Tag Archives: only with yeast

October 2nd, 2015

Breadbaking for Beginners: Spelt, Emmer & Quak Rolls

Dinkel-Quark-Wecken mit Emmer (7)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 13th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners XX: Whole Grain Potato Bread with walnuts

Kartoffel-Walnussbrot (2)

As soon as the weather change from summer heat to autumn cold I long for hearty breads with whole grains. A great combination is whole grain, potato and walnuts. For our bread baking course I promised a moist whole grain bread and as I have the feeling that another bread without preferment will find some friends here I designed the recipe accordingly.

But the bread gains a lot if you allow the dough to rise over night in the fridge. It will not only will enhance the flavour, but also gives the bran a longer time to soak and gets softer. For a good soaking of the whole grain flour, using warm water and still warm potatoes helps to speed up this process during the first stage of dough preparation.

And if the dough gets the time it needs you will be rewarded with a whole grain bread with an soft and moist crumb. It pairs perfectly with cheese or honey!

 

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August 27th, 2015

Zwetschgenstreusel

Zwetschgenstreusel (2)Der Liebste ist puristisch, wenn es um Zwetschgenkuchen geht: Hefeteig, Zwetschgen und vielleicht ein bisschen Zucker. Ich hingegen mag Streusel sehr, auch auf den Zwetschgen. Bis ich ihn aber von der Idee eines Zwetschgenstreusel überzeugt hatte, dauerte es. Ich musste versprechen, dass die Streusel keinesfalls hart und das Teig – Zwetschgenverhältnis ausgewogen sein würde. Das tat ich leichten Herzens, denn die Streusel für meinen liebsten Streusekuchen (mit oder ohne Pudding) haben die perfekte mürbe Struktur. Zusammen mit einem dünnen Hefemürbeteigboden (der nicht durchsaftet) und einer kräftigen Portion Zwetschgen ergeben sie einen köstlichen Zwetschgenstreusel, der auch den Zwetschgen-Purist sehr gut schmeckt hat!

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August 9th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginner XIX: Baguette with Pâte Fermentée

Baguette (4)Another wish for the Bread Baking Course was Baguette. And Baguette dough is a simple dough: You need just flour, water, yeast and salt.

But when it comes to forming and slashing, it gets way more complicated. Only one thing can help with this: Practice! For slashing you actually don’t have to even bake baguette, one can start practicing with paper and pen! As PIP onces wrote: “If you can draw them, you can slash them!” And so I made two practice sheets for you. One with reference lines and one without. You can print them and start practising right away. Try to draw the slashes on the “Paper baguette” in fluent movements without stopping while drawing a slash. Repeat this until you feel comfortable with drawing the slashes, then try it with the real one. And other ways then the traditional cuts are possible as well. In France I saw Baguettes slashed lengthwise as well!

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July 12th, 2015

Bread Baking For Beginners XVIII: Seeded Beer Bread

Saaten-Bierbrot (2)There are three different ways to soak seeds or flour: You can either cook them, or soak them in hot water or in cold water.   For this bread I decided to soak the seeds in cold water. They do not absorb not as much water as when hot water is used, and this results in seeds which have still some bite. As the seeds have to soak overnight some salt is added to prevent them from fermenting.

Seeds in a dough can inhibit gluten development and so the soaker is added after ten minutes of kneading. The dough is firm at the beginning and will get softer when the soaker, which contains some free water as well, is added.

For a hearty flavour I bake this bread with some beer. It is a mild organic weiss beer, but you can start to experiment with different kinds of beers. A dark brew, for example, would bring the beer flavour forward and would yield in a very hearty bread.

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June 27th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners XVII: Bagel

Bagel (10)I was asked to include a bagel recipe in my little course about bread baking and I was very willing to do so. Bagels are a good recipe for beginners as the dough is quite firm and not sticky at all. Kneading on the other hand can be a little work out because of the firm dough, too. But kneading a bagel dough is important to get a chewy bagel. So turn on some music and start kneading!

