My Boyfrind complained some days ago, that I bake always bread, but never a torte. Well, I fear that it’s true because I do not like tortes so much. But I own a tiny little springform with a diameter of 18 cm since Chrismas (Thanks Erika and Alwins :-D), a perfekt Size for a small torte for two.
And because I was looking for something for the Jubiläums-Blogevent from Zora (1x umrühren bitte), I could hit two birds with one stone.
I proudly present: A mini-torte. Continue reading
Hätte man mich vor einer Woche gefragt, welches für mich das perfekte Zopfrezept ist, hätte ich dieses genannt. Doch bereits als ich das erste Mal durch “Advanced Bread and Pastry” blätterte, fiel mir das Rezept für Eggbread ins Auge. Besonders die Tatsache, das es im Onlineteil des Buchs eine Anleitung für einen acht-strängigen Zopf gab, reizte mich.
Und dann hat Susan von Wild Yeast für BBD #19 Eggbread gebacken, und beim Betrachten der Bilder war es um mich geschehen. Dieses Brot mußte gebacken werden, so schnell wie möglich :-D. Und natürlich mußte es die achtstängige Variante sein.
Das Flechten war dadurch etwas unübersichtlich, und gegen Ende habe ich den Überblick verloren. Dadurch ist der Zopf nicht so schön geworden, wie ich in mir vorgestellt hatte. In Zukunft werde ich doch wieder sechs-strängig flechten!
Aber die Krume, die Kruste, der Geschmack – was für ein Gedicht! Die Krume ist flaumig-weich, die Kruste ist weich, ein Brot mit einem wunderbaren Aroma! Continue reading
These week I found in a forum the statement from an experienced user that dough should not ferment after kneading but have just a short periode of resting (about 30min). A conclusion I disagreed very energetic, because in my opinion the first fermentation is necessary for giving flavor to the dough and strenghend the gluten. (The dough we discussed about was a dough with 2 % fresh Yeast and a mixture of whole wheat flour and white flour)But to my disappointment he gave me no reason for his opinion, he refused to discuss the topic with me, he just give me the feeling, that I am so stupid that I do not know about this.
So this statement left me puzzled and I read and reread a lot in my baking books, but all of them have fermentation periodes (1 hour and longer) and the explanation I learned: the dough gaines flavour and strength while fermenting. At the moment I have no reason to change my recipes.
But I would like how you handle your dough, and why? Do you just rest him (not more then 30 min, dough rise not visible) or do you ferment him (around 1 hour, dough double his volume)?
But I did not spend my week just discussing about fermentation, I also bake bread, of course with a fermentationperiode of 1 hour 😛 Continue reading
Today I have no bread to present but a botanical rarity that flowers in the botanic garden Bonn!
Amorphophallus titanum – the titan arum flowers since this weekend. The titan arum is not easy to cultivate, so it is not very often shown in botanic gardens. Since the titan arum was discovered in the 18. century in Sumatra only 122 plants flowered in gardens worldwide!
It is really an event, you should not miss. How often can you see a flower that its higher then 2m?
Who can not visit the botanic garden Bonn can find Informations about the titan arum and a Webcam on their Homepage .
Pane francese is italian and means french bread. It is the Italian version of baguette. Having the look of a ciabatta, the crumb is similar to a baguette.
It is a very tasty bread with a rustic look, that contains a small amount of whole wheat flour and such a minimal amount of yeast, that I really doubted that the dough would rise. But never underestimate these small creatures. The long fermentation period give them enough time to proliferate and the bread had a nice oven spring. Continue reading
Another collegue finished her PhD thesis, and today was the great day of her disputation. It is a custom at our university that the new Doctor get a selfmade Doctor-hat, a Doctor-wagon and a Doctor-cake. So I was asked if I could bring a cake, a question I will always answer with yes 😉
For the last two disputations I do Schweizer Rüblikuchen, something that is very delicious, but I thought it would be not very creativ to bake it a third time. Filing through my recipes at Chefkoch.de I found a recipe for Brownies.
Containing a lot of sugar and cacao you get nearly a sugar-shock when you eat more than a tiny bite, so it is really perfect for my lab mates 😉
The Recipe is very easy, so its perfect, if you come home from work late in the evening (like me in the last weeks). The decorations I did this mornig at work together with a collegue. Continue reading
I promise to bake some bread for an Easter-Dinner with my parents. It’s been a long time since I baked Baguette, and there are so many nice recipes in “Advanced Bread and Pastry” that I had not to think about what kind of bread I want to bake.
The recipe I choosed worked fine and forming the baguettes was easly done. But when I tried to put the first Baguette to my peel, I realized that it was to big! But thats no problem, I thought, the oven is longer than the peel. I take second peel to support the part of the bread that did not fit to the peel and transported the bread to the oven. When I had the baguette halfway on the stone I realized that the oven was to small for my baguette, too! I pushed the loave somehow into the oven, produzing a funny bended bread that deserve not the name baguette. Continue reading
After my Bread baking Adventure I did not bake at this weekend because the freezer was filled with bread.
But today I came home earlier so I had some time to do a more complicated dinner then usual. I like Rohrnudeln very much, with a soup as a starter they are my favorite sweet maindish, so I decided that it was time to bake them again.
I serve them u
nfilled, with custard and apple sauce.
We do house-sitting at my parents place during the Easter holidays. The weather was fine, so we spend a lot of time in the garden. But free days are not perfect without baking for me. I brought sourdough, seeds and grain from home, my mum has a kitchen machine and a lot of bread pans.
I was so glad that it’s really a lot of bread pans, because I underestimate the recipe. I was a little bit worried, when I looked into the bowl of the kitchen machine and saw how much dough was inside.
I end up with more then 3 kg dough, which yields 5 loaves between 500g and 1 kg. Luckily I have enough space in the freezer to freeze most of them.
I reduce the recipe for the blog, so it yields now two loaves of 750g.
The recipe is from “Advanced bread and pastry” from Michael Suas, I just replaced the rye flour with millet.
The special part of the recipe is that it uses both levain and prefermented dough, which create a very tasty bread with a light crumb. Continue reading
I learned two years ago, that there exist a Easterbread called Colomba, when my italian collegue brought one from Italy after easter holidays with her parents. With this incredibly soft texture of the crumb unter a sugar crust it was one of the delicouse things I ever tested. To sad that my collegue did not bake at all, so she had no recipe for me.
But from that point on I wish to bake a colomba. But I learned very fast, that it is nearly impossible to get a colomba papermold in Germany (and i do not plan to buy 100 papermolds, just for baking one or two colombas per year) Continue reading