Category Archives: hand kneaded

May 6th, 2013

Three Grains Bread

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Rye, Spelt, Über-Nacht, Wheat, whole grain 20 Responses

I like a hearty whole grain bread. Like this one. It is a really mild one, perfect for persons who do not like sour breads. It is a bread without sourdough but with a very long and cold fermentation, which is only shortly disturbed every now and then when the dough is stretched and folded. Even the loaves proofs in the fridge, too.

Due to slow fermentation the bread developes a incredible taste. The sweetness of the freshly milled flour is clearly recognizable, combined with the nutty undertones of whole grains and the complex notes due to the fermentation. The long rest let the flour absorb more water then normally and so I could add more water to the dough. This makes the crumb moist.

It is a bread, which in its simple way of preparing is perfect for beginners who are still a little bit scarred of sourdough. It requires not much more then a good deal of patient, because you need two days until you can pull it out from the oven. But then your patient will be rewarded…

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May 3rd, 2013

Kartöffelchen

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Potatoes, Über-Nacht 11 Responses

The television broadcast “Markt” featured a interesting report about potatoes, including a potato tasting. The tasting take place in the Restaurant of a colleagues spouse, and she and one of my other colleagues were part of the tasting, too. So watching TV last Monday was mandatory. The result of it did not suprise me so much: the imported potatoes from Egypt and Cyprus looked very good, but tasted – as my colleague Birgit stated – like putty while the local potatoes, grown in the Rhineland, was very flavourful. I made this experience by my own, too and always try to buy potatoes from a local farmer.

To honour the potato I decided to bake some potato rolls. But my “Kartöffelchen” (little potatoes) should not only be called “little potatoes” they should look like a potato, too. And so they have a dark brown crust and a fluffy yellow crumb. But the soft dough is not so easy to form. If you would like to have a simpler shape, I would suggest to cut the dough into squares like described Yoghurt Sesame Rolls.

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March 5th, 2013

Ciabatta

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast 36 Responses

The Baguette with the long, cold fermentation was so delicious, that I started to though about using the same methode to bake Ciabattas. And because I did not bake Ciabattas for a quite long time, I did not only think about it but mixed directly a dough.

The dough needs a long time in the fridge, about 24 hours or longer, but the hand-on time is very short. At the beginning you have to fold the dough three times during the first hour, and then the dough slumbers in the fridge. At the baking day, you have only to preheat the baking stone and form the ciabatta. That makes the whole process really relaxing.

The dough is very soft, but gains a good gluten network during folding. With a well floured countertop and a dough scrapper it is easy to form the ciabatta. During the fermentation big air bubbles are already formed in dough.

The bread has a very open crumb with big holes and a crunchy crust. The long fermenation adds a lot of complex aroma with a fruity hint due to the olive oil. A very good bread!

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March 1st, 2013

Baguette

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Hand kneaded, only with yeast 16 Responses

Last week Lutz baked Baguettes, inspired from a post of MC about her visit in different bakeries in Paris. This bakeries belong both to the best of France. Lutz used the discription of their baguette dough to build his own recipe.

And so baking baguettes was on the top of my to do list for the weekend. But during the long and cold rest of the dough in the fridge, the dough developed not only an incredible good taste but I fell sick with a bad flue, too. And on Sunday, after about 40 hours in the fridge, the baguettes could not wait any longer. And so I dragged myself in the kitchen, ignored the fever and formed and baked some baguettes.

And this baguettes are really worth it. With a great taste, a crispy crust and a wait open crumb make them to one of the best I ever baked.

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February 17th, 2013

Flake rolls

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Gerste, Hand kneaded, oats, only with yeast, Rye, Spelt, Über-Nacht 4 Responses

At winter mornings when one look out of the window make me shiver I need something warm and filling before I go out in the dark and cold morning to catch my train. A porridge made with rolled oats is easily made and a favourite winter breakfast since my childhood. Sometimes I buy a rolled grain mix instead of rolled oats to have a variation for breakfast. This grain mix contains rolled oats, wheat, barley, rye and spelt and is very delicious.

One morning I decided that I could add some porridge into a bread dough, too. And so I made some overnight rolls with rolled grains and porridge. The roll stay nicely moist but the dough was easily to handle, too.

For baking the rolls I used the same trick as for my “normal” rolls: I placed the rolls together with a small oven proof bowl on a baking tray, filled the bowl with boiling water and covered them with a second baking tray. The steam is trapped between the baking sheets what improved the oven spring quite nicely. It is similar to baking a bread in a dutch oven. After half of the baking time I removed the cover and the bowl.

With this trick the rolls turned out great. A soft crumb with a crunchy crust, a complex flavour due to the long rise over night which underlines the nutty taste of the rolled grains.

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September 15th, 2012

Honey Spelt Bread

Category Bread, hand kneaded, Overnight Tags: Hand kneaded, Honey, Sourdough, Spelt, wheat free 38 Responses

Some German Bloggers already baked Martins Honungssyrad råg with variations. He played with the recipe, too. For me, the recipe was not so tempting because once again I try to avoid rye to reduce my skin irritations.

But the recipe kept spining in my head. When I can not use rye, what’s about spelt, I asked myself. The combination of spelt and honey is something I like very much. And my sourdough starter was so lively after the last warm summerdays. And so I decided to bake a sourdough bread with honey and spelt.

It has nothing in common with Martins recipe anymore despite the fact that it contains sourdough and honey.

The bread dough is easy to handle, but you need a little bit of time management: The sourdough is prepared in the morning, the dough is kneed in the afternoon and the bread is formed in the evening. It proofs then overnight in the fridge and 24 hours later you pull a delicious smelling out of the oven.

The slight sweetness of honey fits perfect to the mild aroma of the spelt while the sourdough adds a subtle tartness.

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August 19th, 2012

Little poppy seed braids

Category hand kneaded, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Lievito madre, Poppy seeds, Spelt 9 Responses

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 11th, 2012

Potato rolls with Lievito Madre

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Lievito madre, Über-Nacht 29 Responses

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: Hand kneaded, Lievito madre 14 Responses

After 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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July 28th, 2012

Müsli Rolls

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Müsli, only with yeast, Rye, Über-Nacht, Yoghurt 21 Responses

For a relaxed breakfast with my sister I planed to bake some rolls. The day before I came home from work lately. It was maybe the only week of “real” (hot) summer we get this year in Germany, and so I decided to enjoy the good weather as much as possible and go swimming first. When I came home I was to tired for long kneading and make some overnight rolls.

As basic I used my all time favourite Recipe for Yoghurt Sesam Rolls, but this time with some whole rye flour and additional Müsli mix. The Müsli is a homemade mixtrue containing rolled oats and barley, raisin, dried apples, sunflower seeds, a lot of chopped almonds and sesame and flax seeds.

I let the dough rise overnight and early in the next morning I formed and baked the rolls, refreshed after some hours of sleep.

And later that day we enjoyed the rolls. They have a crust, which stays a little bit soft – just as my sister like her rolls – and a soft crumb. The overnight fermentation gave them a complex flavour and yoghurt adds some tartness. The perfect roll for sweet marmalade or honey, but great with cheese, too.

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