World Bread Day - German Seed Bread

People, World Bread Day is almost over (at least on this side of the earth) and I'm loaded with work but didn't want to miss out completely on this event that's created by the lovely Zorra of Kochtopf and that's very dear to me!

So this is going to be a short one. During my recent trip to Germany, I had plenty of stuff on my to-do list. Next to "meet as many friends as possible", there was "eat as many German specialties as you can possibly stomach". What shall I say, I really worked hard on that one...

Of course, one of the most memorable things I ate (apart from an incredible number of sausages and cured meats) was a certain type of bread - full with seeds but not dense and heavy at all. Still chewing, my better half requested this particular loaf to be recreated in Sydney and who am I to deny that..;-)

I started off with this recipe from Petra of Chili and Ciabatta and made the changes following below. For non-German-speakers, just a rough summary of the procedure: let the soaker rest for 3-4 hours (covered), mix the dough, let rise until doubled, degas it while stretching and folding it 2x, shape into a loaf, let rise until nearly doubled, and bake at 220 degrees Celsius.
The dough is relatively moist and rather sticky but not too hard to work with (stretch & fold helps a lot to get a good dough structure). My version produces a soft but hearty crumb (due to the different kinds of grains and seeds) and a compact but rather soft crust. It goes well with honey, jam, and mild cheeses.

PS: The first time I made it with a mixture of sourdough and instant yeast as below, the second time around I used sourdough only but can't remember for the life of me if I therefore upped the amount of sourdough or not. Hence, I need to make it again to find out...

Seed Bread

The ingredients

Soaker:
45g flax seeds
45g rye flour
35g sesame seeds
35g rolled oats
11g salt
206g boiling water

Final dough:
180g water or whey
all of the soaker
250g wheat sourdough, 100% hydration
1tbsp honey
360g bread flour
30g wheat germ
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp malted barley flour
up to 4 tbsp whole wheat flour (depending on the stickiness of the dough)

The source
Adapted from Petra of Chili&Ciabatta

Wedding Wrap-Up

In case you're currently contemplating to get married - I can honestly recommend doing it not once but twice. But before you cry out in dismay, I'm talking about doing it twice with the same guy..;-)

This April T and I tied the know in Copacabana Beach (not in Brazil but on the lovely Central Coast of NSW) for the first time; and this September we did it allover again in Germany - accompanied by our families and relatives (and again lots of friends) who hadn't been able to come to Australia.

Although the settings of the two weddings could not have been more different (first just a few friends, an outdoor wedding with a barbecue reception and now about a 100 guests, a very festive ceremony in a grand Gothic church, and a four-course-dinner plus a huge wedding cake buffet) a few things remained the same (apart from wearing the same dress twice..;-)

Both times it was a very relaxed celebration - it was all about having a good time with lovely people while eating and drinking as much as possible. Much to my own surprise, it was just as exciting the second time around. Until three days before, I had managed to convince myself that I was a total pro where getting married was concerned so no need for butterflies in the stomach or any such nonsense. After all, we had been legally married for almost half a year already, right? However, shortly before the wedding, we decided to write our own vows just like for the first ceremony and to learn them by heart this time which was enough for me to finally get nervous again...
But most importantly, listening to my man promising to always be my friend, companion, and lover - it was definitely enough to make me get teary allover again...


PS: In case you wonder, what our wedding has to do with the tart I'm blogging about today - my lovely workmates from Sydney had sent me off with a wonderful bunch of flowers. So once I was back in Sydney, I wanted to bake something nice for them. Thinking that I had enough shortcrust pastry in the freezer, I quickly decided on a frangipane tart. However, after defrosting the pastry, I realized that the two portions weren't the same thing - one was a parcel with streusel topping. Hence this rather unconventional take on a frangipane tart which hopefully still qualifies as an entry for Kochtopf's food blog event "Quiche, Tart & Co"..;-)

Note to self: Thou shalt not only label your freezer bags but also read the label before proceeding.


Emergency Frangipane Tart

The ingredients

Your favourite shortcrust pastry to line a 24cm-spring form pan (I use this one)

2 small eggs
50g caster sugar
a few drops of rum essence (optional)
60g marzipan, grated
100g streusel topping (like this one - freeze the remainder for another time)
50g almonds, ground

1 pear, peeled and cut into thin wedges (add more fruit if you like)

1
Either grease your spring form tin or line it with parchment paper. Press the pastry into the tin, forming a small rim (if you happen to have enough pastry, that is...). Prick with a fork a couple of times and fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius for roughly 10 minutes.

2
Using a hand-held mixer, beat eggs, sugar, and rum essence (if using) until pale, thick, and foamy.

3
Add ground almonds and streusel topping and fold in gently. You don't want to destroy the foamy consistency.

4
There are two possibilities for adding the marzipan:
You either grate it into the bowl where it will most likely clump together again - in this case try to mix it in as gently as possible. Or you pour the filling into the tart case and grate the marzipan directly on it (I'll try this method next time).

5
Cover with pear slices and fan-bake for another 30 minutes or until crispy and golden-brown on top.


The source
My own invention - out of necessity..;-)

Here I am again... with Broad Beans!

Poah, that's been a long absence... Now I'm definitely happily married and will be writing more about our second go once I've got the photos - let me just just say it was w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l! (Meanwhile you can read about our first wedding here.)

After a long but oh-it-seemed-so-short stay, we had to kiss our families and friends good-bye and were off to Sydney. While living in this preparing-for-and-then-getting-married-bubble, one could forget that elsewhere life goes on, you're just too busy to notice. That's also true for the food blogging world - I've had a lot of catching up to do! Always amongst the first to check is Nora's Life's Smorgasbord. I had already eyed her lavender shortbread - full of envy, of course, as I always forget to look out for culinary lavender - no matter how often I've longingly read blog posts about the creative use of this herb.

