Tag Archives: Water roux

March 22nd, 2012

Cheescake Squares

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Cake, Curd, only with yeast, Poolish, Water roux 6 Responses

In the next days I will post some recipes which are waiting to get on my blog since I started writing. This is the first one:

Sometimes inspiration will be followed by inspiration. That happened to me when Clair posted a comment to my almond honey crescents in which she wrote that the recipe inspired her to crescents with a cheesecake filling. This comment make me then think of this cheesecake squares.

The cheesecake squares are sweet pastry on basis of a rich yeast dough, made with a poolish for a complex flavour and water roux for a soft crumb.

The filling I used is similar to the filling of my favourite cheesecake recipe.

The cheesecake squares are a beautiful snack with a cup of coffee on a Sunday afternoons.

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March 20th, 2012

Fast Curd/Quark Rolls

Category hand kneaded, Rolls Tags: Auf die Schnelle, Curd, only with yeast, Water roux 10 Responses

I did it. I submitted my Ph. D. thesis yesterday. A great part of the work is now done. Now I have to prepare my defense in may. So I will prepare a talk and start reading paper and learning once again in some days. But at the moment I try to relax and enjoy the luxury of not writing 16 hours a day.

During this 16 hours-writing days in the last days before submission, baking bread had to be something fast. But to stop baking at all was no alternative, I needed it to keep myself grounded. The recipe for the Quark/Curd rolls is a fast one, at least in my eyes. It does not require a Starter, Poolish or Pâte fermentée , so you can immediately start with preparing the dough. It only require a Milk roux, which needs about half an hour for preparing and cooling down. I decided to call the Water Roux in recipes where I prepare it with milk “Milk roux”. It fits better to the ingredients used.

The fast curd rolls are very soft and stay fresh very long due to curd and milk roux. The curd give the roll a little tanginess, balancing the missing flavours from a starter or prefement. Perfect for days with less time!

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March 11th, 2012

Roll Rustiko

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Über-Nacht, Water roux 12 Responses

Christine mentioned in a comment to the Overnight-Krustis, that a recipe for kneading with hand would be nice. That is true, of course and so I tested for the next rolls a variation without kneading by a machine. Really kneading was not necessary either, because the gluten network was developed by folding the dough every 30 minutes for 2 hours. After folding 3 times the dough had a nice silky sureface, telling me that the gluten network was now fine.

For Forming the rolls I tried a new Idea. After folding the dough into a square I used my dough scrapper to cut it into smaller squares. After I placed the rolls on baking tray, I used the dough scrapper again, pressing it lengthwise for about 2/3 into the roll. Then I left the rolls to proof overnight. The next morning I just had to place the tray in the hot oven without fussing over slashing rolls. They had a nice ovenspring and cracked nicely along the imprint I made with the dough scrapper.

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March 1st, 2012

Sahne-Brioche

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Butter, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Über-Nacht, Water roux 27 Responses

Brioche, that is a featherlike Breakfast pastry. The recipes vary, from rich to very rich with more than 50% Butter and Egg in relation to the flour. That tastes good, but it’s really rich. So I hesitated to bake them, but then I thought about a leaner variation. My Brioche contains 2 Eggs for 500g flour and about 20% Fat from Butter and cream. I heated the cream with some flour for a Water Roux (or more correctly Cream Roux) so I could add a higher amount of liquid to the dough. The amount of yeast is very low so I could leave the dough to proof overnight on the counter.

I do not own Briocheforms, so I bake them in a Muffin pan. I do some as typical Brioche a tête and some as bubble top like in this recipe from Dorrie Greenspan I found on Bon Appétit. To prevent the brioche from sticking to the pan I placed each Brioche on a baking paper squares and transferred them with the paper into the pans.

Due to long kneading and water roux the crumb is soft and regular and can be tore into long fibres. The taste is complex, buttery and creamy – perfect for a sunday morning breakfast.

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February 24th, 2012

Overnight Krustis

Category Rolls Tags: only with yeast, Poolish, Über-Nacht, Water roux 32 Responses

And now I am posting the next overnight recipe. Dear readers, I am afraid that you have to get used to overnight recipes. As long as I’m writing as a maniac such a relaxing method for fresh breads or rolls is a good counter balance.

