Category Archives: Rolls

January 20th, 2018

Three Grainy

Dreikornis3I like relaxed baking on weekend mornings. And so I often knead a dough in the evening and put it in the fridge to ferment over night while I dream sweetly. The next morning all I have to do is forming rolls, letting them rise a bit and placing them in the oven.

Following this principles I created the recipe for the Three Grainy Rolls during Christmas holidays. They are easy to make and so perfect for lazy holiday mornings. The dough contains three different grains: spelt, emmer and rye. This adds a deepness to the flavour which is enhanced by the cold fermentation in the fridge. Adding a bit of sourdough is optional, the recipe works well with out but with sourdough is flavour is even more enhanced.

Due to the butter in the dough the rolls have a fluffy crump which is perfect for breakfast. I love them most with a good amount honey!

Continue reading

January 7th, 2018

Bread Confection

Brotkonfekt-43We spent a relaxed New years eve with some dear friends and I promised to bring bread. As always, I like to bring a wide variety and so I decided for caraway seed bread, wheat and rye bread, and my favourite spelt, nut and fruit bread. As addition I liked to have small rolls, similar to the little rolls my mum sometimes bought when I was little. They were called bread confection and where turned in a mixture of cheese and different seeds.

For my own variant I decided to go for a classic roll dough with some active malt and sweet starter for flavour. And as I did not planned to spent a lot of time with weighting 32 to mini dough portions I divided the dough into four equal parts and rolled them into strands. Each strand was then cut into eight equal sized parts and each piece then turned in the cheese mixture. That went very well and easy.

The resulting rolls turned out even better then I hoped. They gained a good volume due to the malt and a bit of egg yolk as lecithin source while the sweet starter gave them a good flavour. Just as a good roll should be!

Continue reading

December 8th, 2017

Vesper-Wecken

Vesper-WeckenMy cold is still persistent but we started to fight the bacteria with antibiotic while I still stay on the sofa. In the meanwhile we eat us through the bread stored in the freezer. That has its advantages: as soon as I’m fit I can bake up a little storm!

And I am not only working my way through the freezer but I am looking through the unpublished posts as well. And there are still some jewels hidden in the dark. Jewels like this Vesper-Wecken. Why I did not publish this recipe before I can not tell anymore. Maybe it got lost during the hectic days before summer vacations. But the rolls were delicious and so it would be sad to lose the recipe.

Their great flavour stems from the sweet starter as sole leavening agent. The key here is the cold overnight rest as it helps to create a deep complex aroma notes with only a minimal acidity. And this makes the rolls perfect for lunch or dinner!

Continue reading

November 9th, 2017

Berchtesgadener Stuck for the Blog-Anniversary

Berchtesgadener-Stuck-36Like each year at this day in November I want to add a “can you believe this” when I write down the age of this blog. With now nine years the blog feels sometime like a mammoth in a modern time. And just like Micha I sometimes miss the gone days when the blog world was small and young and mainly add-free. I miss the times when every blog had its own blog roll. Past then I could spent hours surfing through the favourite blogs from other bloggers, finding new favourites while I travel through the sites. Nowadays my journeys are often interrupted as many blogs does not share their favourites anymore. Why I can’t understand but I moan about the lost connections and interactions. And I’m more then happy when I find a blog that stands out from the mass and which has a blogroll of its own. Then I will add it to may blogroll, for which I still care a lot. I keep an eye on it so it contains only active blogs (inactive but good blogs can be found have their own special blogroll). You can the blogroll on the left side when you scroll down a bit. Continue reading

October 7th, 2017

Neheimer Stütchen

Neheimer-Sttchen-33I stumpled about the Neheimer Stütchen during a guided tour in the cologne cathedral. It was the fact that Count Gottfried von Arnsberg IV. is buried as the only  not clerical person. This prominat burial place he got because of a very generous gift to the cologne bishop – and to ensure that the people in his county would pray for him after his death he gifted a very good forest to the city of Neheim. The forest still exists and from the yearly gain of it several celebrations are paid: each year a wreath is laid down at his tomb in the cathedral, there are count gottfried games and all children of the city get a roll called “Neheimer Stütchen” at the 4th september.

