Tag Archives: Butter

January 1st, 2016

Spelt New Years Pretzel

Category Special Occasions Tags: Butter, Egg, Orange, Sahne, Spelt, Sweet starter, wheat free 18 Responses

Relaxed and in good company was our start into 2016. I hope, you landed good in the new year as well!

For a late breakfast we always have the traditional new year pretzel and for this one I did something I planed to do already for some time. I transformed the favourite sunday braid recipe to spelt flour. To increase the water binding capacity, I added a water roux and for a stronger starter, I build the dough similar to a pandoro with a first and a second dough. This enhance flavour and makes the yeasts stronger as they already have the change to adapt to the higher sugar content.

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October 16th, 2015

Sweet Potato Rolls

Category Rolls, World Bread Day Tags: Butter, Egg, only with yeast, Potatoes, Sahne 10 Responses

And this can happen in our house as well: the fridge is empty when I was sure that there should be some breakfast rolls left. And at nine in the evening not even I start to think about making a quick preferment for rolls. Instead I made a short stocktaking in the kitchen and found some left over boiled potatoes, cream and eggs in the fridge. With them I mixed a sweet dough for rolls. Like the dough for my favourite braid this dough has to rest in the fridge for at least one hour, but can stay there over night as well.

That’s what I did and the next morning I just had to form the rolls, proof and bake them. And even while I normally prefer rolls made with preferment and a more complex flavour, I was quite pleased with them. Due to potatoes and cream they have a very soft, fluffy crumb which can be torn into long fibres. The perfect sweet roll.

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October 2nd, 2015

Breadbaking for Beginners: Spelt, Emmer & Quak Rolls

Category Bread baking for beginners, Rolls Tags: Butter, Curd, Emmer, Honey, only with yeast, Spelt, wheat free 23 Responses

In August we spent a weekend in the beautiful Swabia. A part of my family has its roots there and I always enjoy being there. Eating some pretzels is then a “Must” of course. When we stop at a bakerie in Schwäbisch Hall, I spotted a roll made with some Emmer and Quark (Curd). But sadly the last one was already sold when it was my turn. So I bought pretzels and Briegels instead. But the idea was fixed in my head. And soon afterwards I recipe began to form in my head.

As spelt is a typical grain for Swabia, I decided to use a mix of Emmer and Spelt, which adds a nice nutty flavour to the rolls. The Quark makes it moist and if I would not know, that I added 30 % whole grain flour, I would never have guessed it.

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September 20th, 2015

Swan King Bread

Category Bread Tags: Brühstück, Butter, Buttermilch, Malz, Malzbier, Rye, Sourdough, Spelt, wheat free 48 Responses

Oliver asked me on Saturday morning if I have a recipe for a “King Ludwig Bread”. I did not know a bread with this name, but after some minutes of googling I started to suspect that it is a readymade mixture for bakeries, as so many bakeries are selling it. Some minutes later I found the manufacture of the mix and the ingredients did not sound so well in my ears: “Spelt flour, ry flour, malt, dried rye sourdough, whole spelt flour, coarse meal spelt, gluten, salt, sweet whey powder, guar flour, wheat bran, grape concentrate, ascorbic acid, enzymes”.

The breads seems to have a soft crumb what speaks against a bigger amount of rye and the brownish crumb should be due to malt and not to a lot of whole grain flour. And slowly a recipe starts to appear in my brain.

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September 4th, 2015

Göppinger Bread

Category Bread Tags: Butter, Rye, Sourdough, Wheat 12 Responses

When I talked with my mum on the phone some weeks ago, she asked me if I had an idea for a recipe. She had a rye sourdough fermenting in the kitchen and was now looking for recipes (I know where I got my tendency to start a preferment before deciding what to bake.) I just baked a delicious Wheat-Rye bread and some minutes later I had drafted a “sibling” of this recipe which fits to the preferment and sent it to my mum. The next day she send me some pictures and wrote that they all liked the bread very much, so I kept the recipe in the back of my head as “to be baked”.

When I was thinking what to bake as move-in present (in germany the classical gift for a new flat/house is the symbolic bread and salt), I remembered the recipe and I finally I baked it. And I like it as much as its faster sibling. It is an aromatic bread with crisp crust and tender crumb. It is a perfect everyday bread and tastes delicious with sweet things like honey and jam as well as with hearty cheese.

