I told you already in the last years, that I do not like carnival so much. What I like is baking and eating “Berliner Ballen”, the yam filled german doughnut which is served traditionally during the carnival days. And so I created a new recipe with a lot egg yolks for a very soft crumb and sweet starter for a good flavour and oven spring.
While frying the Berliner I learned a lesson I – in theory – already knew: A glass lid is not as effective in shielding the heat in the pot as a black enameled metal lid. For the first batch I used the glass lid so I was able to observe the doughnuts while frying. But the oven spring was not as good as it should be. So for the next batch I took the metall lid that belongs to my frying pot. And now the oven spring was perfect. The Berliner got the white “collar” – a part of the dough which is lifted out of the hot fat due to the oven spring and which is a sign for a well made Berliner Ballen.
It was snowing in the morning when I got up and it kept snowing. That is more snow then precasted and we have a nice winter chaos out there. The main problem (like every year) are trucks without winter tyre. The traffic jam on our highway is at the moment about 20 km and I’m nearly happy that I’m on sick leave due to a fevery bronchitis and can stay home.
A short look through the kitchen cupboards produced a open glass of yoghurt, some boiled potatoes form our Lunch and a leftover of whole rye flour. Together with a little spoonful of sourdough (a idea I copied from Günther Weber) I kneaded them to a dough and let them rise over night. The next morning I formed and baked some rolls from this dough which rose highly while we splept.
I never like chain mails. In primary school I constantly ignored all the threads they included and threw them away instead of copying and send them forward. Blog awards are way better because their idea is a lovely one. But I do not want to send them forward today. And so I say “Thank you very much” to 
The pig as lucky charm is very common in Germany on new years eve and new years morning. They are called “Glücksschweinchen” which literally means “Lucky pig”. Often they are made with marzipan and used to decorate the table. For the first day of 2015 I baked in a muffin tin some little pigs made of sweet yeast dough.