Monthly Archives: April 2012

April 29th, 2012

Fleischkäse

FleischkäseI eat vegetarian and my boyfriend like vegetarian food, too, so we seldom buy meat for him. But sometimes he like to find some meat on his plate. A favourite of him is Fleischkäse (also called Leberkäse) but he seldom buy it.

But when we saw the recipe “Fleischkäse für Jedermann”  at chefkoch.de we decided to try it for dinner (I got some homemade smoked tofu burgers). We tweaked the spices in the recipe a little bit, but over all we sticked to the recipe.

It is an easy recipe, the ground meat has to be kneaded with the kitchen machine until it gets smeary, then its placed in a baking pan and baked for an hour.

The boyfriend like the Fleischkäse very much and we have now a lot of slices in the freezer, so he can eat fried Fleischkäse when ever he liked

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April 27th, 2012

Pain Bordelaise

Pain Bordelaise Here is another recipe for a bread that made already its ways through some blogs until I finally bake it. It started at Sourdough the angry baker, then Daniela from  vegetarian gustos si sanatos baked it and at least Zorra from 1x umrühren bitte was very pleased with the recipe. Each of the breads appeared at  Yeastspotting, too. The Name remembered me vaguely  of something, and finally it came to my mine that I bookmarked this recipe in 2010 when Jeremy from Stir the pots posted the recipe.

I stick nearly complete to the recipe (I just skip the 10g of whole wheat flour – to lazy to mill this amount of wheat), and use Jeremeys instruction for kneading, which is rather short and developed the gluten network with stretching and folding the dough.

The recipe is really great: An easy-to-handle dough, great oven spring, open crumb, crispy crust and a delicious taste.

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April 21st, 2012

Swabian Potato Bread

Schwäbisches KartoffelbrotLutz baked a swabian Potato Bread last year, a little bit later there was a modified version on  Grain de Sel, which Petra baked, too. I realized the recipe then and decided to bake my own version of this bread.

I increase the sourdough and preferment amount as well as the amount of potatoes but decrease the yeast amount. After I had such a good experience with old bread (aka bread crumbs) in preferment I decided to add the bread crumbs to the preferment.  Instead of oil or lard I preferred Butter.

The bread is very delicious with a soft cumb and a thick, crispy crust. It is very aromatic because of the two preferments, and the higher amount of bread crumbs adds a nice nut-like flavour to the dough.

This is a new favourite!

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April 15th, 2012

Baguette with “old bread”, 3/4 Sponge and cold Autolysis

BaguetteAfter the delicious Wheatbread with old bread I wanted to try another recipe with old bread preferment as well. Lutz’ Altbrotstangen make whishing for some baguettes of my own and so I started to rethink a recipe I created about 2 years ago.

The Baguette with 3/4 Sponge and cold Autolysis had a great taste but I did not like how they look then. So I decided to change some parameters of the recipe, adding an old bread preferment and some gluten.  The dough I got with the changed recipe was soft but not sticky and easy to handle.

When I shashed the baguettes I was already hopeful that this time the baguettes would look as perfect as the baguette I was dreaming of. And when I drew them out of the oven I was stunned because they were so beautiful. The most beautiful baguettes I ever bake.

And their taste is great, too. The two preferments add a complex flavour to the bread and the old bread adds nutty nuances to the taste. A delicious bread, which I will bake often for sure.

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April 14th, 2012

Wheat Bread with “old Bread”

Weizenbrot mit altem BrotWhen you bake your own bread, you normally have to deal with leftover bread, too. When the bread become stale, I normally place it on top of the kitchen radiator and let them dry out completely. When they are dry, I put them in a food container and keep them for further use, like bribing our guinea pig (not a healthy treat, I know) or crushing them to bread crumbs. The bread crumbs I use regulary for cooking and baking. I like to put them into  the filling of  sweet pastries. Or I add them into a bread dough, replacing a part of the flour with the bread crumbs.

Lutz like to put old bread into preferments. I like this idea and vary his kind of preferment, so that its made out of bread crumbs completely. Together with some sourdough and a slow and long proof in the fridge, it adds a lot of flavour to the bread. Very delicious!

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April 9th, 2012

Easter bunnies – Overnight-Variation

Osterhäschen

Eastern without homemade Easter-bunnies-buns? That is impossible.

I bake Easter bunnies every year, varying the dough and the shape. This year their shape are a little bit more abstract then in the last years. The boyfriend needed a little hint to see the bunny in this shape. But I fell in love with the shape when I saw it here.

I made the dough as a overnight variation similar to the saffron stars on Christmas. I like the fact that you can sleep longer on holidays and be able to serve warm bread for breakfast.

The long and slow proofing is good for the taste, too, making it more complex. They taste very good, with hints of butter and vanilla, a very delicious treat for a Easter breakfast or brunch!

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April 8th, 2012

Easter pinze with sourdough

Osterpinze(2)

Since some years I always thinking during Eastern, that it  would be nice to bake an Easter Pinze. Until now, I never did it, but this year it seems to be the perfect time. After a quick search in the internet showed me that there are two different recipe variation. One is made with anise wine, the other one with grated lemon or orange peel. I would never allow anise seeds into my kitchen, not to mention to bake with them… So it was an easy decison.

As basis for my recipe I started with Petras Recipe, but added a sourdough and a milk roux and changed the rest of the recipe accordingly.

When I take the bread out of the oven, it smells already very good, after fresh lemons. And its taste is great, too. Lemon with the tiny bit of tanginess from the sourdough make the bread taste like the fresh air in spring.

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April 2nd, 2012

Cheese and Herb swirls

Blätterteig-Käseschnecken

And what did I bake with the homemade puff pastry?

Delicious Cheese and Herb swirls, made after a family recipe of my boyfriends family. The boyfriend loves them and eat the first batch faster then I could take a picture. For the second batch I forbid him to test them before I photograph the swirls –  afterwards the swirls were nibbled away fastly.

They are really delicious and are easy to vary, depending what cheese or herbs are used. At the moment, during spring time, I like to use fresh springs of clives, wild garlic, parsley and garden burnet. In the winter I prefer using frozen herbs, when there are no fresh herbs available.

And of course you can used bough puff pastry, then the swirls a made quite quickly. Its definitely a favourite recipe.

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April 2nd, 2012

Puff pastry

In the past I was afraid of making homemade puff pastry – until I did it by myself for the first time. Then I realized that it’s not half as complicated as I thought it would be. Nowadays I like to make puff pastry by myself, because it taste much better then the bought one.

What I did with this batch of puff pastry I will tell you in the next posts!

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