Tag Archives: Butter

August 24th, 2016

Spelt Mice

Dinkel-Mäuschen (1)A reader told me about “Schulmäusen” (School mice), a small sweet roll filled with hazelnut praline. She tried to bake similar rolls in a spelt variant but struggled with them getting to dry. My brain worked a while on this idea in the background and came up with a recipe at the end – just in time for school start. As the name “Schulmaus” is a brand name, I decided to call my rolls Spelt mice and formed most of them like a mouse, too. But if you do not roll one end into a long tail, then you get the original form, too.

They are not a healthy snack, but a treat for small and big ones with a sweet tooth. The crumb is fluffy and the filling creamy – a good way to make school start a bit sweeter!

 

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June 25th, 2016

Kouign Amann

Kouign Amann (1)Butter is a staple in the Breton kitchen – which shows in the Sablé Breton. Another example for buttery Breton cake is Kouign Amann. It is made of a very rich croissant dough and the dough is then turned in sugar before forming. During the long baking time the sugar caramelize on the bottom of the cake to crackling layer, forms a sweet soft core in the middle of the cake and again caramelizes on the top.

My variant of this high caloric treat is a spin off of my actual sourdough croissant project. And while the croissant needs still a bit of tweaking, I’m more then happy with the Kouign Amann in this sweet starter variant. It is not a recipe for inpatient people, just the proof of the dough takes place over night at room temperature. But investing about 24 hours in this cake is more then worth, as this long proof creats a fantastic complex flavour with only a faint hint of sour. If you like palmiers, you will love the buttery caramelic Kouign Amann as well!

 

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May 28th, 2016

Witbrood

Witbrood (2)Björn posted a series of fluffy Netherland breads back in January. One of these Breads was the classical Witbrood. It looked temping soft and fluffy. I bake those breads rather seldom, but when we finally felt a longing for a fluffy bread, I decided to use Björns Bread as Inspiration. My Witbrood-Variant is made with a mild sourdough and 2% yeast. This is for me a rather high amount, but it helps to create a high risen bread in a considerably short time.

Due to the wheat sourdough it develops a fine flavour with lactic acid notes – like a good yoghurt. And so it is not clear to me, why this post sank down to the bottom of the “well of lost plots”. But I brought it back to the surface – and here it is, with just three month delay!

 

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May 1st, 2016

Honigreingerl

Honigreingerl (9)I met Honigreingerl some time ago and they trigger my “Have to bake” reflex of immediately.  They are small Austrian pastries which are filled with a honey and cinnamon mixture. In their crumb you can find many small openings filled with the flavour of honey and cinnamon.

Original the Honigreingerl are baked in a slightly higher form, but using a muffin tin and brioche forms work good as well. The dough is made with ten percent spelt flour like I used it in the Butterzopf recipe, as this makes rolling the dough easier. The other components of the dough are the “usual suspects”: Biga, some egg and butter – a guaranty for a fluffy crumb and good flavour. And so are my homemade Honigreingerl: a golden crust and a very fluffy crumb filled with the flavours of honey and cinnamon – a divine treat!

 

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April 23rd, 2016

Kieler Semmel 2

Kieler Semmel mit Vorteig (4)The first version of the Kieler Semmel was already catapulted into the first ranks of my personal best of list of blog recipes. And I planed directly to make a second version with preferment. And took me a while to come back to this plan but finally I bake them. I choose a preferment which enhance the gluten structure, a sweet starter or its cousin, which is made with commercial yeast – a Biga. And I opted for diastatic malt as I wanted to make the crust very crisp. This makes the recipe unsuitable for a cold overnight proof – a reason why I always shied away from diastatic malt before – a mistake as I knew now! The crust gains a lot through the enzymatic processes due to the malt, it is crisp but easier to bite at the same time. I get a better volume and fluffiger crust then the last time, too.

Helga, a reader from Kiel, suggested some changes in the form and gave me some advices on the intensity of the cinnamon flavour. I decided to use cylon cinnamon, which has a more subtle and complex flavour then the warm, but more acerbic and blunt flavour of Cassia. I added one gramm to the butter which yields a slight cinnamon note.  If you prefer a stronger cinnamon taste I would double this amount.

At the end, I have not to emphasise that I’m in love with this rolls, have I? They are maybe the most perfect rolls I bake (until now)!

 

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March 20th, 2016

Spelt Brioche

Dinkelbrioche (3)Here is –as I promised – the first spelt recipe (of hopefully many more). It is a variation of my brioche recipe, but with more egg yolk and a little water roux to increase the amount of liquid in the dough. A sweet starter adds flavour and helps a good rise.

