Tag Archives: Lievito madre

September 24th, 2013

Federweisser Rolls

Category Rolls Tags: Federweißer, Lievito madre, Rye, Über-Nacht 8 Responses

We like the Federweisser Bread I baked last week very much and so I started directly to think about other recipes. A Breakfast roll was what I was thinking about. And when Nadja encouraged me to think about other recipes, too, I decided to bake rustically looking rolls for sunday morning. Sunday was election day and I always like to go very early to the election office. And so I needed rolls which would proof overnight in the fridge.

After I come home I only had to put the rolls to the preheated oven. They had a great ovenspring due to the combination of yeast from the young wine and Lievito madre. When I pulled them out of the oven, they started to “sing”, with their crust crackling loudly while they cool down. And they hold what they promise: Crisp crust with a light and soft crumb. The perfect breakfast roll for me!

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August 21st, 2013

Crescents with Lievito madre

Category Overnight, Rolls Tags: Lievito madre, Pâte fermentée, Spelt, Über-Nacht, Water roux 21 Responses

Since my childhood I love to eat sweet “Hörnchen” for breakfast. But when I try to let the buttery buns rise over night in the fridge I run into a problem. Putting a dough with a high butter content in the fridge makes the butter solid. The solid butter inhibit the prober rise of the dough and this leads to a reduced volume.

Changing butter to a mild sunflower seed oil helped a lot. Similar to the Burger buns I baked two weeks ago, this recipe works with a relative high amount of oil, which makes the crumb soft and fluffy. The taste is different from my standard recipe, missing the prominent butter flavour. But the mild taste of the oil allows the complex flavours of the preferments shine through. And so are this delicious Hörnchen a great alternative for my favourite breakfast!

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August 10th, 2013

Burger Buns with Lievito madre

Category Rolls Tags: Lievito madre, vegan, Wildhefe 21 Responses

The summer weather last weekend made us thinking about grilling delicious Burgers in the evening. And so I had to bake burger buns, of course.

In the fridge I still have the preferment I made from my Honey-Wildyeast-Experiment. It has developed all traits of a Lievito madre, something not so suprising because both – Wildyeast and Lievito madre – are made with honey and contain nectar yeasts. But thinking about Lievito madre I decided that it would be time to use it once again in a bread. And so I tried a new recipe containing some sourdough starter from the fridge, Lievito madre, a water roux and some extra yeast for a fast rise.

I let the buns rise until they more the doubled their size and put them then in the oven. Once again I could see how the Lieviot madre did his magic and enhance the oven spring. The buns gain a lot of size during the baking, with a fluffy crumb and a soft crust due to the high fat content – just as a burger bun should be!

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January 6th, 2013

Three Kings Bread

Category Special Occasions Tags: Christmas, Lievito madre 10 Responses

On of attractions in cologne is the shrine of the holy three kings in the cologne cathedral. The story how this relic was brought is not a nice one. They were part of the loot that Barbarossa take from Milan. The shrine attracted since then pilgrims to cologne and due to many people that came to see it, the decision to build the cathedral was made.

But something like the three kings bread (german: Dreikönigskuchen) is not know here. When I saw the bread that Claudia baked, I had to know more about this swiss tradition. And so I started reading and learned that it is an old tradition that was resurrect in Swiss during the fifties.

The Bread is made of the sweet dough, and shaped as a flower. A small figure, a bean or an almond is hidden in the bread and who finds this will be the king for one day. That is a niece tradition.

For my Three kings bread I choose a sweet dough like for a challah, containing some orange juice which adds a niece flavour to the dough. The vitamin C in the orange juice helps to strengthen the gluten network and so the bread could rise very nicely. For a more complex taste I added some Lievito madre, too. The bread tasted very good, sweet and fluffy, perfect for our breakfast on Sunday.

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October 13th, 2012

Spicy buns

Category Rolls Tags: Cardamom, Cinnamon, Cranberries, Lievito madre, Raisins, whole grain 4 Responses

I love to eats raisin buns. The boy friend has a reverse opinion on the topic of “dried grapes”. He tends to mention “murdered grapes” then and suggest to eat them better fresh instead of drying them.

And so there are seldom raisin breads, or raisin buns or apple cake with raisin and I bake most of the time goods we enjoy both. But sometimes I get a craving for raisins.

And that happened to me when I saw the beautiful spicy buns on farine. Sweet rolls with a lot of wholewheat, raisins and cranberries, seasoned with a mixture of cinnamon, cardamom and anise. I had to bake these rolls immediately. I added a little bit of my Lievito Madre to the dough to add some deepness of flavour and decreased the amount of yeast accordingly. My dough contains also a little bit more raisins, just to prevent myself of storing the remaining 20g of raisins somewhere in my little kitchen.