At the moment I try to find the perfect recipe for rolls which rise overnight on the counter. This time I baked “Krustis”, which I formed in the evening. In the morning I just had to place the tray in the oven, wait for 20 min and then I had some crispy rolls for breakfast. The rolls had a good ovenspring and a nice open crumb with a deep complex flavour. I really like them!

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February 19th, 2012

Fried dough: Geknotetes and Berliner

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Cinnamon, fried, Jam, only with yeast, Poolish, Water roux 6 Responses

I’m always relieved when the time of carnival lays behind us, as I told before. Sarah of Life ain’t no ponyfarm draws comics that perfectly shows how I feel during the “Fifth season”.

So only good thing in carnival for my opinion are the sweet pastry which is baked during the “jecken Tage”. And baking some kind of fried pastry is the only thing related to carnival I do each year. This year I did Berliner and something which my family calls “Geknotetes”.

This year I used a new recipe which I developed using Water Roux and Poolish for a extra soft crumb and for a aromatic taste. I made the Berliner small and proofed them shorter then last, which created a strong ovenspring which results in Berliner with the typical white “Collar” I am try to get for years. The other important thing is that the frying temperature should not be higher then 160°C.

For filling the Berliner I used the same construction as two years ago: a syringe which I combined with a 10 cm long cut of a drinking straw. That works like a charm and I don’t have to buy an extra filling tip.

I am a little bit proud of my Berliner this time, I never get this beautiful collars before and they tasted good, too.

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January 10th, 2012

Croissant Bread

Category Bread Tags: Butter, Sourdough, Water roux 21 Responses

Yes, this will be no post for all of us who new years resolution is healthy wholesome eating. And I have to admit that after one slice of this bread I head to it a lot of fruits and vegetables to save my conscience. But (and here are now the excuses why I baked it anyway) it was love on first sight and I need a complex bread for relaxing because of all the stress I have in the last month before starting to write my Ph.D. thesis.

The idea for this bread had TXfarmer who baked some time ago a “Lamminated Sandwich Bread”. Her bread looks better then mine, she really knows how to bake laminated pastry. Her Croissants are a dream! The dough is a soft sandwich bread laminated with butter. After a single and a double fold the dough is cut into stripes and braided.

I did some modifications so that the recipe fits better to the weaker german flour. And this time I mixed the butter for laminating with some flour to make the handling easier. It works good for puff pastry for me and it helps here, too.

And how tastes this bread? A soft and evenly open crumb with a divine taste of butter, like a good croissant.

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August 15th, 2011

Little Milk Braids

Category hand kneaded, Rolls Tags: Milk, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Water roux 19 Responses

The bakery in the small village in which we spend our vacation in East Frisia offered little braids made of a slightly sweet dough. They taste great with jam or honey or as a sandwich with cheese.

The kitchen of our small holiday home contained a oven. So I brought the most important things for baking with me: scale, bowl and my hands . And I tried to recreate the recipe for the little braids to take a little bit of our holiday memories back home.

I decided to use Pâte Fermentée as a preferment and a water roux for a fluffy crumb.

To make kneading more easy (I left the kitchen machine at home) I let the dough rest after mixing it together for 30 min – during this Autolysis the proteins in the dough are hydrated and developing a nice gluten network is then more easy.

The little braids are delicious – slightly sweet like the original and with a fluffy crumb.

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April 2nd, 2011

Korvapuustit – Finnish cinnamon rolls

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Cardamom, Cinnamon, lactose free, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Water roux 18 Responses

My colleagues are the best colleagues in the world and so I protested when they claim that I would NEVER bake cinnamon rolls for them. That is just partly true, but in the last month I bring nut triangles or cookies for our morning coffee break. And so its been a really long time since I bring cinnamon rolls.

So I promised to better myself and looked at the internet for a interesting recipe. A recipe that hooked me directly is the one for Korvapuustit – a Finnish cinnamon roll with a very nice shape. And I like cinnamon rolls with a nice shape! They remind me of Hamburger Franzbrötchen, who knows, maybe they are distant relatives?

Because two of my colleagues are lactose intolerant I create a recipe without dairy, similar to my lactose free challah, but with an additional Water roux to make the rolls more fluffy. And I included a for me essential spice for Scandinavian cinnamon rolls: cardamom.

When you serve them still oven warm with a cup of coffee then everyone will be happy! Continue reading →

March 13th, 2011

Sweet Hörnchen

Category Rolls Tags: only with yeast, Pâte fermentée, Water roux 23 Responses

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 →