Category Archives: hand kneaded

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.

Continue reading

April 1st, 2012

Yoghurt-Butter-Crescents

Joghurt-Butterhörnchen Sunday morning, sunshine instead of the precasted rain, a cup of coffee and a crispy butter crescent –  is there a better way to start the day?

I tested a new variation of my overnight recipes – Yoghurt-Butter-Crescents. After the Croissant bread it was time to laminate another batch of dough.

When I prepare the dough I decided to use some of the yoghurt I found in the fridge together with a milk roux as liquid component for the dough. I kept the yeast amount small to enable proofing overnight and this low amount of yeast made laminating easier, too, because the dough nearly did not rise during the laminating.

The yoghurt gave the crescent a slightly tart aroma and the long proofing make the taste more complex. The Crescents are light and crispy after baking and the honey comb structure of the crumb is not bad but still away from perfection. But this are the best croissants I ever bake so I am still happy with them!

Continue reading

March 20th, 2012

Fast Curd/Quark Rolls

Quarkbrötchen I did it. I submitted my Ph. D. thesis yesterday. A great part of the work is now done. Now I have to prepare my defense in may. So I will prepare a talk and start reading paper and learning once again in some days. But at the moment I try to relax and enjoy the luxury of not writing 16 hours a day.

During this 16 hours-writing days in the last days before submission, baking bread had to be something fast. But to stop baking at all was no alternative, I needed it to keep myself grounded. The recipe for the Quark/Curd rolls is a fast one, at least in my eyes. It does not require a Starter, Poolish or Pâte fermentée , so you can immediately start with preparing the dough. It only require a Milk roux, which needs about half an hour for preparing and cooling down. I decided to call the Water Roux in recipes where I prepare it with milk “Milk roux”. It fits better to the ingredients used.

The fast curd rolls are very soft and stay fresh very long due to curd and milk roux. The curd give the roll a little tanginess, balancing the missing  flavours from a starter or prefement. Perfect for days with less time!

Continue reading

March 11th, 2012

Roll Rustiko

RusticoChristine mentioned in a comment to the Overnight-Krustis, that a recipe for kneading with hand would be nice. That is true, of course and so I tested for the next rolls a variation without kneading by a machine. Really kneading was not necessary either, because the gluten network was developed by folding the dough every 30 minutes for 2 hours. After folding 3 times the dough had a nice silky sureface, telling me that the gluten network was now fine.

For Forming the rolls I tried a new Idea. After folding the dough into a square I used my dough scrapper to cut it into smaller squares. After I placed the rolls on baking tray, I used the dough scrapper again, pressing it lengthwise for about 2/3 into the roll. Then I left the rolls to proof overnight. The next morning I just had to place the tray in the hot oven without fussing over slashing rolls. They had a nice ovenspring and cracked nicely along the imprint I made with the dough scrapper.

Continue reading

March 1st, 2012

Sahne-Brioche

Sahne-BriocheBrioche, that is a featherlike Breakfast pastry. The recipes vary, from rich to very rich with more than 50% Butter and Egg in relation to the flour. That tastes good, but it’s really rich. So I hesitated to bake them, but then I thought about a leaner variation. My Brioche contains 2 Eggs for 500g flour and about 20% Fat from Butter and cream. I heated the cream with some flour for a Water Roux (or more correctly Cream Roux) so I could add a higher amount of liquid to the dough. The amount of yeast is very low so I could leave the dough to proof overnight on the counter.

I do not own Briocheforms, so I bake them in a Muffin pan. I do some as typical Brioche a tête and some as bubble top like in this recipe from Dorrie Greenspan I found on Bon Appétit. To prevent the brioche from sticking to the pan I placed each Brioche on a baking paper squares and transferred them with the paper into the pans.

Due to long kneading and water roux the crumb is soft and regular and can be tore into long fibres. The taste is complex, buttery and creamy – perfect for a sunday morning breakfast.

