May 19th, 2012

Rhubarb Napoleons

Rharbabercremeschnitte

I like rhubarb very much, as I told you before. And when my mum gave me a generous amount of rhubarb fresh from my parents garden I made a second batch of oven roasted rhubarb. Some of the rhubarb I eat with my muesli during the week, and on the weekend I started to think what to do with the leftover jar.

A little bit sweet to our afternoon coffee sounds like a good idea and so I decided to make Rhubarb Napoleons. When you make them with store bought puff pastry, its an easy and fast treat, but made with homemade puff pastry its even more delicious.

The filling is rather easy, but luscious – whipped cream and oven roasted rhubarb.

Perfect for sunday afternoons.

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May 18th, 2012

Sweet potato and Chickpea Bread

Süsskartoffel-Kichererbsen-Brot

Since Christmas I did not precipitate at Bread Baking Day. The last month were filled with all the things that happen, when you finish your Ph.d. thesis: long days in lab for the last experiments, then writing (and rewriting) the thesis and at least learning for the Disputation. But luckily everything is done now and I can concentrate on things I love: Baking Bread.

BBD is hosted from Sarah From Snuggs Kitchen in this month and has the theme “Bread with vegetable”. And when I thought what to do with some sweet potato leftovers, I decided to put it in a bread. And the chickpea flour (chickpeas are vegetables, too) I neglected for a to long time would be a nice addition, too. And so I went to work in my kitchen, making bread with sweet potatoes and chickpea flour.

I had to reduced the amount of water which I added to the dough because the chickpea flour makes the dough very soft. But then handling the dough was possible and I placed the loaves in some proofing baskets and let them proof overnight in the fridge.

While I baked the loaves the next morning, the fragrance of chickpea filled the kitchen. And when I take the loaves out of the oven, they started to “sing” immediatly. The crackle of their crust already promised a crispy crust with a soft crumb. And the colour of the crust was stunning, too: A dark brown with deep orange slashes, with accents of white flour. A bread for all senses.

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May 14th, 2012

Burger Buns – Overnight Variation

Burgerbrötchen The second kind of bread I bake for our BBQ-Party was Burger Buns for the grilled Burger we planed to make.

To tweak my recipe I baked them now a couple of times and are very pleased with the recipe. An important point to archive a fluffy, regular crumb is to knead the dough long enough to ensure that the gluten network is fully developed. The crumb will be very soft and pillowy then. The crust is soft, too, like a perfect burger bun, but the bun has much more substance then the buns you can buy in the supermarket.

The slow and long overnight proofing create a complex aroma and prevent the crust of the buns from cracking open uncontrolled. They gain colour fastly due to the egg and sugar in the dough, so it’s better to keep an eye on them while they are baking.

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May 12th, 2012

Cloverleaf rolls

Kleeblatt-BrötchenI neglected the Blog a little bit in the last months. But I passed the defence of my Ph.d. thesis successfully last Monday so I have time for blogging once again.

We (some other freshly made “Dr.”s and me) had a party to celebrate this event. I volunteered to take care of the bread and tested two new overnight recipes for the party: cloverleaf rolls and burger buns. The Burger buns are made with very little yeast and proofed overnight at room temperature while the cloverleaf rolls proofed in the fridge. I only had to bake the rolls the next morning.

The cloverleaf rolls are a little eye catcher for  a buffet. One of the “leaves” of the cloverleaf is dipped in sesame, one of the them is dipped in poppy seeds and one stayed plain. It is my miniature variation of the German “Brötchensonne”.

They taste very good, too, with a complex flavour due to poolish and the long and cold proofing.

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May 4th, 2012

Cream puffs with Vanilla rhubarb

Windbeutel mit Rhabarberfüllung

Since days I am dreaming of some kind of rhubarb cake. So when I spotted some beautiful red rhubarb stalks in the organic food shop I decided immediately that I would take some home with me (especially when the organic grown rhubarb was better looking and cheaper then the conventional grown I saw earlier this week in the supermarket).

On my way home I started to think about what to bake with the rhubarb. I’m still learning for my disputation, so time for baking is short. So I decided to do make cream puffs with oven roasted, vanilla flavoured rhubarb. Something that is easy but delicious.

When I tried the rhubarb when I took it out of the oven, I could hardly stop eating everything. It tasted so good. (Note to myself: Next time double the amount of the oven roasted rhubarb, then I would have some to stir in yoghurt)

The cream puffs are even more delicious then the plain rhubarb: a little bit sweet, a little bit sour, embraced from vanilla. Hmmh…!

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April 29th, 2012

Fleischkäse

FleischkäseI eat vegetarian and my boyfriend like vegetarian food, too, so we seldom buy meat for him. But sometimes he like to find some meat on his plate. A favourite of him is Fleischkäse (also called Leberkäse) but he seldom buy it.

But when we saw the recipe “Fleischkäse für Jedermann”  at chefkoch.de we decided to try it for dinner (I got some homemade smoked tofu burgers). We tweaked the spices in the recipe a little bit, but over all we sticked to the recipe.

It is an easy recipe, the ground meat has to be kneaded with the kitchen machine until it gets smeary, then its placed in a baking pan and baked for an hour.

The boyfriend like the Fleischkäse very much and we have now a lot of slices in the freezer, so he can eat fried Fleischkäse when ever he liked

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April 27th, 2012

Pain Bordelaise

Pain Bordelaise Here is another recipe for a bread that made already its ways through some blogs until I finally bake it. It started at Sourdough the angry baker, then Daniela from  vegetarian gustos si sanatos baked it and at least Zorra from 1x umrühren bitte was very pleased with the recipe. Each of the breads appeared at  Yeastspotting, too. The Name remembered me vaguely  of something, and finally it came to my mine that I bookmarked this recipe in 2010 when Jeremy from Stir the pots posted the recipe.

I stick nearly complete to the recipe (I just skip the 10g of whole wheat flour – to lazy to mill this amount of wheat), and use Jeremeys instruction for kneading, which is rather short and developed the gluten network with stretching and folding the dough.

The recipe is really great: An easy-to-handle dough, great oven spring, open crumb, crispy crust and a delicious taste.

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April 21st, 2012

Swabian Potato Bread

Schwäbisches KartoffelbrotLutz baked a swabian Potato Bread last year, a little bit later there was a modified version on  Grain de Sel, which Petra baked, too. I realized the recipe then and decided to bake my own version of this bread.

I increase the sourdough and preferment amount as well as the amount of potatoes but decrease the yeast amount. After I had such a good experience with old bread (aka bread crumbs) in preferment I decided to add the bread crumbs to the preferment.  Instead of oil or lard I preferred Butter.

The bread is very delicious with a soft cumb and a thick, crispy crust. It is very aromatic because of the two preferments, and the higher amount of bread crumbs adds a nice nut-like flavour to the dough.

This is a new favourite!

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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.

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April 14th, 2012

Wheat Bread with “old Bread”

Weizenbrot mit altem BrotWhen you bake your own bread, you normally have to deal with leftover bread, too. When the bread become stale, I normally place it on top of the kitchen radiator and let them dry out completely. When they are dry, I put them in a food container and keep them for further use, like bribing our guinea pig (not a healthy treat, I know) or crushing them to bread crumbs. The bread crumbs I use regulary for cooking and baking. I like to put them into  the filling of  sweet pastries. Or I add them into a bread dough, replacing a part of the flour with the bread crumbs.

Lutz like to put old bread into preferments. I like this idea and vary his kind of preferment, so that its made out of bread crumbs completely. Together with some sourdough and a slow and long proof in the fridge, it adds a lot of flavour to the bread. Very delicious!

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