Tag Archives: Honey

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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May 24th, 2014

Honey Bread with Kamut

Category Bread Tags: Hand kneaded, Honey, Kamut, Sourdough 6 Responses

Old grain species like Einkorn, Emmer and Kamut enrich the diversity of bread flavours and gives us a lot of new possibilities for baking. When I thought about a theme for the ongoing Bread Baking Day I realized that I did not bake with these grains for a long time. And so I bought Emmer, Einkorn and Kamut on my next trip to the whole food shop.

Kamut is the trade name of the Khorasan wheat. As a genetical analysis from 2006 showed that its origin lies in the fertile crescent and that it stems from a natural cross between durum wheat and Triticum polonicum. Its flour has, similar to durum flour, a creamy yellow colour and can be used similar to wheat flour.

Because kamut is rather expensivI normally mix wheat flour with kamut flour, and so I did in the bread, too. The honey I added to the dough pairs very well with the mild yoghurt flavour of my very active sourdough and the nutty nuance from the Kamut. The honey although enhance the dark crust colour while some stretch and fold cycles helps to create an open crumb.

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October 26th, 2013

Apple Hazelnut Rolls

Category Overnight, Rolls Tags: Apple, Honey, Nuss, only with yeast, Über-Nacht 9 Responses

And here is already the second recipe for freshly baked breakfast rolls. They need – similar to the last recipe – only a short time in the morning until they are ready to bake, but need a little bit more attention the evening before when the dough is prepared. The apple has to be peeled and cut, the soaker has to be made and the nuts hast to be roasted and cut. But the rolls are worth the effort! They are slightly sweet due to honey and apple with the deep flavour of roasted nuts and hazelnut oil, combined with the complex flavour of the long, slow rise over night.

That I soaked the apple pieces together with the rolled oats in boiling water was done by purpose. The apple I use is from an old variety (presumably Jakob Lebel) and turn brownish as soon as you cut them. This change in colour is due to the reaction of an Enzyme in the cells which are demaged by cutting the fruit. To scald the apples with boiling water denatures the enzymes and turns them inactive, so the apple pieces will not turn brown.

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September 14th, 2013

SpeWaBu

Category Bread Tags: Buttermilch, Honey, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Spelt, Walnuss, wheat free 22 Responses

As soon as the temperature drops below 20°C, I feel the urge to bake whole grain breads. And a bread with nuts seems to fit perfectly to the season. I picked whole spelt flour, walnuts and buttermilk – a favourite combination for bread. And while I was thinking about a Name I suddenly hat to think about the story of Robbi, Tobbi and the FlieWaTüüt. The FlieWaTüüt in the book was called so, because it could fly (german: FLIEgen), it could swim on the Water, and drive like a car (the Tüüt was the sound of its horn). And with this story in mind I called the bread SpeWaBu (Spelt, Walnut, Buttermilk).

It is a bread that can convince even people who do not like spelt or whole grain so much. It stays moist due to a hot soaker and the buttermilk helps to form a soft and surprisingly fluffy crumb. It has a mild aromatic taste which pairs well with cheese or honey.

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June 23rd, 2013

Bread with Wild Yeast from Honey

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Honey, Raisin sourdough, Wildhefe 30 Responses

I baked already with wild yeast before it get popular in the different bread baking discussion boards. But then the wild yeast was still called “Raisin Sourdough”. After the first test I did not spent a lot of thoughts on this kind of yeast. The theory worked, so I started with new experiments…

Until I read about a “Apple Wild Yeast” somebody grew in store bought pasteurized apple juice. But as we all should knew is pasteurizing a methode for conserve food. And that works by shortly heating up the juice (or milk or what ever) to kill all microorganisms. And that means, that even the precious “wild yeast” in apple juice is dead!

