December 27th, 2013

Country bread with sweet starter

Topfbrot 2 I love to bake Pandoro, but in the busy Christmas time I do not always find the time to prepare the time consuming Sweet Starter. But this year I had enough time for it during the holidays. A Sweet Starter is an extremly active sourdough which is prepared by feeding a sourdough every four hours and keeping it on 30°C. This shifts the sourdough to the yeasty side and creates a sweet tasting sourdough with only hints of yoghurt flavour. And it makes the starter very strong, and  so my starter was finally able to double its size in two hours. Such an active starter is a very nice thing and so I decided to increase the amount during feeding until I could use a part of it to start a preferment for a bread. I mixed the preferment in the morning and after four hours the sourdough more then tripled it size and was ready to use. And so I mixed a dough, fermeted it for three hours and then I proofed the shaped loaves overnight in the fridge.

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December 23rd, 2013

Chai Syrup

Chai Sirup

Who still needs a present for Christmas has to hurry up now. A delicious last minute present for people with a sweet tooth is this Chai Syrup. And with a flask of Chai Syrup the next Chai Latte is just a question of warm (maybe frothed) milk.

For the syrup you just need some black tea, some spices, water and sugar and ten minutes time. And then you can fill your syrup into glasses or flasks and wrap them up for Christmas. Or you keep a flask for your one…

 

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December 22nd, 2013

Potato Rolls out of the bottle

Kartofflbrötchen

This year you can buy a lot of different bread mixes backed in Weck-Flasks. Even our book stores sells them. When I studied the flasks there I realized that they charge ten Euro for 750g of flour, yeast, salt and some spices or seeds! Really, ten Euro? I mean, ok, the Weck flask would cost something about two Euro. But then there are still 8 Euro left for a little bit of flour.

Home again I grabbed an old juice flask and filled it with layers of wheat flour, rye flour and potatoe flakes.  I used the organic instant mashed potatoes from Alnatura which consists only of dry potatoes flakes, salt and spices. Filling the flask took its time, so choosing one with a wide bottle neck would be better! The 500g of flour, potatoe flaks, yeast and salt cost me about 1,20 Euro and the flask was for free. And it is a nice present, even a last minute one, as long as you have the ingredients and a flask/glass with one litre volume at home.

Of course I test-baked the recipe, too! And I was surprised about the potatoey taste of the rolls, and I like their moist crumb and crisp crust very much, too. Maybe I should rethink my “no instant mash potatoe-rule” in favour for easy potato rolls!

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December 20th, 2013

Meringue Mushrooms

Baiser Pilze (2)Sometimes I see a recipe and I have directly a person in mind who would be like it as small treat.

That happened to me, when I saw the little meringue mushrooms on Food52 shortly before christmas. At this time it was already to late but I kept it in mind the whole year and made it this week as little Christmas present for someone who loves to go on a mushroom foray.

And I was surprised who simple they are made. Who ever made some meringue before will do this easily. You just have to pipe flat, round hats with a big piping tip. The stems are made by moving the tip slowly  upwards and the lamella are made by dipping the bottom side of the hat into molten chocolate. You see, it is really easy to do but the effect is great!

A perfect gift for mushroom fan!

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December 15th, 2013

Mohnkipferl

Mohnkipferl

And here I am with another modification of my standard recipes. I saw a picture of Mohnkipferl (poppy seeds crescents) somewhere in the depth of the world wide web some weeks ago, but did not save the site nor the recipe (my fault, I know). And so I had to be creative…

I replaced the almonds in my vanilla crescent recipe with ground poppy seeds. I ground the poppy seeds with the mini chopper accessory of my hand held blender, but an electric coffee mill or a food processor should do the job, too.

The poppy seed experiment worked out perfectly, the kipferl a perfectly mellow and are a perfect contrast to my normal vanilla crescents!

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December 14th, 2013

Quince stars

QuittensterneThere are three recipes I bake each year for christmas: Vanillekipferl (with or without almonds), Liebesgrübchen and Linzer Ringe. These are family recipes, and a christmas “must have”.

But each year I have to bake some new recipes as well. And one of the recipes I tried this year are these quince stars. When I made my traditional Linzer Ringe recipe I had the Idea of a cookie made with a quince fillung and some grounded almonds and a little bit of tonka bean in the dough. I use the tonka beans always carefully because while they taste delicious, their aroma is a strong one, too.

I like my spontaneous recipe vey much, the combination of almond, quince and tonka bean fits very well!

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December 12th, 2013

Korianderbrot

KorianderbrotGround Coriander seeds have a long tradition as bread spice. When I roasted some coriander seeds for an indian dish some weeks a go I suddenly had the idea of a bread with whole, roasted coriander seeds in my mind. A bread similar to a caraway seed bread.

Thought and done… The next week I roasted some seeds and put them in a bread dough. I let the dough rise over night at room temperature and the next morning I formed a (big) loaf and baked it.

During baking a aromatic fragrance filled our flat and so it was hard to wait until the bread cooled down before tasting. But the flavour is worth wating! When my teeth hit a seed I can taste the slight peppery flavour of coriander seeds. And like a caraway seed bread goes very well with hearty spreads or cheese. But it is also a perfect side for a soup like the fennel celery soup we had last week.

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December 8th, 2013

New Book shop: Free delivery for the first 25 books

Hefe und mehr - Büchershop

Just in time for the second Advent our new online book shop is ready to start! You can order my book “Hefe und mehr” there. The first 25 books will be delivered free in Germany, delivery into the rest of the world will get an discount of 2.50 Euro (Büchersendung) or of 4.80 Euro (Parcel).

  • If you order one book use the code “0d37bc573d” for a free delivery (Büchersendung) in Germany or for the discount of 2.50 Euro for worldwide shipping (Büchersendung).
  • If you order more then one book use the code “826f1cc885 “ for a free delivery (Parcel) in Germany or for the discount of 4.80 Euro for worldwide shipping (Parcel).

If you want me to sign the book, just add the item “Buch vom Autor signieren lassen” to your basket.

December 6th, 2013

Stollenkonfekt

Stollenkonfekt

Stollenkonfekt – this is Christstollen baked as little bits. I saw it often in the last weeks in the supermarket. And I thought “I can do some of this delicious bits by my own!” This was the beginning of this recipe. I made some adjustments in my favourite Christstollen recipe, increasing the amount of water roux to prevent drying out in the oven and cutting the marzipan into the small cubes. I halve the recipe so it will yield one tray of Stollenkonfekt.

And because the Stollenkonfekt is so small, no one will recognise when you taste one or two still oven warm. They then already delicious, moist and fluffy. That makes it even harder to wait the one or two weeks of rest a stollen needs so the different flavours can infuse and melt together. But the taste is worth the patience. The crumb gets denser during that time and stays incredible moist. A perfect little bit of stollen in a size which fits on every christmas cookie plate.

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