When kneading to full gluten development, you have to keep a close eye on the dough, as spelt tends to be easily over kneaded. Especially when you use a new batch of flour it is a good idea to do a window pane test in between to test how far the gluten is already developed. It depends on the spelt variety, but perfect gluten development can be less then 30 seconds away from overkneaded .

But if you keep this in mind, then you will have a perfect light and fluffy dinkel brioche for breakfast on sunday morning!

 

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February 21st, 2016

Leftover Bread

Restel-Brot (1)Sometimes, the best bread happens rather unplanned. Like this bread, which is a kind of a left over bread. It started when I was thinking about what to do with the remaining part of the “aromastück” I prepared when baking the “Irländer”. In the fridge was a big batch of sweet starter  waiting to be fed, but it was to much to feed the whole amount, so using part of the unfed starter was needed, too. And in my flour cabinet I had nearly empty bag with rye, spelt and wheat flour. So why not combining everything to bake a bread?

The result is a classic every day bread with a soft crumb. The Aromastück adds a nice malty note and helps to keep it fresh for a long time while the unfed sweet starter adds subtle flavour notes that adds complexity to the aroma. A truly delicious bread that makes me think about new experiments with the aromastück.

 

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February 4th, 2016

Kieler Semmeln

Kieler SemmelKieler Semmeln are rolls which stem – as their name suggested – from Kiel. They are a special roll as they are rubbed in a mixture of butter and salt, which gives their surface a rough look and adds a nice buttery and sligthly salty flavour. There are different recipes around for this kind of rolls, some of the containing lard or cinnamon as well. Cinnamon seems to me a bit to adventurous for a first trial, but I keep this variant in the back of my head for a second version.

As dough, I chose something well-tried, which I changed only slightly. Some sourdough and a cold rise in the fridge adds complex aroma notes even without a preferment, which makes the rolls good for spontaneous “I want to serve rolls for breakfast”- Ideas on late evenings. The rubbing of the preformed rolls in the butter-salt-mixture needs a bit of practice but even if the dough dos not make perfect folds,  the recipe will still yields a delicous roll with fluffy crumb a crisp crust which crackles while cooling and which carries a hint of salt and butter.

 

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January 24th, 2016

Gaufres de liège with sweet Starter (Whole Spelt variant)

Vollkorn Lütticher Waffeln (1)Tired, but happy I look back on the last week. Tired because I came back very late Sunday night just to leave again on early monday to morning to a mass spectrometry training in Frankfurt. Luckily there was not as much snow as forecasted and all trains were in time. Thinking on the bread festival in Berlin makes me still smiling, as it was such a good experience. I’m very happy that I met some of my Readers there!

My short stop at home I used to freeze some bread I brought with me from our baking marathon (Spelt seelen and Wheat and rye bread). So our freezer was still well filled when I came home end of week. So there was no need for baking, but some of the starters demanded some feeding. So what to do with the left overs? As I keep part of my sweet starter on whole spelt flour at the moment I decided to bake my beloved gaufres de liège in a whole grain variant. Some Tonkabean in the dough added some slight marzipan and vanilla notes to the nutty and a bit tarter flavour of the whole spelt flour, rounding the aroma very nicely.

I enjoyed them very much together with a cup of black tea. They were a perfect treat for a relaxing weekend!

 

 

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January 9th, 2016

Pandoro – A Picture Story

Pandoro

The quite days between christmas and new years eve I like to spent with baking time consuming “cake”-breads. My favourite one is the golden Pandoro, who is a laborious with its preferments, but every time I’m so excited how high it rise and what flavour it develops.

This year I baked once again my pure Sourdough variant, which gains it strangth and complex aroma through the sweet starter. It needs more then 24 hours until it is done, but when the tender crumbs nearly melts in my mouth I always think: This feels like eating a cloud.

When I was baking the pandoro this year there was a question about the sweet starter: Does it really rise during fermentation? I looked at my starter who had trippled its volume in 2 hours and decided to snap a photo to show how it should look. And as I was taking photos I decided to follow the whole fermenting and proofing process with the camera. When the pandoro was baked and sat in the kitchen to cool, I checked the pictures on the computer and was very happy with my result. The pictures showed so well how the preferment dobuled, nearly trippled and how the Pandoro gained a nearly the a four times bigger volume during proofing and baking.

 

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