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August 26th, 2012

Kanelfläta

Category Cake & Pastry Tags: Cardamom, Cinnamon, Lievito madre 18 Responses

Yeastspotting always inspires me always to bake something. And sometimes the recipes urge me to bake them directly. The Kanelfläta from My Italian Smörgåsbord was such a recipe.

Kanelfläta is a swedish cinnamon braid, which –as I learned from Barbara- is eaten together with the colleagues for fika (afternoon coffe break). My colleagues and me meet every morning for a “Frühstückspause” at 9 o’clock with a cup of coffee in our coffee room. And something sweet for the break is always loved. And so I decided to bake the Kanelfläta for them.

I reduced the amount of yeast in recipe and added a Lievito madre and some Cardamom to the dough. The combination of cardamom in the dough and cinnamon in the filling is a “must have” for me. I love this combination. I reduced the size of the braids a little bit and came up with four nice braids which had the perfect size for our “Frühstückspause” .

And what should I say? It’s as well a perfect treat for a morning break as for a afternoon break! A aromatic dough, the taste of cinnamon and cardamom – is there a better way to start a day?

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August 19th, 2012

Little poppy seed braids

Category hand kneaded, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Lievito madre, Poppy seeds, Spelt 9 Responses

Once again a recipe for rolls – but that is the last new recipe I created during our holidays (and I am already back at work for one week).

I was dreaming of poppy seed rolls, and so I grabbed a bag of poppy seeds in the supermarket. I decided to play a little bit with the dough and made not simple rolls but little braids. They are braided with only one strand, a technique I saw in a TV show some month ago. I just forgot which show it was… But I make photos from each step, to make it easier to understand the technique.

I bake the little poppy seed braids with whole wheat flour and white spelt flour and added some lievito madre for a good oven spring and a complex taste. I have to say, I love my new starter. It adds a nice aroma to bread and it is very convenient that it can be used right out of the fridge. Perfect for baking spontaneously.

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August 11th, 2012

Potato rolls with Lievito Madre

Category hand kneaded, Overnight, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Lievito madre, Über-Nacht 29 Responses

Summer holidays are the time in the year when we eat a lot of rolls. Rolls are the most important component for our relaxed breakfast on sunny (or rainy) summer mornings. And when our holiday home kitchen has a real oven, the rolls for breakfast are of course homemade. I love to test new recipes during this summer times.

And what are better recipes for holidays then overnight recipes? And so I played around with the Lievito madre. To prevent the dough of getting to sour, I reduced the amount of the preferment. That resulted in a slightly sour taste which fits nicely to the mashed potatoes and creme fraiche I added to the dough, too. The potatoes and creme fraiche creates a soft and fluffy crumb, and keep the crust a little bit lesser crisp then of other rolls, but I like them like that. They taste just great!

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August 5th, 2012

Bergische Knüppel with Lievito madre

Category hand kneaded, Rolls Tags: Hand kneaded, Lievito madre 14 Responses

After I prepared the Lievito madre, I wanted to test this preferment, too! And to play around with things like preferments, its always good to use a recipe you know inside out. For me, such a recipe is the recipe for “Knüppel”, which I bake already in different variations.

This time, I replaced the with Lievito madre. The rolls were formed as always and after a short proofing I load them into the oven.

It’s said that bread made with Lievito madre has a great oven spring, and really, the rolls rise very high in the oven and cracked open along the “lip” which is created during forming.

The taste of the rolls is complex, but mild, with no acidic hints of sourdough.

I am very pleased with the result and will try other recipes with this prefermt for sure!

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August 4th, 2012

Lievito madre

Category Starter and Preferments Tags: Lievito madre 189 Responses

In a comment to one of my bread recipes the preferment livito madre was described, with a link to the Brotbackforum. The description sounded fascinating and I always love to make Sourdoughs, and so I mixed Flour, water, honey and oil and observed what would happen.

After 24 hours, the dough rise highly and doubled its volumen. After 48 hours I feed it again and now it rose even faster, doubling its volumen in 12 hours, after 36 hours it nearly tripled. I feed the livito madre once again and placed it in the fridge for 5 days as the recipe suggested.

In the fridge it showed nearly no activity, but the ovenspring of the rolls I baked with this sourdough (using it right out of the fridge) was amazing. Their taste was mild and complex, not as tangy as with my normal sourdough. The lievito madre itself do not taste as normal sourdough as well. Its taste is fruitlike, with hints of yeast and it smells lightly after fresh yoghurt. It seems, that the lievito madre contains another mixture of bacteria and yeasts due to firm dough and the honey which was added in the beginning.

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