Continue reading

February 15th, 2012

Sesame sun

SesamsonneIt’s time for a proof of life. I survived the last week but worked more than even I imagined. It was the first time in my life that I worked non stop for 15 hours and 45 minutes in the lab. But now I try to work less in the lab and write more at my thesis. The time is running now…

And so I baked once more a bread which I can proof in the fridge. Its easier to squeeze baking bread in my writing routine if I have not to spend so much time on the loaf each day.

This bread contains only one kind of seeds: Sesame. I used white sesame and some of the black sesame an Asian friend gave to me. It’s not so easy to find black sesame in German supermarkets.

The taste of black sesame seems to be similar to the white variation. I like it because it gave the bread crumb light and dark speckles. And of course I liked it because I like sesame.

Continue reading

February 4th, 2012

Spelt rolls

Dinkelbrötchen And now the next recipe for people like me, who like to eat fresh rolls for breakfast without getting up very early in the morning.

This time its very easy, with yeast, water, salt and spelt flour.

The spelt flour and the long fermentation gave a very delicious taste to the rolls. The dough was rather wet, but with some flour I could handle it good and that a wet flour has positive results on the crumb I could already hear when I drew them out of the oven. The rolls crackled and sing and when I cut them I had a open crumb halfway to the open crumb of a ciabatta. They taste very good still warm with orange marmalade or cold later the day with some cheese and lettuce.

Continue reading

January 21st, 2012

Buttermilk Bread with rolled Oats

Haferflocken-Buttermilch-Brot Its time again for a whole grain bread her in the Blog. The last weeks I baked mostly Breads I posted before but last weekend I created a new recipe, using two of my favourite ingredients: rolled oats and buttermilk.

I proofed the breads in baskets in the fridge and they develop a lot of aroma during the proofing. I was very skeptical in the beginning, when I read that in Tartine they proof sourdough breads in the fridge. Its a methode I used for breads made with yeast before, but I was afraid, that sourdough breads would be to sour. And I really don’t like sour bread. But nothing like this happend and now its one of my favourite proofing methods! It seperate preparing dough and baking and that is the perfect method in stressful times for me.

The bread has dense crumb and is rather moist, which enhance its shelflife. It’s a delicious and filling basis for lunch break.

Continue reading

August 15th, 2011

Little Milk Braids

Milch-ZöpfchenThe bakery in the small village in which we spend our vacation in East Frisia offered little braids made of a slightly sweet dough. They taste great with jam or honey or as a sandwich with cheese.

The kitchen of our small holiday home contained a oven. So I brought the most important things for baking with me: scale, bowl and my hands Zwinkerndes Smiley. And I tried to recreate the recipe for the little braids to take a little bit of our holiday memories back home.

I decided to use Pâte Fermentée as a preferment and a water roux for a fluffy crumb.

To make kneading more easy (I left the kitchen machine at home) I let the dough rest after mixing it together for 30 min – during this Autolysis the proteins in the dough are hydrated and developing a nice gluten network is then more easy.

The little braids are delicious – slightly sweet like the original and with a fluffy crumb.

Continue reading

August 10th, 2011

Butterkuchen

ButterkuchenPaule baked Schuedi some weeks ago and this rise the whish in me to eat delicious “Butterkuchen”. Butterkuchen (called Schuedi in Luxembourg) is a cake with a yeasted dough base which is topped with butter flakes and lots of sugar. When the butter melts during baking it forms little buttery sweet pits in the surface of the cake.

Like Paule I connect Childhood memories with this cake because this was the favourite cake of my granddad. As a child I did not like this cake so much, my favourite was streusel cake. But when I grow older realized how delicious such a simple cake can be. This cake shines with its simple but high quality ingredients. Using a good fresh butter is really important for a great taste, I prefer sweet cream butter.

For the dough I used a preferment to add more aroma to the dough and reduce the amout of yeast.

The cake tastes great. My boyfriend already asked for second one because this one was gone so fast.

Continue reading