So what is growing in this apple juice? In most of the recipes, a spoon full of honey is added to the mixture. And as I explained before a lot of nectar is yeast can be found in honey. These nectar yeast start to ferment the honey as soon as the honey is diluted with water. This principle is used for brewing mead. Sometimes apple juice is added to the honey as a nitrogen source to speed up fermentation. But it can also be done only with water and honey. And so I started to think about growing wild yeast from honey…

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May 19th, 2013

Spelt crowns

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Buttermilch, Hand kneaded, Honey, only with yeast, Spelt, Über-Nacht, wheat free 10 Responses

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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December 21st, 2012

Pepparkakaor

Category Christmas Cookies Tags: Almonds, Cardamom, Cinnamon, clove, Honey, Ingwer, Kokos, Malz, Walnuss 8 Responses

Is everyone still here? Or did the apocalypse happened somewhere?

In our little corner of the world the “weather precast for the apocalypse” did not come true (luckily). It is good that I bought my christmas presents already, now I will need them !

With 4°C and a lot of mist this day should be spend on the couch, snuggeled in a warm plaid with a cup of tea and some cookies. On my cookie plate I have some old friends as well as some new. A new recipe besides the Hazelnut Bars and Allspice hats is the recipe for swedian Pepparkakaor

This delicious recipe I found on My Italian Smörgåsbord and I had to try it. It is packed with nuts, spices, malt and honey and they are very delicious. The next time would just exchange the coconut with some hazelnuts, then they will be perfect for me!

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September 15th, 2012

Honey Spelt Bread

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight Tags: Hand kneaded, Honey, Sourdough, Spelt, wheat free 38 Responses

Some German Bloggers already baked Martins Honungssyrad råg with variations. He played with the recipe, too. For me, the recipe was not so tempting because once again I try to avoid rye to reduce my skin irritations.

But the recipe kept spining in my head. When I can not use rye, what’s about spelt, I asked myself. The combination of spelt and honey is something I like very much. And my sourdough starter was so lively after the last warm summerdays. And so I decided to bake a sourdough bread with honey and spelt.

It has nothing in common with Martins recipe anymore despite the fact that it contains sourdough and honey.

The bread dough is easy to handle, but you need a little bit of time management: The sourdough is prepared in the morning, the dough is kneed in the afternoon and the bread is formed in the evening. It proofs then overnight in the fridge and 24 hours later you pull a delicious smelling out of the oven.

The slight sweetness of honey fits perfect to the mild aroma of the spelt while the sourdough adds a subtle tartness.

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February 5th, 2012

Almond Honey Crescents

Category Cake & Pastry, Rolls Tags: Almonds, Honey, Sourdough, whole grain 8 Responses

At the moment I stay often very long in the lab to finish the missing Experiments of my thesis. Around late afternoon/ early evening I often get hungry when lunchtime was already 5 hours ago. And when I am hungry and tired I am lacking motivation and concentration. That’s not good if I plan to work another two hours!

To prevent this I baked some wholewheat almond-honey crescents for the coming week. The original Idea is from “Das große GU Vollwert-Kochbuch” but I changed the recipe so much in the last years that you can not recognize the original recipe anymore. I use more liquid and less yeast, I removed the soybean flour from the recipe and added a sourdough. The filling contains less butter, cinnamon and eggs but additional cacao and a pinch of salt.

I like the result very much: Delicious, filling with enough honey to give me a little more power. The long days in lab can come, I’m prepared now!

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April 9th, 2011

Bienenstich

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Almonds, Honey, only with yeast, Vanilla 18 Responses

Some weeks ago I promised my sisters fiancée to bake some Bienenstich (Bee sting) when we meet to drink coffee in their new house. But then I was busy in the lab and so I bake fast and easy nut triangles instead. The next time we planned to meet for cake and coffee I was ill and bake nothing at all. But when I was thinking about what to bake for my mums birthday last week the promised Bienenstich seemed to be perfect.

Bienenstich is a traditional german yeast cake topped with a crunchy almond layer and filled with a vanilla pastry cream

Because I like the taste that Pâte fermentée adds to a sweet yeasted dough I decided to vary my old recipe. And because my kitchen machine does not work so nice with small amounts of dough (everything less then 500g flour ) I decided to knead the dough completely by hand. That was a little bit difficult because the dough is very soft and tend to stick to hands and counter. But it is good to resist the temptation of adding more flour because the softness of the dough will result in a fluffy and soft cake. Continue reading →