recipe. Very easy!

When I came home the next evening after a long workday, I started to prepare our pizza. And when I stretched the dough to a flat square I realized what a great idea it was to add some spelt. The spelt flour made the dough very easy to handle and to strech in form, while the long and cold fermentation creates a great flavour and big air bubbles in the dough during baking.

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June 13th, 2013

Spent grain rolls

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls  Tags: , , , , , , , ,   13 Responses

Treberbrötchen

Why did I take so long until I publish this recipe? I don’t know. Sometimes, when I’m short in time, I note down the  recipe and take a photo but do not blog it. And when time pass, the recipe vanish in the blog nirvana. And that’s what happend to this spent grain rolls recipe.

But luckily Alexandra asked me for a recipe for spent grain flour. And so I pulled out the recipe and freed it from dust.

And that is so good, because the rolls are delicious. The spent grain flour adds a nice roasted malt aroma to the slightly sour taste of the yoghurt and the long fermentation creates a complex taste.

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June 8th, 2013

Wurzelbrot

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight  Tags: , ,   31 Responses

Pain Paillaisse Friday afternoon I got a email from a reader, asking me for a recipe for a bread similar to Pain Paillasse. She send me the recipe she tried and which disappointed her. The recipe sounded not so bad, only the hydration was to low in my eyes. To archive a open crumb with a hydration from just 56 % is impossible. And so I tried to bake a bread using a modified version of this recipe.  I decided to use 19% more water, a varied dough preperation and a prolonged cold fermentation. Directly after reading the email I went in the kitchen and mixed the dough – the bread was baked about 24 hours later at this evening. And with these modifications I got a bread worth its name. A rustic looking, crisp crust, a slightly moist and open crumb and a mild aromatic taste due to the long fermentation. It is a perfect bread for the upcoming summer. Mix it one day and bake it the next day directly out of the fridge, no proofing required. And after baking enjoy it with a salad or bring it to a barbeque!

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June 4th, 2013

Rhubarb Cake

Category Cake & Pastry  Tags: ,   3 Responses

RhabarberkuchenAfter visiting my parents garden we came home carrying an arm full of tender rhurbarb. And because we can not always eat oven roasted rhubarb I decided to use one half for a cake – while I roasted the other half in the oven (I can not get enough of oven roasted rhubarb).

The cake is a variation of my grandmothers “Ribiselkuchen” (Ribisel is dialect for Johannisbeere (red currants)). It is made of a shortcrust pastry and a filling made of whipped egg white, sugar, almonds and rhubarb slices. It is a classical and good mixture, a balanced mixture of sweet and sour, soft and crisp, just the perfect, delicious cake for Sunday afternoons.

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June 2nd, 2013

Young Boar Crust

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight  Tags: , , ,   20 Responses

Frischlingskruste 1

I planed to call this bread “May crust”, hoping to lure the sun from behind the rain clouds we had all May long.  But then my boyfriends Mum came in our kitchen while the bread was cooling and exclaimed: “Your loaves look like young boars!” And from that moment on, we called them “Young Boar Crust”.

The beautiful young boar pattern is due to cutting the bread with short regular cuts, lengthwise to the loaf. I saw pictures of a similar bread on PIPs Blog and fell in love with the pattern directly. He did not specify how the cuts were applied on the bread and so I kept trying for three weeks until I finally get the hang of it! I already baked some baguette rolls with this pattern and now this Young Boar Crust.

The Bread is made with a mixture of wheat, spelt and rye. Two different preferments and a long, cold fermentation give a very complex taste to the bread. The crumb is very soft and the crust thick and crunchy. A great bread for both sweet and salty sandwiches.

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June 1st, 2013

Spring makes everything new!

Category news, Technical  Tags: ,   5 Responses

After more than four and a half year I felt that I need a little bit of spring cleaning in the blog. And maybe a little bit of redecoration, too.

I don’t know how to program a blog design, but my boyfriend knows it very well and so he build me a complete new theme after my design. And I did not only get a new look, he included some great features as well. When you click on the pictures in the header, you will now be redirected to the recipe. Isn’t that great? Continue reading →

May 26th, 2013

Baguette royal 2013

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight  Tags: , , ,   50 Responses

Baguette royale

The Newspaper Tagesspiegel published an article about Ridha Khadher, who’s Baguette was the only one which get 20 of 20 points in the Best Baguette of Paris award 2013. In the articel, Monsieur Khadher mentioned the ratio of water and flour (T65) he uses, and gave a rough overview about the procedure. It was enough for me to build a recipe out of that.

A intersting point was that he uses nearly ice cold water (5,6°C) and kneads his dough more then other recipes I knew. Then the dough rest for 24 hours in the fridge, which seems to be a very important point for great baguettes, because Anis Baboussa (Winner of the award in 2008)as well as Jean-Noël Julien (Winner of the award in 1995) and Jean-Pierre Cohier (Winner of the award in 2006) opt in their baguette recipes for a long and cold fermentation instead of using a poolish or levain. Continue reading →

May 19th, 2013

Spelt crowns

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls  Tags: , , , , , ,   10 Responses

Dinkelkrönchen I got the Idea to bake this little Spelt crowns, when Lena asked me if she could bake the Yoghurt Honey Whole Wheat Bread as rolls instead of a loaf. Of course you can do this, was my answer and I started to think that I could bake something like that, too! But I decided to change the recipe a little bit, using spelt instead of wheat and buttermilk instead of yoghurt. To improve the dough handling, I cut down the amount of liquid a little bit and decided to let the dough rise overnight. As form for the rolls I tried something I was thinking about now for some time. I used my kitchen scissors to cut small tips on top of the roll which form a little crown during the oven spring. Just take care to keep the cuts short enough otherwise very long and hart tips will form during baking, and eating a roll with sharp edges is no fun at all. The rolls turn out very well: Soft crumb, crisp crust, a complex aroma due to long fermentation and the combination of spelt and sweet honey harmonize very well. A roll for a royal breakfast…

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