This time I read loads of stuff about broad beans that sounded utterly appetizing. What's more, Nora said that the season for broad beans is almost over! That's why I decided to do something about it now instead of saving the recipe for later (which usually means much, much later) . Off I went to the shops to buy broad beans, mint, and pecorino, and made myself a simply wonderful dinner. Granted, the whole shelling business does take a while but on the other hand it lifted my spirits to do something elaborate just for myself. With my new/old husband away on a business trip, dinners aren't such an enjoyable thing - however, these broad beans totally made my evening!


PS: Nora provided three different recipes so no need for me to type it down again (I chose Maggie Beers' version with some lemon juice added and some garlic rubbed onto the sourdough bread after toasting - lovely!). I'd rather tell you about the sourdough bread that was just baking away when I read about how to use it for dinner..;-)

Light Rye Sourdough Bread

The ingredients

250g water
360g white sourdough, 100% hydration
300g bread flour
100g rye flour
100g wholewheat flour
1.5 tsp salt (or a little more than that)
1 tbsp whole caraway seeds

1
I used my breadmaker for mixing the dough and letting it rise. The first rising was about 3 hours (the bread maker provided some warmth during the first hour). At the end of the rising time, the dough had a bit more than doubled.

2
Take the dough out of the bread maker and turn onto a lightly floured work surface. I treated it to a round of stretch&fold (for a stronger texture) and then shaped it into a round loaf.

3
Place the loaf seam side-up into a floured proofing basket (or a bowl lined with a floured tea towel). Cover and let rise until well doubled in size. This took roughly 2.5 hours. To be sure, make a light dent into to the surface of the loaf. As soon as the dough doesn't spring back completely and still shows a little dent, the loaf is ready for baking.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven with a baking sheet or pizza stone to 220 degrees Celsius (I usually use the highest setting available as I will always lose some heat during steaming).

4
Carefully unmold the loaf onto a bread peel or an upturned baking sheet (covered with parchment paper or sprinkled with cornmeal). Slash in a criss-cross pattern.
Let the loaf glide onto the hot baking sheet/pizza stone and quickly shut the door. Open once more and splash a cup of water onto the bottom of the oven - be aware of the hot steam! Again, quickly shut the door to keep heat and moisture in.

5
Bake at 220 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes. Then change to 200 degrees fan-bake for a further 15 minutes. The fan will get the remaining moisture out of the oven for a crisper crust. If you want a thicker crust, bake a little longer at 220 degrees before changing to fan-bake.

6
Let the loaf cool completely on a rack before slicing.

The source
Inspired by Dan Lepard's Barley and Rye Bread

Starting allover again...

It´s all so quiet around here... The reason for this is the fact that I will remember 2008 as "the big wedding year"... About ten days ago, I´ve arrived in Germany, went straight to another friend´s wedding and have been preparing my own, second wedding since then. After the first, rather home-made affair in Australia - this is going to be the full shebang with church, lots of family and friends, and - of course - loads of food and wine!

Luckily, most of the preparations have been taken care of by my parents - thank goodness - so things aren´t quite as crazy around here as one might imagine otherwise. Still, there´s plenty of stuff to do and I won´t be blogging very much until it´s all over. Well, who would have thought...

To top it all off, my husband and I will be attending another friend´s wedding before finally heading home again. And we haven´t even been able to go to all the weddings in Australia and Germany we have been invited to this year!

I wish you all a great time and hope to return to blogging as soon as normal life kicks in again!

BBD#12 - Small Breads

No, I did not throw my wildly growing sprouts into these bread rolls. Although I admit that I was mightily tempted..;-) However, with friends coming over for dinner the other night, I didn't reckon that I should subject them to an experiment with - at best - questionable outcome.

Oh well, I will come up with something eventually. But this time, I decided to rather go with the recipe of a trustworthy blogger. Having seen intricately shaped sacaduros ages ago at Chili&Ciabatta (and always wanting to make them) plus another deadline coming up all to soon - I was set for another installment of Zorra's Bread Baking Day: Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen had chosen "Small Breads" as her topic. Bread Rolls is something I make far too rarely, so I was pretty happy about this theme!

Alas, as you can see, they don't quite look like Petra's. Due to work, I needed to make the rolls the evening before and rewarm them right before dinner. That's why I decided to leave out the crucial ingredient, stupid me.

When shaping sacaduros, you put a cube of butter with a little flaky salt into the middle and fold thin strips of dough over it. While baking these strips partly unfold and get all nice and crispy, thus revealing their buttery innards. However, I was afraid that it would get all soggy when rewarmed and decided to leave out the butter. Without it, the sacaduros unfortunately turned out rather flat.

On the positive side, I was really pleased with my combination of bread flour and 70 grams of spelt flour for a hearty but still refined flavour.

And in case you're interested, that's what we were using the bread rolls for: mopping up the juices from salmon and vegetable parchment parcels. Made with lemon juice and white wine, there was a lot of nice broth to mop up!


PS: As you know by now, blogging deadlines are not my forte (probably because all my energy is used up meeting professional deadlines...ok, no more excuses). Anyway, today is the national day of Switzerland, and Zorra, missing her homeland, has asked to cook something red, white, or Swiss to celebrate the day. Dutifully, I made rice pudding with canned cherries this week - and took horrible photos of the rather nice rice pudding. That's why I'm posting an old and never published photo of an equally tasty but ultimately more photogenic rice pudding. Enjoy, Zorra!