Tag Archives: Anfänger

April 26th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners X: Spelt Rye Bread

Category Bread, Bread baking for beginners, hand kneaded Tags: Anfänger, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Poolish, Rye, Spelt, wheat free 63 Responses

So here is now the promised Spelt bread. I know that many of the readers of this blog like to bake with spelt, but baking with spelt flour is a little bit more challenging then baking with wheat flour, so the recipe comes relatively late in my bread baking course.

Spelt is closely realted to wheat. But there are two thing to keep in mind when working with spelt. Flour made from spelt contains a different composition of gluten proteins which finally results in a more fragile gluten network. This makes it easy to “over knead” spelt dough, meaning that the dough is kneaded longer then it takes to obtain full gluten development which ends in breaking down the gluten network once again. Due to this fact I prefer to knead spelt dough by hand which gives me a better control then kneading with the kitchen machine. If kneading with the machine it is important to keep a close eye on the dough and testing the gluten development by the window pane test. Intervall kneading (kneading shortly with breaks in between) can be handy as well. Continue reading →

April 3rd, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners VII: Soy yoghurt roll

Category Bread baking for beginners, hand kneaded, Rolls Tags: Anfänger, Hand kneaded, lactose free, only with yeast, tierfrei 5 Responses

Today we jump back once again to simple recipes without preferment because I got some mails asking if the sourcream or yoghurt can be replaced somehow to make the recipe free of lactose or vegan. The obvious idea was to replace the yoghurt with soy yoghurt and that was what I was suggesting. But I don’t like to advice something I did not tested and so I bought some soy yoghurt. And just repeating a recipe is borrowing and so I started to create a new recipe. It contains a bit of rye flour which adds a hearty note to its flavour, the soy yoghurt give subtle sourness to the rolls. The crust is crisp, the crumb soft. And I can say that exchanging yoghurt with soy yoghurt works perfectly well!

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March 28th, 2015

Bread baking for Beginners VI: Zuckerplatz (Sweet Bread)

Category Bread, Bread baking for beginners, Special Occasions Tags: Anfänger, Biga, Eastern, only with yeast, Orange, Perlzucker, Raisins 13 Responses

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 →

March 20th, 2015

Bread baking for beginners V: Potato rolls with Biga

Category Bread baking for beginners, Rolls Tags: Anfänger, Biga, only with yeast, Potatoes 26 Responses

I mentioned already once or twice that I like to at potatoes into bread dough. In combination with a preferment they make the crumb soft and fluffy.

A classic preferment consist of flour, water, sometimes salt and microorganisms. In a sourdough the microorganisms are different lactobacteria and yeasts, while in a biga, poolish or pâte fermentée you will find bakers yeast (because you added them). A preferment will ferment for some time (mostly 12-16 hours) and in this time the microorganisms will release byproducts of their metabolism into the preferment. That makes the flavour of the dough (and later of the bread) complex and deep.

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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 →

March 6th, 2015

Baking for Beginners III: Rolls

Category Bread baking for beginners, Bread baking theory, Rolls Tags: Anfänger, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Poppy seeds, Sesame, Über-Nacht 95 Responses

To me, the basic of good breakfast is a good roll. And so we are baking rolls in part three of our little bread baking course. These rolls are looking more complicated then they. For shaping we will use the same method then for the bread we baked last time. And already after 15 minutes the rolls are deeply cut, which is much easier than cutting a fully proofed roll. The cut is carefully laid together and will open beautiful during baking.

For a good volume the recipe uses on the on hand some fat and the lecithin from egg yolk and on the other hand a good kneading. For kneading such a firm dough I knead like that: I press the dough with the heel of hands away from my body. Then I draw the dough back to my body with my fingers. While kneading you need patient because it takes 10 minutes to reach middle gluten development. So turn on some music and knead ahead. At the end the dough should is soft but not sticky.

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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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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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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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August 31st, 2013

Farmers Bread for Beginners

Category Bread, Bread baking theory Tags: Anfänger, How to do, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Rye 133 Responses

How to start baking bread? I remember that I started with searching for a recipe and just simple following the instruction. I can’t tell you anymore which recipe it was (it was before I started blogging) but I knew that it was far away from being perfect. But I already cached the bread baking virus.

Every now and then readers and friends asked me which of my recipes they should use for their first bread. I send Friends and colleagues, which I can provide with sourdough, directly to my favourite wheat and rye bread, which has an easy to handle dough. But giving sourdough to readers is not as easy and so I developed another recipe.

It is made with Pâte Fermentée as preferment. It is a preferment which did not need a lot of care. You mix it, you put it in the fridge, you wait for at least twelve hours. No fussing about the right temperature or the need of using it while on its peak.

The dough is easy to handle and instead of scoring the loaf, you can press it down with the handle of a wooden spoon, which creates the niece pattern on the loaf on top of the pile. But it is a bread which is great for experienced bakers as well. I used it with great success for making loaves decorated with roses for the 90. birthday of my boyfriends grandmother.

And at the end it tastes great, as well. It has a soft, fluffy crumb under a crisp crust. It has a mild aroma with complex flavour profile due to the preferment.

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