Monthly Archives: August 2012

August 26th, 2012

Kanelfläta

Category Cake & Pastry  Tags: , ,   18 Responses

Kanelfläta

Yeastspotting always inspires me always to bake something. And sometimes the recipes urge me to bake them directly. The Kanelfläta from My Italian Smörgåsbord was such a recipe.

Kanelfläta is a swedish cinnamon braid, which –as I learned from Barbara- is eaten together with the colleagues for fika (afternoon coffe break). My colleagues and me meet every morning for a “Frühstückspause” at 9 o’clock with a cup of coffee in our coffee room. And something sweet for the break is always loved. And so I decided to bake the Kanelfläta for them.

I reduced the amount of yeast in recipe and added a Lievito madre and some Cardamom to the dough. The combination of cardamom in the dough and cinnamon in the filling is a “must have” for me. I love this combination. I reduced the size of the braids a little bit and came up with four nice braids which had the perfect size for our “Frühstückspause” .

And what should I say? It’s as well a perfect treat for a morning break as for a afternoon break! A aromatic dough, the taste of cinnamon and cardamom – is there a better way to start a day?

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August 19th, 2012

Little poppy seed braids

Category hand kneaded, Rolls  Tags: , , ,   9 Responses

Mohnzöpfle

Once again a recipe for rolls – but that is the last new recipe I created during our holidays (and I am already back at work for one week).

I was dreaming of poppy seed rolls, and so I grabbed a bag of poppy seeds in the supermarket. I decided to play a little bit with the dough and made not simple rolls but little braids. They are braided with only one strand, a technique I saw in a TV show some month ago. I just forgot which show it was… But I make photos from each step, to make it easier to understand the technique.

I bake the little poppy seed braids with whole wheat flour and white spelt flour and added some lievito madre for a good oven spring and a complex taste. I have to say, I love my new starter. It adds a nice aroma to bread and it is very convenient that it can be used right out of the fridge. Perfect for baking spontaneously.

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August 19th, 2012

How to braid a one strand braid

Category Bread baking theory  Tags: ,   5 Responses

Einstrang-Zopf

Divide the dough into pieces of 85g each. Roll them into strands of about 45 cm (1). Now form with 2/3 of the strand loop, while the other 1/3 of the strand remains free(2). Pull the free strand through the loop (3), then twist the loop (4) and tuck the free end into the remaining opening of the loop (5).

August 11th, 2012

Potato rolls with Lievito Madre

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls  Tags: , ,   29 Responses

Kartoffelbrötchen Summer holidays are the time in the year when we eat a lot of rolls. Rolls are the most important component for our relaxed breakfast on sunny (or rainy) summer mornings. And when our holiday home kitchen has a real oven, the rolls for breakfast are of course homemade. I love to test new recipes during this summer times.

And what are better recipes for holidays then overnight recipes? And so I played around with the Lievito madre. To prevent the dough of getting to sour, I reduced the amount of the preferment. That resulted in a slightly sour taste which fits nicely to the mashed potatoes and creme fraiche I added to the dough, too. The potatoes and creme fraiche creates a soft and fluffy crumb, and keep the crust a little bit lesser crisp then of other rolls, but I like them like that. They taste just great!

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August 5th, 2012

Bergische Knüppel with Lievito madre

Category hand kneaded, Rolls  Tags: ,   14 Responses

Bergische Knüppel mit Lievito MadreAfter I prepared the Lievito madre, I wanted to test this preferment, too! And to play around with things like preferments, its always good to use a recipe you know inside out. For me, such a recipe is the recipe for “Knüppel”, which I bake already in different variations.

This time, I replaced the with Lievito madre. The rolls were formed as always and after a short proofing I load them into the oven.

It’s said that bread made with Lievito madre has a great oven spring, and really, the rolls rise very high in the oven and cracked open along the “lip” which is created during forming.

The taste of the rolls is complex, but mild, with no acidic hints of sourdough.

I am very pleased with the result and will try other recipes with this prefermt for sure!

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August 4th, 2012

Lievito madre

Category Starter and Preferments  Tags:   189 Responses

LM enIn a comment to one of my bread recipes the preferment livito madre was described, with a link to the Brotbackforum. The description sounded fascinating and I always love to make Sourdoughs, and so I mixed Flour, water, honey and oil and observed what would happen.

After 24 hours, the dough rise highly and doubled its volumen. After 48 hours I feed it again and now it rose even faster, doubling its volumen in 12 hours, after 36 hours it nearly tripled. I feed the livito madre once again and placed it in the fridge for 5 days as the recipe suggested.

In the fridge it showed nearly no activity, but the ovenspring of the rolls I baked with this sourdough (using it right out of the fridge) was amazing. Their taste was mild and complex, not as tangy as with my normal sourdough. The lievito madre itself do not taste as normal sourdough as well. Its taste is fruitlike, with hints of yeast and it smells lightly after fresh yoghurt. It seems, that the lievito madre contains another mixture of bacteria and yeasts due to firm dough and the honey which was added in the beginning.

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