March 13th, 2011

Sweet Hörnchen

Category Rolls  Tags: , ,   23 Responses

süße Hörnchen

When I was small I loved to eat “Hörnchen” for breakfast. This crescents made of a sweet dough are still a favourite treat when we sometimes have breakfast at the cafe that is attached to my favourite bakery.

I don’t know why I never baked them at home. Somehow this idea did not occur to me. But last weekend I changed this sad fact and baked “Hörnchen”. They are so easy to do!

I decided to prepare a sweet yeast dough with pâte fermentée for more aroma and structure and water roux for a soft crust and a fluffy cumb.

And when I drew them out of the oven I knew that they are success. The crust is soft, the crumb fluffy and the taste is great. I love them for breakfast on Sunday, spread with honey from a local beekeeper. Continue reading →

March 6th, 2011

Nut triangles

Category Cake & Pastry  Tags: ,   6 Responses

NusseckenSometimes the simple things are the best. For me Nut triangles belong to this categorie for sure  – the only time comsuming part is dipping the edges in molten chocolate. Who – like me – loose the patient after dipping half of the triangles can decorate the triangles with graphical patterns. That looks nice, is much faster and taste as good as the one with the nicely dipped edges.

I based my variation on the recipe I found in “Handbuch fürs tägliche Backen”. I doubled the amount of dough and filling because I never menage to fill a whole baking sheet with the amount given in the recipe andI reduce the over all sugar amount.  Instead of using chopped nuts I ground half of the using the coarse grater of my kitchen machine. And the greatest change is that I used quince jelly instead of apricot jam something that tastes very good. Continue reading →

March 4th, 2011

Yoghurt Rolls with caramelized Hazelnuts

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

Haselnuss-Joghurt-Brötchen

The Yoghurt Whole Wheat Toast, a Variation of my Whole Wheat Sandwich-Bread that Lutz baked make me longing of a Yoghurtbread or Roll. Yoghurt in bread is something delicious. As a Breakfast roll we like the yoghurt sesame rolls very much. But always the same kind of rolls is boring and so I decided to bake some similar rolls but this time with whole spelt flour, some honey and caramelised hazelnuts – that is a delicious mixture.

When you prepare the caramelized hazelnuts I can recommend to make more then the recipe asked for. Then you can snack some and put some in the dough. I had to struggle with myself not to eat all of the nuts at once – they are so good! I roasted the nuts in the oven instead of roasting in a pan to get  more even roasted nuts.

The rolls are as delicious as I hoped for, slightly tartish from the yoghurt with a distinct sweetness from the honey and the nuts.

Continue reading →

February 27th, 2011

Spelt Buckwheat bread

Category Bread  Tags: , , ,   15 Responses

Dinkel Buchweizen BrotThis bread has a  “black spirit”. Black beer, dark molasse and “black wheat” (aka Buckwheat) create a nearly black crust and a deep brown crumb. The crumb looks much darker then you would guess from the amount of about 50% whole grain.

The recipe is a kind of using up leftovers. Breadcrumbs made of dried stale bread slices, some dark beer leftover from weekeend cooking and some leftover buckwheat flour which I broughed home from the summer holidays in the Lüneburge Heath (where buckwheat is still grown).

Buckwheat is an old crop, that grows well on low-fertility soil, thats why its often found to be grown in regions like heath. From the botanical view it is no grain but the fruit of a plant from the “knotweed family” (Polygonaceae). The flour contains no gluten so it should added in a low amount to bread doughs. Continue reading →

February 20th, 2011

Engelskirchener Landbrot

Category Bread, Bread Baking Day  Tags: , ,   23 Responses

Vollkornbrot mit 3 VorteigenFinding recipes for the 37. Bread Baking Day was an easy task for me – it was much harder to make a decision what I want to bake because the topic “Bread with preferment/sponge” is really my kind of bread making. Nearly all breads and pastry I bake are made with one or more preferment.  One very delicious is JT’s Rustic bread with three preferments. It use three diffrent Preferments: Poolish, Biga, Sourdough. And this three diffrent preferments create an incredible tasty bread.

For my entry for BBD I planed something similar. Poolish, sourdough and Pâte fermentée make this bread very aromatic. With a nutty taste of whole wheat and the complex flavours of the preferments with a mild acidity in the background. The bread has a fine crumb and a thick crisp crust.

To get a nice crisp crust I used the convection modus of my oven and opend the door slightly ajar, so that the steam can escape and the cust becomes crisp. Continue reading →

February 19th, 2011

Sweet Curd Braid

Category Bread  Tags: , , ,   35 Responses

Quarkzopf I like Braids – the one made of dough, my hair is to short for braiding Smiley – and you can see this in my blog, too. I bake already a six strand braid, the fluffy Egg-Bread, Challahs  with and without Lactose or flavoured with orange liquor , and  a zopf filled with nuts.

A slice of fluffy soft Zopf with some homemade marmelade and a big cup of café au lait – is there a better way to start a sunday morning?

For some days there was an idea floating through my brain of a braided bread made with curd. And last weekend I finally put this idea into practice and baked a two stranded braid. Like in most of my Braid-Recipes I used a Pâte Fermentée, because this adds aroma and structure to the bread. And the curd adds a slightly sure taste and makes the crumb niecly soft.

Continue reading →

February 13th, 2011

Question about Dough

Category Bread baking theory  Tags:   32 Responses
Fragen
There are a different methods for making a Dough: Kneading by hand, Folding, kneading with a kitchen machine? Which method is the best?

In my eyes there is not “best” method, each method will develop a gluten network and that’s what we aiming for. So it is up to you to choose the method you like most.

When Kneading by Hand I like to use  Bertinets kneading technique because you will get fast a nice developed dough. Continue reading →

February 8th, 2011

Flaxseed Rolls

Category Rolls  Tags: , ,   8 Responses

Leinsamenbrötchen

I like rolls with seeds. And flaxseeds are always fine. And so I like the idea of spelt flaxseed rolls wich Ulrike posted on Küchenlatein very much but I prefer recipes with less yeast and a preferment. And I had no spelt in the pantry, so i decided to bake some wheat flaxseeds rolls using my own recipe.

The dough contains a Pâte fermentée and is slightly softer then the recipe that Ulrike used. The dough is still easy to handle and to form the rolls is easy. Just flatten the dough thinly and then roll it into a log.

Half of the rolls I cut in length wise like Ulrike the rest I cut two times in an angle of about 15°  like you would cut a baguette.  The lengthwise cut allow the roll to expand mainly in the width, while the diagonal cuts keep the tension that was created while shaping the roll and so the roll expand in the width and high during the oven spring. I like the diagonal cuts more, to be honest, they gave a nice look to the bread and the shape is more pleasing. I use them most of the time when cutting oval breads and rolls.

The rolls are tasty, aromatic with a nice crumb and good crust but I miss the nut like taste of whole wheat. The next time I would replace 20% of the flour with whole wheat flour. Continue reading →