Category Archives: Bread

March 9th, 2017

Gersterbrot

Gersterbrot (3)When I asked for suggestions of regional traditional Bread one bread on top of the list of favourites was Gersterbrot. This bread stems from the region around Hanover and Bremen and it is really special as it is  flambéd after forming the loaves. This seals the crust and adds dark speckles all over the bread. Both lead to a bread with a hearty flavour and beautiful crisp crust. And it enhances shelf live as well as the thick crust prevents the moisture from evaporating.

To flambé the loaf properly I bought a small blazing torch as it develops more heat then a flambé torch. And when I flambéd the bread I took care that the surface below was fire proof! And I had a wet towel near just in case… But everything worked perfectly fine, no kitchen on fire, just a beautiful bread with a fine crumb and the thin crust – just as it has to be!

 

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February 17th, 2017

Rhenish Blackbread

Rheinisches Schwarzbrot (1) The grandmother of my dearest complained that today you can not get real blackbread anymore. The “modern” one is to moist in her opinion. When I asked how a “real” blackbread should be, she answered: “Just like it once had been”. My argument that I do not know how the bread looked like ninety years back in the past just gained me a critical gaze. But at the end I could get some informations about her childhoods blackbread from her: moist, but not so moist we today, dark and baked with rather fine cracked rye. And my ambitions was aroused to recreate this bread for her.

And so I bake a blackbread with the classical way: sourdough made with fine cracked rye, a soaker with roasted bread crumbs and coarse cracked rye and a good portion molasse. I added a bit of dark roasted rye  malt to enhance the deep malt flavour.  I baked it in the middle of the week when we spent some days with our Gran. And when we cut the bread the next day, everyone was happy, even Gran liked the bread!

 

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February 11th, 2017

Pottweck

Pottweck (1)A small part of a comment caught my attention: the word “Pottweck”. I asked for a description and got a very detailed explanation from Jürgen. Nicole added some other details and so I was straight on my way to the kitchen. They explained to me that the Pottweck is a regional speciality from the area lower rhine. Its name stems from the way it is baked: in a pot (=  Pott in the dialect). And the pot gives the bread its typical mushroom shape, too, as the bread rise highly over the pot.

For the ingredients both were united at the buttermilk as liquid, while they differed at the used fat – it seems that either butter, butter plus some lard or only margarine can be used. I stayed with the butter for the beginning, but it is easy to swap part of it with lard or replace it completely with margarine. To increase flavour complexity and to enlarge shelf life I added a pâte fermentée to the formula as well as a little (untypical) addition of cream. And as my old black enamel pot is a bigger one, I knew from beginning that it had to be one big bread.

To watch the bread while baking was pure fun. It rose higher and higher. It was hard to let it cool and wait to for the photos before tasting the bread. But then we had the fresh bread for breakfast and where extremly happy with the slight sourness and complex flavour! A delicious treat on Saturday morning!

 

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January 29th, 2017

Moist Spelt

Saftiges DinkelkernLast November a reader asked for a recipe of a moist spelt bread with high whole grain portion and different seeds. I had an idea for the bread very quickly: With a whole rye sourdough, many pumpkin seeds, some flax seeds and sesame and a good portion whole spelt flour – partly in a water roux for more moisture. But then the pysllium husk discovery happend and I changed my plan fastly. Instead of a water roux I decided to use the pysllium hulls to increase water binding. And I added some butter which makes the crumb nicely soft and helps to keep it fresh.

The result is a moist and aromatic bread. The crumb is full of pumpkin seeds and a thick crunchy crust. A bread with potential for a a favourite!

 

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December 24th, 2016

Christmas Bread 2016

Weihnachtsbrot 2016 (2)For Christmas everyone likes to serve something special. Here at “Hefe und mehr” we are no exception and this includes bread, of course. This year I decided to go for an elegant variation of my favourite combination: nuts and potatoes. For the festive touch I combined walnuts, hazelnuts and pistachios. These nutty flavours are supported by hints of roasted malt and cacao – just enough to add a deepness to its aroma. The bread is risen by my favourite preferment: Sweet starter. And so the bread contains everything you need for a little flavour fire works – again a bread that needs nothing but a bit of butter as spread.

The December some haste away so quickly that I want to enjoy my Christmas with the family without distractions. And so  I will be not be online during the holidays and answer comments and emails after Christmas.

I whish you all a peaceful and merry Christmas!

