It has been a while.

Hi out there,

just a short note. I neglected this blog in the last weeks. I neglected my hobby in general. And there’s a reason for it: I was very busy! I just started university two weeks ago and I was in the final round of my driver’s licence, which I luckily passed last Wednesday. I had to get used to my new living arrangement, a flat share. I had to buy new furniture. I had to read loads. And of course I have to find new friends. Etcetera.

It’s getting more relaxed now. I baked for ‘the first time again’ on Sunday. My three room-mates all loved the Whole Wheat Levain and were astonished about the sourdough procedure. The two men devoured most of the bread and Livia, my female room-mate, showed eager interest in how to bake with sourdough. It’s a pleasure to see that my baking is appreciated.

A family meeting is coming up this weekend and my family is hosting it. We’ll have a simple barbecue-style lunch with pot luck, and I’m of course in charge of the bread for 40 people. You see, baking has got me again and I’m going to post about more breads soon!

Autumn the third: Painted Bread

south-tyrolean Potato-Nut Bread and my own Pumpkin-Amaranth Bread

A bread I will never bake again.

100 % sprouted grains? ‘Sounds great’, thought my baking heart and printed the Recipe of Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads a couple weeks ago. This weekend I gave it a try.

I sprouted my grains as indicated. They all had cute little white tails and were pleasant to chew. I would have better kept them as a addition to my breakfast cereals instead of trying to make them into a bread.

“grind the grains into a pulp as fine as possible. If the grains warm up to much, let them rest for ten minutes and continue when cooled. A meat grinder works even better” – That’s what Reinhart wrote. I should have been an english native to know what exactly a food processor is. I tried everything, and everything failed.

Buckwheat Apple Sourdough

Parade of Favorites

Gosh, my oven was running hot today. I was basically all day busy baking, which is a real treat. I spent the last two days hiking, walking around 14 hours in total, so I didn’t feel like real physical exercise, the dough-kneading was just perfect.

I was like a bee. Once again, I made a new sesame version of the Whole-Grain Oat crackers (250 g ripe sourdough, made out of 120 g oat flour, 120 ml water and 10 g culture, 210 g whole wheat flour, 9 grams salt, 40 grams sesame seeds, 10 g sesame oil and water as required [probably another 100 ml].) It’s pretty easy, actually foolproof. I let it ferment as long as it suits me (this time it was about two hours), then I pressed portions of the dough in either sesame seeds or oats and rolled it thinly with a rolling pin, cut it in pieces and baked it at any oven temperature between 180°C and 230°C until the endges were brown. Et Voila, that’s it.

More Whole-Wheat . . . Yoghurt-Whole-Wheat-Bread

I liked  the Buttermilk-Whole-Wheat-Bread which I baked just a couple days agoso much that I decided to continue with 100% whole wheat.  The Buttermilk-Whole-Wheat-Bread was very soft and light,  I have never seen a whole-wheat bread like this.

I adapted the recipe I used the last time. It was, for my taste, somewhat to sweet and it lacked a real crust. And I decided to substitute the buttermilk by a yoghurt-water-blend, because that’s what I always got on hand here. (Whereas plain buttermilk is often hard to get.) And I increased the hydration by a lot. And I used this time a preferment, with sourdough – In order to get a deeper, less sweet flavor.

Soft like a pillow: Buttermilk-Whole-Wheat-Bread

I’ve packed all my stuff, cleaned everything, thrown so much out . . . I’m moving to Basel on Sunday and I’m getting read for it! Yeyy. That’s why I stayed the whole day at home. I had to get all these rather annoying things done. Now my room looks very clean and rather empty. Well done, Salome!

Still, I had to make my day somewhat more fun, and a full day at home is perfect for bread baking. Unfortunately, I realized this just after breakfast, so I didn’t have time to get my sourdough ready.

Jason’s quick Cocodrillo Ciabatta

I’ve been dreaming of light, open-crumb breads for a long time now and especially Ciabattas, these very light but crisp Italian bread have been tempting me for quite a while. So when I found Jason’s quick Cocodrillo Ciabatta recipe and saw all the gorgeous airy breads there, I decided to give it a try. I didn’t expect to much flavorwise, because it’s a straight, rather quick dough, but I had big hopes for the crumb.

Herbstsonne

I wouldn’t rate white bread as my favorite. I still like to bake it occasionally, to mix up my diet and to have new challenges in my baking, but the breads I’m the most fond of though are definitely breads which include some whole grain, some seeds . . . which are overall somewhat nutritious. This kind of bread is what I like as everyday-breads.

I think, the bread I’m about to introduce here, definitely falls into this category. It is a German Bread called the “Herbstsonne” (eng: autumn sun) because of its tipical scoring. I had again some problems with the bread’s height, I made a very wet dough (therefore I adjusted the amount of water in the recipe below) and wasn’t able to shape it well. I let it proof well, so when I scored it it deflated to much after my taste and didn’t get an extraordinary oven spring. Next time, I’d probably bake it as it is or just score a cross in the middle.