The Neheimer Stütchen is a sweet milk roll, a bit larger then normal and already that tempted me. And as this story is such a nice one that it fits very well in my blog series of regional, traditional breads. And so I baked my version of this roll, with a biga for aroma and a water roux for fluffy soft crumb.

Continue reading

September 30th, 2017

Burger buns with sweet Starter

Burgerbrtchen-mit-sem-Starter3Since some months I did not bake breads made with sweet starter alone. But just now my starter is so active as never before.  It just need 90 minutes to double its volume. It is in the perfect condition to rise even a bit heavier dough with some butter. And so it is in the perfect condition to rise burger buns.

You need a real fit starter, so it makes sense to feed it two or three times before baking. Another important point is proofing the buns in a warm environment.  The warm environment can be a slightly heated oven (30°C), then add a pot with boiling water on the bottom of the oven. This helps to keep the surface of the buns warm and moist and let them rise very well.

The aroma of the buns is delicious, the cold rise of the dough and the combination of hazelnut oil and butter makes them very flavourful. The hint of hazelnut flavour goes very well together with my favourite vegan patty. But my dearest liked it very much in combination with a beef patty, too.

Continue reading

August 10th, 2017

Simit

Simit-95One of the participants of my baking course asked for a recipe for Simit and brought a glass full of Pekmez (Grape molasse) for me, too. And that was all that was needed to get my brain working on this sesame rings.

Some weeks later, when I took a sheet full of Simit from the oven I had a sudden flashback into my childhood. About 20 years ago I regularly took the bus to go to the next town to visit the library. After spending joyful hours between the silent rows of books full of mysteries and stories I carried a armful of books home. And before I would hop into the bus I would make a short stop in the little turkish greengrocery shop located next to the library. There I would buy two simits for 1 DM (this was long before we got the €) and eat them with my nose already in the first book.

The flavour of my fresh baked Simit brought back all this happy memories of summer holidays and dream worlds. But even without this memories the flavour of this sesame rings is great. Sweet and hearty is well balanced here as they are dipped into Pekmez solution before they are turned into sesame. And the preferment (in this variant sweet starter) helps to develop a complex flavour. I’m very much in love with them right now and bake them already several times – something that happen seldom here!

Continue reading

July 8th, 2017

Croissants with sweet starter

Croissants-23

I fine tuned this recipe for quite a while. It started back last summer and I need about a year until I was nearly satisfied with the croissants. The crumb could still be more open but that is only a question of practise. Theoretically you could use more butter for the tourage (300-500g) but for me the croissants are then way to fatty. And so I keep practising and share the recipe meanwhile with you so you can start practising as well 🙂

Continue reading

June 8th, 2017

Spelt Squares

Dinkelkissen-15

At the moment my heart belongs once again the wide variety of rolls. Especially the square once which are just cut from a high-hydration dough are favourites. And so it would be sad if this recipe would get lost in the whirlwind of inspirations in the last weeks. I baked this spelt squares already some weeks ago, their were part of our easter brunch as I felt that we would need some whole grainy beside pretzel rolls, cheese rolls, bakers rolls and my beloved Kieler Semmeln. And so I took the same matrix that worked so well for the Luftikus and this whole grain rolls: A long rise and a high hydration.

This time I used the combination of poolish, yoghurt and a long rise to give a complex flavour to the rolls, while the physiilum seed hulls helps to make the highly hydrated dough easy to handle. The Oat bran in which the crust is covered adds a crunchy effect to the crust and helps to achieve a fairly crispy crust which is not so easy for psyllium grain rolls.

Continue reading

May 26th, 2017

Salzweck

Salzweck (1)[5]Another discovery of my search for regional breads is the Salzweck. Its a roll which stems from the region Baden and which is formed in a special way. Its rim is folded in a similar way like used for Kärntener Kasnudeln  or for the Handsemmeln. Its not so difficult to form and to proof this I took a video from the forming process.

The roll comes golden brown out of the oven and provides a fluffy soft crumb under its crisp crust. This is due to the combination of the macial combination of egg yolk, butter, enzyme active malt and vitamin C from the powdered rose hip. To make the flavour deep and complex, I added a Biga to the dough, too. Taken together this yields a beautiful looking roll with great aroma!

Continue reading