 

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November 22nd, 2016

Emmerich

Emmerich (2)

I call this Bread Emmerich. The name says it all: Emmer rich.  And so is the bread: 50% freshly milled whole emmer flour in combination with spelt flour makes this bread so delicious. The name “Emmerich” has a second meaning, too. It is the name of a city in north Rhine Westphalia. And I often thought that this city needs its own Emmer bread when I read its name.

After the last rye breads I needed a mild bread for my stomach and so I choose as spelt variant of the  Sweet Starter as preferment.  The forgotten bag with emmer I found in the storage seemed perfect for me. And the bread turned out as delicious as I hope it would. It taste especially good in combination with honey or with a mild goat cheese.

 

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October 23rd, 2016

Oberländer Bread

Oberländer Brot (3)The “Oberländer” Bread is a bread with tradition and stormy history: In 1829 the city council of cologne fixed the price for bread. The Bakers did not agree and so the bakers strike started. To get bread for the city, the council ordered bread in the region upriver, the so called “Oberland”. As this region has poor soil, the bread is baked with lots of rye there. This yields a bread with long shelf life and so it could be easily transported down the rhine to cologne. The cologne inhabitants liked the bread very much and even after the strike was ended they insisted on getting their beloved “Oberländer”. And so this bread is baked in cologne until today.

The characteristic shine of the crust is due to a glaze made of starch and water. Another characteristic trait of this bread are the tree slashes across the loaf. It is a mild rye bread with a fine crumb and a long shelf life. It pairs well with both hearty and sweet. And so it is both a beautiful bread for the regionalen Bread series and a good gift for someone who just moved to cologne.

 

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October 16th, 2016

Kürbisstuten

KürbisstutenIn this year Indian summer lasted long. But now the days are getting shorter and air is chilly when I leave the house in the morning. And when I drive through the range of the hills I can see the first sun rays turning the misty valleys below into golden lakes. It is autumn, finally.

And so a recipe, which I got from a reader some weeks ago, fits into this beginning autumn very well. It is a recipe for pumpkin “Stuten”. Literally the term “Stuten” means “Mare” and my reader was very puzzled about it when she moved to Oldenburg many years ago and the bakeries were advertising “It is Pumpkin-Stuten time again”. But in Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein the term means “sweet bread” as well as “horse”. And this pumpkin bread was a steady companion for my reader in the following years.

And when I asked for local recipes she sent a recipe from her kids kindergarten. I modified it strongly (ok, I tore it down and rebuild it from the fragments), so it contains now much less yeast but a preferment and some more liquid, too. And I kneaded the dough much longer as well. All of this together makes the bread irresistibly soft and aromatic. A great bread for autumn!

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September 30th, 2016

East Frisian Black Bread with Sunflower Seeds

Friesisches Schwarzbrot (1)The very first suggestion I got for the post series “regional bread” was East Frisian Black Bread. As I already wrote a recipe for the magazine “Ö” I needed another variant – and decided to create a new recipe using sun flower seeds and coarse rye in a soaker. A bigger batch of sugar beet syrup makes the crumb darker and adds a subtle sweetness to the sour flavour notes from the sourdough.

It is a very aromatic black bread, and the soaker helps to create a moist crumb. Cut in slices and wrapped in paper I took it with me to the food swap “Schwarzmarkt” in cologne. A attentive reader maybe already noticed that I used the food swap to bake a big batch of different rye breads. It was a good opportunity to bake a lot of rye breads without suffering from my sensibility to rye. and to provide you, my dear reader, a new batch of rye recipes. This is for me another advantage of this great Swap.

 

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September 25th, 2016

Onjeschwedde

Onjeschwedde (2)I’m totally thrilled about all the little jewels I meet in range of my “regional bread” series. From Annette I got describtion of the Bread Onjeschwedde, which is a raisin bread speciality of Rheydt – a  part of Mönchengladbach.  It is baked with the loaves touching each other a methode which keeps the bread very soft and moist. Before baking it is slashed with a curved long cut and some small cuts on the sides. The so called “Rheydter Flower”.

The name “onjeschwedde” means literally “not sweated” and means that the bread is made with “green” flour – freshly milled flour of newly harvest grains. This flour contains more moisture then a ripened flour which looses the moisture – it sweats! As it was just harvest  time, so I called my local mill and ask. And indeed they promised me fresh flour for September.

The second special thing about this bread is that it is made with a huge amount of rye – 40% to be precise. It is the first sweet bread I met with this high amount rye! And so I used sourdough as preferment, which adds a deepness to its aroma, rounded by a faint cinnamon flavour. Sweetness comes from a bit of sugar and currants.  The taste is something special, a sweet bread but with its very own, distinct flavour. A great bread which needs nothing more then a bit of butter!

 

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