January 20th, 2018

Three Grainy

Category Overnight, Rolls Tags: Emmer, only with yeast, overnight, Rye, Spelt, wheat free 14 Responses

I 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!

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January 15th, 2018

Fondue Bread

Category Bread Tags: cheese fondue., Christmas, Poolish, Ruchmehl, Wheat, whole grain 13 Responses

There is one big christmas tradition in our Family: Cheese fondue with Grandparents, Grandaunt and –uncle, Parents, Aunts and Uncles, Siblings and Cousins and little nieces, nephews and great cousins. The recipe for the cheese fondue I published already some years back. Last year we had a little bread desaster. The bread was not only undelicous but crumbly and break rather than holding the cheese. A lot of bread got lost in the pots… And so my Mum and me volunteered (of course without any thinking) to bake baguette for all in the next year.

Over the year I did some researching and stumbled over the swiss fondue bread, something even my Swiss Grandaunt did not knew.

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January 7th, 2018

Bread Confection

Category Rolls Tags: Cheese, Malt, New year, new years eve, Seeds, Sweet starter 17 Responses

We 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!

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January 1st, 2018

New Years Pretzel 2018

Category Bread, Special Occasions Tags: Butter, New year, only with yeast, Poolish, sour cream 14 Responses

Some traditions are important. For me having a new years pretzel for the first breakfast of the year. And so there are more than one recipe for new years pretzels on the blog. That I like to use sourdough or sweet starter for that I realized when a reader asked me what recipe she could use for a “only yeast” pretzel.

I took the hint and my 2018 pretzel is made with yeast and poolish as yeasted preferment. The poolish together with the bit of spelt flour makes the dough extensible and so its easy to roll the dough into strands. For the flavour, I added sour cream and some honey to the dough.

And while I was baking my pretzel a question came to my mind: Do you have special breads or pastry you need to celebrate the first day of the year?

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December 31st, 2017

Best of 2017

Category This and That Tags: Best of 8 Responses

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December 29th, 2017

Panettone 2017

Category Cake & Pastry, Special Occasions Tags: Butter, Candid lemon peel, Christmas, Egg, Raisins, Sweet starter 29 Responses

I love the Italian Christmas cakes Pandoro and Panettone. And as my sweet Starter is happily active it was no question that I would bake one of this cakes for Christmas eve. And when i found the lovely mini panettone forms for little cakes of 50g each the decision was quickly made. Panettone it would be this year.

My recipe for panettone yields an amount that fits for 3 normal sized cakes or for 30 mini ones. But forming so many minis was a bit to much, even for me and so I went for 2 big and 10 mini Panettone.

I tweaked the recipe a bit, too. I increased the liquid and butter amount but reduced the raisins a bit. The resulting cake was incredible light with a crumb that can easily be shredded into long strands and so tender that it seems to melt in the mouth.

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December 24th, 2017

Merry Christmas

Category This and That Tags: Christmas No Responses

With a picture of the last festive bread I pulled from the oven this morning I wish you a merry Christmas.

The coming days will be a bit quieter on the blog before we will have a our “Best of 2017” post at the last day of the year.

Meanwhile, enjoy the time with your dear ones as we will do here as well!

December 18th, 2017

Cinnamon Stars

Category Christmas Cookies Tags: almond paste, Almonds, Cinnamon, favourite 15 Responses

There are nearly no good sides of being ill. But the flu that put me out of order beginning of December let me discover this terrific recipe and that is definitively a good thing. As I was dozing on the sofa the TV show “hier und heute” was running on TV. And with amusement – and bit of envy – I saw how the moderator nibbled one after the other of the beautiful cinnamon stars. His delighted face told more than hundreds of words how delicious they were- And so I put the recipe directly on my mental “to bake” list for Christmas. The recipe from Marcel Seeger was already downloaded and saved.

This weekend I was finally fit enough for baking cookies. And this recipe was on position one for testing. And after I eat the first cookie I knew why the moderator was so delighted. They are gorgeous, a new keep for my favourite list!

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December 16th, 2017

Sandwich Bread with Emmer

Category Bread Tags: Butter, egg yolk, Emmer, Malt, Poolish, rose hip 35 Responses

I struggeled a lot with Emmer or Einkorn Whole Grain Sandwich breads this year. The problem was always the weak gluten network of the ancient grain in combination with the bran in the whole grain bread which destabilized the gluten network even more. And so the crumb never satisfied my high standards.

Adding Spelt flour to the mixture did not do the trick and so I still try to create the perfect recipe. And will continue in the next year. To relax meanwhile I decided to bake a sandwich with white wheat flour and 30 % whole emmer flour.

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December 8th, 2017

Vesper-Wecken

Category Overnight, Rolls Tags: overnight, Sweet starter 12 Responses

My 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!

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