November 19th, 2011

Apfel-Scones

Apfel-SconesScones are my new favourite for a easy snack on sunday afternoon when I longing for something sweet. The raspberry scones I made in September tasted great and so I wanted to try another variation. When I saw that the last apple from my parents garden started to shrivel a little bit I decided to make apple scones with some whole wheat flour, almonds and some “winterly” spices. It is not Winter now but the last mornings were ice cold, and so cardamom, allspice and cinnamon seemed to fit very well.

The Whole wheat flour and the almons at a little bit more substance to the scones and the apple balance nicely tart and sweet.

I like the scones best with some cranberry jam and a cup of Earl Grey tea.

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November 14th, 2011

Advent Calendar Give Away–And the winner is …

Verlosung

Give me a drum roll, please! We have a winner of my Advent caleder give away!

I gave a number to each email I get for the give away according to the order I get them, and then generate a number with Random.org .

Number 9 is the winning number and this number belongs to Rute of Tangerine.

Congratulations!

Thanks you again for all your nice comments and Congratulations to my Advent Calendar! Because some of you asked me where you can buy the calendar: you can buy it at booksstores in Germany and of course in the Internet(Amazon, Buecher.de, Thalia, Weltbild for example).

November 13th, 2011

Pain aux Levain aux grains mélangés e noisettes

pain au levainSome time ago I saw a delicious looking bread that Judd baked: Pain aux levain aux grains melanges. I’m in love with breads containing mixed seeds and so I put the bread on my todo list.

This week I managed to bake it, finally – but with some adjustments. The sunflower seeds vanished magically before I started to bake bread and so I replaced them with hazelnuts. I love hazelnuts in autumn breads so for me the change was not so hard. Normally I have grains for home milled whole grain flour and white flour with Type number 550 so I adjust the ratio between the different flour types, because the flours I used had different Type numbers compared with the ones that Judd use.

The bread I get is delicious, full of flavors of sourdough, nuts and seeds and with a moist crumb because of the soaker.

If you want to win my Advent calender you have still time to do enter your name here until today night (13. November 2011, 23.59 Uhr).

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October 31st, 2011

Quince-Almond-Braid

Quitten-Mandel-ZopfIts nearly two weeks ago that I posted a recipe! At the moment my work is once again consuming most of my time, but hopefully this part of my Ph.d. thesis will be finished successfully in soon future. I will tell you more about it then.

The bad thing with stressful days is that it makes me always susceptible for colds. After I had a really bad at the beginning of October the second cold for this month sent me last week straight to my bed again. I drank a lot of tea, eats a lot of vitamins and now the fever is gone. I am just still very hoarse and coughing badly.

But I am fit enough once again for reading blogs and for baking. Paule baked Quitten-Schuedi this weekend, a cake with yeast dough and quince sauce. I liked the Idea of using some of last years quince sauce I had still in the freezer. I need new space to freeze my share of quince from my parents garden that at the moment is still waiting in a small laundry basket in my kitchen. Continue reading

October 17th, 2011

Krusti

KrustisKrustis are wheat rolls which get a vey crisp crust because of their form which cause their crust to crack unregulary in the oven.

The rolls are very easy to form and they look very nice.

I choosed a similar recipe for my variation of Krustis as I used for the “Normal rolls”. But this time I add more Butter to the dough and this higher fat content makes the crumb softer. I think I come closer to my ideal roll!

The poolish and the fact that the dough rise slowly overnight give the rolls a very nice complex taste.

This rolls have the potential to become my new favourite Breakfast rolls.

 

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October 16th, 2011

Maple syrup and oats bread

Ahornsirup-Haferflocken-BrotI can’t believe it already another year is gone and Zorra asks us to bake a bread for WorldBreadDay.

For me baking bread is not extraordinary and so I decided to honour this day with an ingredients which is special for me: Maple syrup.

Normally I would not use such a lavish amount of maple syrup because maple syrup is rather expensive here, but I fall in love with Noah Elbers Maple-Oatmeal-Bread MC published on her bread baking blog Farine last year and I always planed to bake it, too. But its nearly impossible to get steel-cut oat here, and so I decided to use rolled oats instead. But rolled oats need more water when you soak them and so I started to modify the recipe. And its so hart to stop modifing once you started, so I increased the whole wheat amount (I like breads with whole wheat) and reduced the water amount in the dough to compensate the higher water amount in the soaker. Continue reading

October 11th, 2011

Apple Hazelnut Bread

Apfel-Haselnussbrot

MC had the good idea to bake a local bread that contains ingredients which are an expression of the surrounding area. In my opinion this is a beautiful idea and especially in autumn there are a lot of local things that one could put in a bread to catch the essence of “Home”.

I changed her recipe so it resembles my home: A rustic country loaf, with the apple juice made from windfall fruits(Streuobstwiesen with apple trees are very typical here), hazelnuts and summer flower honey from a local bee keeper.

The apples I use are from an old apple tree in my parents garden. My grandparents planted about 50 years ago when they build the house. I love this tree. When I was small I often sat in the crown of this apple tree feeling safe and sheltered there. Later a nearly level branch became my “horse” with reins and stirrups made of rope. I spent many hours “riding” during dream worlds. Continue reading

October 8th, 2011

Apple casserole with rolled oat topping

ApfelauflaufIn Germany we had a lot of sun at the end of September to balance the wet and cold summer. The last warm days made the apples on my parents apple tree delicious sweet. But with the begin of October the weather changed to “real” autumn with 10°C as highest temperature, rain and storm.

I was longing for something sweet and warm for dessert to warm me from inside. Something sweet made with the delicious hand picked apples. I longed for the sweedish apple casserole topped with thin-rolled oats. A colleague of mine baked it for her birthday last winter – but forget to give the recipe to me until now.

And so I made the crust like I thought it would work.

And it taste good – who needs a recipe?

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October 6th, 2011

Hazelnut Cacao Rolls

Haselnuss-Kakao-Schnecken (2)

About one and a half year ago every german food blogger seemed to bake cacao rolls. Anikó blogged the tempting recipe and everyone had to test it, myself included.

When I saw the chocolate hazelnut rolls on The Patterned Plate I had to think about these rolls once again. But this rolls are also filled with hazelnuts (as the name suggested Zwinkerndes Smiley ). The description of a nutella-ish taste was so mouthwatering that I had to bake such rolls at the same weekend.

I decided to use another recipe for the dough because I was dreaming of heavenly soft and fluffy rolls. The dough is not so easy to handle but its worth the work because the rolls rise to be as light as a feather. I let them rise overnight in the fridge, it is a convenient method to get sweet rolls for breakfast without a lot of fusing in the morning and the slow rise contributes to the good taste, too.

I added some Cardamom and Cinnamon to the filling – just a tiny little bit to the spices in the background without overpowering the hazelnuts and the cacao. And I pour some boiling milk over the rolls after one third of the baking time, a trick I borrowed from the cacao roll recipe to make the rolls extra soft.

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