July 25th, 2013

Kalter Hund

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Cacao, Chocolate, Kekse 6 Responses

I take birthday cake wishes very serious. Especially when the birthday child already mentioned month ago that he always got this one special birthday cake in his child hood. And that this cake is his most favourite cake ever. And so I knew directly which cake I would bake. Ok, “Baking” is maybe the wrong term here. The cake is called “Kalter Hund” which means literally cold dog. It consists of consist of Leibniz-Keks and mixture made of cacao, sugar, eggs and coconut oil. The cake was invented in 1920 as promotion for the Leibniz-Keks and was very popular in the 1950s and 60s.

I made the cake with some additional chocolate and with less sugar, which resulted in a very pleasing birthday cake!

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July 21st, 2013

Pain de Campagne

Category Bread, Overnight Tags: Rye, Sourdough, Über-Nacht, Wheat 18 Responses

During hot summer days I prefer light breads. Breads like Baguette or Pain de Campagne bring a reminiscence of french summer days in our life.

For Pain de Campagne, which is although called French country bread, you can find thousand and one recipes and forms. Everyone seems to have his/her own recipe. But most of the breads are made with levain, a wheat based sourdough, and with a small portion of whole rye or whole wheat flour. And so I added some rye flour and levain for my variation of Pain de Campagne, too. A long, cold fermentation phase helps to build a complex flavour.

The bread has a airy crumb with big holes and a dark brown, crunchy crust. A delicious bread that goes very well with some French cheese and a big bowl of salad.

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July 20th, 2013

Peach Raspberry Ice Cream

Category Ice Tags: Ice, Invertsirup, Pfirsich, raspberry, Sahne No Responses

It’s finally summer here in Germany. A azores high brings us the perfect summer weather: warm, but not hot or humid. Sunshine and a blue sky with little clouds makes us dreaming about icecream.

The coffee roaster sold ice lolly forms some weeks ago, a temptation I could not resist. And to my suprise the silicon form works much better then expected. As longs a the icecream mixture is not to liquid. A fruit puree, mixed with some whipped cream has the perfect consistence. I tried some recipes already and like my peach raspberry ice cream most. To keep a slightly soft texture without big ice crystals I added some Invertsyrup. This worked perfectly, even the part of the ice cream I froze in espresso cups could be spooned right from the freezer. Delicious! Until now, this is my favourite ice cream 2013!

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July 20th, 2013

Invert Sugar Syrup made in the Slowcooker

Category Ice Tags: Ice, Invertsirup 10 Responses

Summertime is Ice cream time!

Finally the temperature rose about 25°C and testing new recipes makes a lot of fun once again. Since I bought some Ice lollies forms I test different Ice lolly recipes as well. And a key component for icecream with a creamy consistence is invert syrup.

Invert syrup consists of glucose and fructose and can easily made from normal sugar (sucrose). Sucrose consists of glucose and fructose, connected by a glycosidic bond. This bond can be destroyed when the sugar is dissolved in water, mixed with acid and this mixture then is heated. The acid and the heat help to break the bond, and the water is build into the single sugar molecules.

These reaction can be done easily at home, using citric acid, sugar and water. It can be done either at the stovetop or (and that is the easiest method)in a slowcooker. A little bit chemistry for the kitchen.

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July 18th, 2013

Einkorn Swirl

Category Bread Tags: alte Getreidesorten, Altes Brot, Einkorn, Sourdough 23 Responses

At my last visit in our small wholefood shop I found a packets of einkorn wheat. Einkorn as well as Emmer and Khorasan are ancient wheat varieties. They have all a higher protein and mineral content. And like in Wheat the main components of the proteins in the grain are the gluten proteins gliadin and glutenin. But unlike to wheat Einkorn contains much more gliadin, the globular gluten protein that makes the dough extensible and sensible in the handling. Dough made from Einkorn flour can easily be overkneaded, so the dough has to be handled with care, similar to spelt dough. And so I decided to use only a smaller portion of einkorn flour. Together with some sourdough and a old bread soaker it makes a great, aromatic bread with distinct nutty flavour due to the einkorn. Very delicious!

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July 14th, 2013

Aroma Bread

Category Bread Tags: Pâte fermentée, Poolish, Rye, Sourdough 30 Responses

I love to bake breads with more than one preferment. My favorite Wheat & Rye Bread or the Young Boar Crust are good examples for the harmony of a yeast preferment and sourdough. But it has been literally years that I bake a bread with three preferments. I don’t know why I waited so long until I baked a three preferments bread once again.