Another important point is boiling the bagels prior to baking. The longer you cook, the denser the bagel will become, as the proteins and starch on the outside of the bagel start already to set, preventing the bagel from rising to much in the oven. I like Bagel on the softer side, so I boil them for 30 seconds on each side. But play around with this time to get your personal perfect bagel! Continue reading

June 5th, 2015

Bread baking for Beginners XV: Westphalian Farmers Loaf

Westfälischer Bauernstuten (4)

Another Bread from “Wishlist” is the Westphalian Farmers loaf. It is made with buttermilk and  lard. As breads with buttermilk easily catch my eye, I couldn’t resist this whish.

It is a rustic bread with a small amount of rye which is typical for Westphalia and especially for the Munsterland. In its traditional form it is made with lard, but it can be made with ghee instead as well. In my version, I used it a rye poolish, which helps to create a very good crust and a great flavour. For the form I saw them as a long, slashed loaf as well as a rustic round loaves which were baked seam side up. I like the rustic look for a farmers bread more and so I baked round loaves.

During baking the bread develops a nice crisp, reddish brown crust due to the rye poolish. The crumb is very soft and fluffy. Another bread for my favourite list!

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May 9th, 2015

Breadbaking for Beginners XI: Basler Brot

Basler Brot (1) There are a lot of whishes’ for recipes for the bread baking course: the swabian “genetzes” Bread, Baguette, Bread with heirloom grains, yeasted cake, Westphalian Farmer Loaf, Sourdough and Sourdough breads, Salzstangerl, Bagel and Basler Brot.  And there are still my personal wishes, a whole grain bread and a multi grain bread. We are not running out of recipes or ideas 🙂
Today I would like to start with the Basler Brot. It is one of most famous Swiss breads, and stems – as the name suggested – from Basel. It has a very crisp crust and a soft crumb. It is a pure wheat bread is normally baked with the Swiss “Ruchmehl”. This flour is hard to get in Germany, and so I did a variant using Flour Type 550 and Whole wheat flour.  To increase the amount of water while keeping the dough easy to handle I added a hot soaker. This helps to create a soft crumb. A little bit of butter helps here, too.

To make sure that the crust is crisp we use the technic of “double baking”.Here the bread is baked a second time after cooling down for at least 30 min. This makes the crust very aromatic and crisp.

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April 26th, 2015

Bread Baking for Beginners X: Spelt Rye Bread

DinkelbrotSo here is now the promised Spelt bread. I know that many of the readers of this blog like to bake with spelt, but baking with spelt flour is a little bit more challenging then baking with  wheat flour, so the recipe comes relatively late in my bread baking course.

Spelt is closely realted to wheat. But there are two thing to keep in mind when working with spelt. Flour made from spelt contains a different composition of gluten proteins which finally results in a more fragile gluten network. This makes it easy to “over knead” spelt dough, meaning that the dough is kneaded longer then it takes to obtain full gluten development which ends in breaking down the gluten network once again. Due to this fact I prefer to knead spelt dough by hand which gives me a better control then kneading with the kitchen machine. If kneading with the machine it is important to keep a close eye on the dough and testing the gluten development by the window pane test. Intervall kneading (kneading shortly with breaks in between) can be handy as well. Continue reading

April 19th, 2015

Bread baking for Beginners IX: Salzstangerl

Salzstangerl (2)

I asked at the last Bread baking course post if you have special breads you would like to bake. And Uschi then asked for recipe for “Salzstangerl”. These are long rolls sprinkled with salt and caraway seeds and they can be found mainly in Austria. And as I planed to bake the next bread in our course with Pâte Fermentée as preferment these rolls fitted very well in my plans for the weekend.

The Pâte Fermentée contains flour, yeast, salt and water. It can be either a part of a bread dough which is kept in the fridge (that’s why some people call it “Old dough”) or it can be mixed and fermented as a normal prefermt (what I do most of the time). It adds a part of full develope gluten network to the dough which helps to improves the gluten structure. The flavour notes are complex, a little bit nutty and only slightly sour.

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