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August 23rd, 2015

Buttertoast

Category Bread Tags: Butter, Sweet starter, Toast 27 Responses

I do both rather seldom: Baking soft sandwich bread and baking during the week. Normally my bread baking day is at the weekend and so I need special circumstances to take the flour from the cupboard during a working week. But an tooth emergency leaded to a small oral surgery and subsequently to chewing problems. After three days of soups and purees I was longing for a really soft bread which is easy to chew.

The sweet starter is always great in such situations. Coming home from work I went straight to the kitchen and started the starter. Two hours later its volume already doubled and so I could already knead the dough. The dough contained some yeast (as I wanted to bake before going to bed) and a good portion of butter and a pinch of enzyme active malt. Both helps to make the crump tender. The good amount of butter as well as some sugar also leads to a good browning when toasted. But although untoasted the bread has good, slightly buttery flavour.

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May 1st, 2015

Tebirkes

Category Bread Baking Day, Rolls Tags: Butter, Poppy seeds, Sourdough 6 Responses

Today I’m quite happy that the first of may is a holiday because this gives me the time to bake something for the Bread baking day in the last second. Susanna asked us to bake Bread around the world and so I travled north in my mind and baked Tebirkes. Tebirkes are a danish poppy seed roll made with a kind of puff pastry. They are not only made with dark poppy seeds but can be topped with white poppy seeds as well. In my cupboard I found a forgotten bag with white poppy seeds I bought in the indian supermarket some time ago and so I well equipped for making Tebirkes. Continue reading →

August 31st, 2014

Butterkuchen (with sweet Starter)

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Almonds, Butter, Sweet starter, Zucker 8 Responses

A Butterkuchen in its simplicity is one of the most enchanting cakes for me. It is only made with some flour, milk, butter, sugar and yeast and allows each ingredients to shine. And when the fridge is still rather empty after coming home after our vacation trip, it is the perfect cake because it only needs so few ingredients. And after a short search in the cupboard I even found some almond splices which I sprinkled over the cake for the more luxury variant.

And because the sweet starter had to be fed after being trapped in the fridge for two weeks anyway I decided that I would bake the cake with sweet starter instead of yeast. To ensure that the starter is strong enough after sleeping in the fridge for so long I fed it once in the evening, put it in the fridge after 3 hours at 30°C and then fed it again the next morning. Due to the fact that a sweet starter will not let a dough rise as fast as with commercial yeast it takes from 8 o’clock in the morning until half past three in the afternoon until we could try the still warm cake.

It may not be the fastest method to bake this cake but you will be rewarded with a soft, fluffy cake packed with a lot of tender but complex flavour notes. And while the cake it technically baked with a sourdough, there is not even a hind if acidity. I love my sweet starter!

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July 27th, 2014

Alsacian Kougelhopf

Category Cake & Pastry, Special Occasions Tags: Almonds, Butter, Cake, Eier, Elsass, Raisins, Sweet starter, Vanilla 45 Responses

Nearly a year has passed since our visit in Alsace in our summer vacation. One of the souvenirs I brought home after two splendid weeks in france was a clay baking form for Kougelhopf. It is sitting on my kitchen cabinet since then, waiting for me to create a recipe for Kugelhopf.

This weekend I finally found the time to study different Kougelhopf recipes. But I did not like them, all of them use a lot of yeast and give the dough no time to rest properly to develop a good flavour. And I wanted a recipe which uses a preferment for better taste and longer shelf life! And so I decided to use my own interpreation with a sweet starter which helps to rise the buttery dough without using a lot of yeast.

The cake is more time consuming then other recipes you may find in the web, but it develops a fine complex flavour and light and feathery crumb. I imaging that even my alsacian great-grandmother would have enjoyed it!

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June 1st, 2014

Brioche

Category Rolls, Special Occasions Tags: Butter, Egg, Eier, Sweet starter 12 Responses

Since some weeks I have some niece little brioche forms sitting in my cupboard which are only waiting for being filled with a new recipe. This long weekend was the perfect time to try the idea of baking Brioche with sweet starter. This strong, not tangy sourdough adds a niece complexity to the dough while the big amounts of egg and butter yield a soft and fluffy crumb.

But this big amount of butter makes it necessary to use a kitchen machine for kneading. When the butter is added, the dough loose all of its strength and becomes soft and smeary. So soft and smeary that I had my doubts if I could knead it to good consistency. But during intensive kneading with the kitchen machine the dough gains back its strength and after 15 min the gluten network was fully developed. But it is worth to find the patience to knead for such a long time because this will result in a fluffy crumb which can be torn into long fibres.

The only thing I will change the next time is that I would form the upper ball for the Brioche à tête a little bit smaller so that the head is easier to recognize.

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