To bake this bread is not so complicated as it sounds. Mixing three preferments instead of one or two needs maybe three minutes longer and this three minutes are really worth the trouble. You will realize it as soon as you take the first bit of this aromatic bread.

This bread is crammed with flavour. Souble sweet notes from the poolish, an alcoholic hint from the pâte fermentée and the slightly sour taste of a young sourdough. The preferments contain about 45% of the flour used for the bread. Some whole wheat flour and dark rye flour adds some nutty flavours while the malt extract adds some additional sugar to make sure that there is enough sugar for the yeast to eat and for the browning of the crust.

I’m completly in love with this bread. With its crunchy crust, tender crumb and the deep, complex flavour it is my Aroma bread!

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July 7th, 2013

Buttermilk squares

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: flaxseeds, Hand kneaded, only with yeast, Poppy seeds, Rye, Sesame, Über-Nacht 59 Responses

When Temperature rise above 25°C you will always find a bottle with buttermilk in my fridge. I love this slightly sour and refreshing drink by its own or mixed with some lemon sorbet. And when I have buttermilk in the fridge, I tend to use it for bread baking as well.

My Buttermilk squares are rolls made with my favourite method of over night rising. The dough is mixed in the evening, with a very small amout of yeast, then it can rise over night on the kitchen counter. The next morning I fold the dough into a big square and cut small squares. After preheating the baking stone and proofing the oven, the rolls are slashed diagonal for an appealing look. After one and a half hour I can serve fresh rolls – still oven warm. Perfect for beautiful sunny summer sundays!

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July 4th, 2013

Marzipan Braid

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: almond paste, only with yeast, Pâte fermentée 11 Responses

There are two reasons for this braid. A colleague of mine cleaned up her pantry and found about 1 kilogramm Marzipan, a left over from the christmas baking. She had no Idea what to do with such an amount of Marzipan which was near its shelf life. And so she gave it to me. The second reason for the cake is the fact, that I promised to bring a cake when my experiment on which I worked for over a year would finally succeed.

Last week I did the third successful repetition (a experiment has to give the same result more then once) and so I baked the promised cake. And to bake a marzipan braid was an easy choice.

The dough I used is a little bit sweetened variation of the dough from the soft and fluffy swiss butter braid with a creamy sweet marzipan filling. It is a delicious cake and I liked it even more then my last Marzipan braid or the marzipan rolls.

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June 29th, 2013

Focaccia

Category Bread, Bread Baking Day, hand kneaded, Overnight Tags: Hand kneaded, Olivenöl, only with yeast, Über-Nacht 20 Responses

Bread Baking Day celebrates its 6. Birthday! In 2007 Zorra started this Bread Baking-Event and since then bakers from all over the world met virtually already 60 times. I participated for the first time in 2009. Since then I try to be a regular part of the event. For two times I was already hosting BBD. Time is flying!

Each Bread Baking Day has its own theme and for this jubilee Zorra wishes “Bread with Glazing”. What kind of glazing she left to ourselves.

I had to think for some time about a recipe but at the end I decided to bake a focaccia. Focaccia is glazed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and herbs prior to baking. The olive oil soaks the crust during baking and adds a delicious flavour to the dough. It is a great bread for the summer (even when its raining all the time)!

Dear Zorra, all the best to the Event-Birthday!

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June 23rd, 2013

Bread with Wild Yeast from Honey

Category Bread, hand kneaded Tags: Honey, Raisin sourdough, Wildhefe 30 Responses

I baked already with wild yeast before it get popular in the different bread baking discussion boards. But then the wild yeast was still called “Raisin Sourdough”. After the first test I did not spent a lot of thoughts on this kind of yeast. The theory worked, so I started with new experiments…

Until I read about a “Apple Wild Yeast” somebody grew in store bought pasteurized apple juice. But as we all should knew is pasteurizing a methode for conserve food. And that works by shortly heating up the juice (or milk or what ever) to kill all microorganisms. And that means, that even the precious “wild yeast” in apple juice is dead!

So what is growing in this apple juice? In most of the recipes, a spoon full of honey is added to the mixture. And as I explained before a lot of nectar is yeast can be found in honey. These nectar yeast start to ferment the honey as soon as the honey is diluted with water. This principle is used for brewing mead. Sometimes apple juice is added to the honey as a nitrogen source to speed up fermentation. But it can also be done only with water and honey. And so I started to think about growing wild yeast from honey…

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