Monthly Archives: May 2009

May 27th, 2009

Bagel

When I get my new copy of Bertinets “Crust” I discovered immediately the recipe for Bagels. It was one of the first recipes I had to try.

Since this time I baked bagels often, because we both like them very much and they are fast and easy to make. But in the last weeks I baked so much new recipes, that I neglected this recipe a little bit. So my boyfrind asked me this weekend, if I could make bagels again. Of course I could!

The dough is a very stiff one, so that the machine had to work very hard, but the good thing is, that you can work with the dough without sticking.

Another nice thing about bagels is, that you can refridgerate the formed bagels over night, at the next morning you just has to boil and to bake them, so you get fresh bagels for breakfeast without alot of work. Continue reading

May 25th, 2009

BBD#20: 4 grains bread with mixed seeds

The theme for Bread Baking Day No. 20 is “Multigrain Breads”. That is a perfect theme for me because I love the gain of flavor that the diffrent typs of grain give to the bread.

My first plan was to bake a bread containing a mixture of diffrent kinds of rice. I have a very nice mixture containing wild rice, red rice from camargue and unpolished rice. But while this mixture is delicious as a part of a meal, it get lost in the bread. Both the red rice and the unpolished rice could not stand up against the wholemeal wheat dough, neither in taste nor look. Only the wild rice gave nice dark spots in the bread. So I end up with quite normal tasting wholegrain bread, that did not live up to its promise. But luckily I had a Plan B: 4-grain-Bread containing wheat, spelt, corn (as polenta) and cooked oat, and my favorite mixture of seeds: Pumpkin seed, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds and sesame. I baked this bread before and know, that it taste delicious. Continue reading

May 22nd, 2009

Titanwurz-Update

 

Yesterday, my parents went to the botanical garden to have a look at the titan arum. At the evening, they send me an email with this picture and the question, what we did to this poor plant. 😉

Nothing, Dad. I am afraid that this is the circle of life.

 

Continue reading

May 21st, 2009

Challah

I am fear, that I am infected with the “baking braided Bread Fever”. After baking Eggbread two weeks ago, I had to try the next braided bread from “Advanced Bread and Pastry”. The Challah is a traditional jewish holiday bread, and my recipe is, as I learned now, not correct, because ist contains dairy products. But nevertheless it is a delicious bread.

The recipe is similar to the recipe for eggbread, yielding a bread with a nice pillowlike crumb.

This time I do a six-strand after this instructions. Continue reading

May 14th, 2009

Leek rolls

The last two days were very busy, so I came home so late, that I was to tired to cook. Yeasterday I stayed in lab untill 10 pm, and all I eat for dinner were some cookies, one Hanuta and some indian salty snacks. Not a balanced diet! 🙁

But today I left on time at 5 pm. Having a look in the fridge I saw that the leek really need to be used! But both of us did not like to the Idea of quiche, so I had a look at Chefkoch.de and found a recipe for leek-rolls. The dough is not so nice, using to much yeast and butter instead of olive oil, so I decided to use my favorite pizza dough. But the filling sounds very delicous, containing sour cream, cheese and leek. Continue reading

May 9th, 2009

Raspberrymousse Torte

My Boyfrind complained some days ago, that I bake always bread, but never a torte. Well, I fear that it’s true because I do not like tortes so much. But I own a tiny little springform with a diameter of 18 cm since Chrismas (Thanks Erika and Alwins :-D), a perfekt Size for a small torte for two.

And because I was looking for something for the Jubiläums-Blogevent from Zora (1x umrühren bitte), I could hit two birds with one stone.

I proudly present: A mini-torte. Continue reading

May 8th, 2009

Eggbread

Hätte man mich vor einer Woche gefragt, welches für mich das perfekte Zopfrezept ist, hätte ich dieses genannt. Doch bereits als ich das erste Mal durch “Advanced Bread and Pastry” blätterte, fiel mir das Rezept für Eggbread ins Auge. Besonders die Tatsache, das es im Onlineteil des Buchs eine Anleitung für einen acht-strängigen Zopf gab, reizte mich.

Und dann hat Susan von Wild Yeast für BBD #19 Eggbread gebacken, und beim Betrachten der Bilder war es um mich geschehen. Dieses Brot mußte gebacken werden, so schnell wie möglich :-D. Und natürlich mußte es die achtstängige Variante sein.

Das Flechten war dadurch  etwas unübersichtlich, und gegen Ende habe ich den Überblick verloren. Dadurch ist der Zopf nicht so schön geworden, wie ich in mir vorgestellt hatte. In Zukunft werde ich doch wieder sechs-strängig flechten!

Aber die Krume, die Kruste, der Geschmack – was für ein Gedicht! Die Krume ist flaumig-weich, die Kruste ist weich, ein Brot mit einem wunderbaren Aroma! Continue reading

May 7th, 2009

Buttermilk Honey Bread

These week I found in a forum the statement from an experienced user that dough should not ferment after kneading but have just a short periode of resting (about 30min). A conclusion I disagreed very energetic, because in my opinion the first fermentation is necessary for giving flavor to the dough and strenghend the gluten. (The dough we discussed about was a dough with 2 % fresh Yeast and a mixture of whole wheat flour and white flour)But to my disappointment he gave me no reason for his opinion, he refused to discuss the topic with me, he just give me the feeling, that I am so stupid that I do not know about this.

So this statement left me puzzled and I read and reread a lot in my baking books, but all of them have fermentation periodes (1 hour and longer) and the explanation I learned: the dough gaines flavour and strength while fermenting. At the moment I have no reason to change my recipes.

But I would like how you handle your dough, and why? Do you just rest him (not more then 30 min, dough rise not visible) or do you ferment him (around 1 hour, dough double his volume)?

But I did not spend my week just discussing about fermentation, I also bake bread, of course with a fermentationperiode of 1 hour 😛 Continue reading

May 2nd, 2009

Der Titanwurz blüht!

Today I have no bread to present but a botanical rarity that flowers in the botanic garden Bonn!

Amorphophallus titanum – the titan arum flowers since this weekend. The titan arum is not easy to cultivate, so it is not very often shown in botanic gardens. Since the titan arum was discovered in the 18. century in Sumatra only 122 plants flowered in gardens worldwide!

It is really an event, you should not miss. How often can you see a flower that its higher then 2m?

Who can not visit the botanic garden Bonn can find Informations about the titan arum and a  Webcam on their Homepage .