Back again - with a very festive Lunch

Even the longest visit at home must come to an end... I've enjoyed my stay back home in Germany thoroughly. One reason was for sure the endless number of feasts and parties I was able to attend. This will be just the first account of many more to come!

I was lucky enough to attend a very festive lunch which turned out to be a wonderful lesson in food styling - amost every dish had edible flowers as a colourful and tasty garnish. I also enjoyed taking pictures in full natural light (with just a little fill-in flash bouncing from above) - a completely new experience...

The feast started off with shrimp ravioli on braised fennel (pictured above).


The second course was a satisfying pumpkin soup garnished with pumpkin seeds and their oil. On the side a crispy grissini wrapped in Parma ham.


The third course was a creamy spaghetti dish with Oyster mushrooms and zucchini (unfortunately, morels hadn't been available as planned).


The main course was roasted duck breast served with crispy potato roesti and chanterelle mushrooms.

The sweet final was white poppy seed mousse served with caramelized apricots.

Truly delicious!

SHF#34 - Going Local

A long time ago, when I first thought about moving to the other side of the world, my boyfriend would always start to chuckle: "I´d love to see you explaining to some Aussie bloke who never ever left Australia, from which particular, tiny area in Bavaria you´re from!" Well, if there´s one thing I´m getting missionary about then it´s the cultural diversity of my home country. Mind you, I´m not making any judgements - I just love to get to know all these little, graspable things that are part of this very abstract concept of identity. And let me tell you, there´s a lot to be proselytized - not even the people from our neighbouring state (on the Western side of southern Germany) knew enough about us.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to one of the seven districts of Bavaria which is located next to the Czech border: the Upper Palatinate (aka Oberpfalz)!

Ok, I know it´s pretty small. It´s not even an economically important area - once blooming industries like porcelain and lead crystal manufacturing are now wilting; and the long time in the shadow of the Iron Curtain wasn´t a good thing to begin with. There even is a rather mean saying that all the area has in abundance is stones on the fields.

However, with their limited supplies (milk products, potatoes, and apples were a staple) the people from the Upper Palatinate not only managed to get by but also produced some really tasty, hearty country fair.

Whenever there is a feast in this area it won´t be complete without some of the local doughnuts (which don´t have a hole in the middle but a very thinly stretched piece of dough). One of the bigger feasts was the annual church anniversary where the whole village would come together and party for an extended weekend. This occasion would call for another traditional cake, the so called "Church Anniversary Cake" or "Parish Fair Cake" - I can´t even find a proper translation for that one... The pronounciation in my home dialect may seem a bit weird: it´s "Kirbakejchln" (doughnuts) and "Kirbakoucha" (cake).


The doughnuts are very crispy in the middle, buttery-soft in the thicker parts, and not sickly sweet. As a kid, the first thing to do when visiting my grand mother, was looking into her pantry for some of these doughnuts...


Whilst doughnuts are well-known allover the world in some way or other, I bet that this cake with its peculiar yellow colour won´t be know to many people outside my area. The colour of the semolina pudding layer comes from the generous use of saffron. This traditional spice is still rather expensive and that´s probably the reason why people had this cake only once per year. Saffron also makes for a particular taste that I didn´t cherish as a kid (but I do now). You can have this cake to your liking either plain, topped with raisins, with a mixture of brown sugar, ginger bread crumbs, and syrup or with simply everything. Enjoy!


Although I´m pretty late, this is my entry for this month´s Sugar High Friday invented by the Domestic Goddess herself and this time hosted by Johanna from The Passionate Cook. Her theme of local specialties was just perfect for last weekend when I made these things for the 60th birthday party of my father which happened to be on the same day as our local parish party!

PS: Hidden behind the flowers is a traditional plum cake - I told you, I don´t do anything but eating...

PPS: Please excuse the subpar pictures, without the camera I´m used to, I´m pretty hopeless...




Parish Fair Doughnuts


You can use your preferred recipe for sweet yeast dough like this one. The only adjustment for soft doughnuts is to make a very soft dough by adding more liquid including alcohol. For 500g of flour add a shot of rum or kirsch and at least double the amount of milk (depending on your preferences).

After the first rise, roll out the dough to almost one centimetre in thickness on a lightly floured worksurface. Using a small drinking glass, cut out rounds. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled. Now comes the tricky part that I haven´t quite mastered yet: You have to turn and stretch the round piece of dough between your thumbs and index fingers until the middle is like a window pane and the rim is of an even thickness (well, more or less). Deep-fry each round on one side until golden brown, then turn around. It is important that there is no hot oil in the cavity after the turn (otherwise the middle won´t stay yellow). Let cool down on sheets of kitchen towel and serve with lots of icing sugar. The next day, refresh in the hot oven for a couple of minutes.


Church Anniversary Cake

Again, use your favourite sweet yeast dough as a base but make sure that this one isn´t too soft.

The ingredients

1.5 l milk
225g soft semolina
sugar to your liking
0.5g saffron (or a little bit more)
250g butter
5 eggs, separated

2 big pieces of ginger bread
400g light brown sugar
1-3 tbsp sugar beet molasses
250g raisins
rum (optional)

This makes enough to cover two big baking sheets as seen above.

1
Cook a thick semolina pudding, stir in butter, saffron, and sugar to your liking.

2
Add egg yolks. Beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks and gently fold in.

3
Roll out the dough onto your baking sheets and let rise for 15-20 minutes, cover with yellow semolina mixture.

4
Depending on your preferences, either bake plain or with raisins plumped in rum or with a sticky mixture of brown sugar/crumbled ginger bread/molasses or put everything on top.

5
Fan-bake at 150 degrees Celsius until the edges of the dough are golden brown.


The source
Adapted from a local cookbook: "Weidener Kuechengeheimnisse"



The hint
Tightly wrapped, the cake keeps very well for several days. The doughnuts can be frozen.

Back in the Land of the Bread

Dear Reader, you might have noticed by now that it was pretty quiet around here - again. However, this time I´ve got good reason for it: a week ago, I´ve boarded a plane for my annual visit in Germany - and now I´m back in the land of the Bread! Besides catching up with my family and especially my little nephew (an ueber cute, almost three-year-old) I´ve been real busy eating my way through all sorts of bread rolls, pretzels, and cakes, of course...

Surrounded by such an abundance, I won´t spend my time baking bread. Unfortunately, this also means that I can´t participate in the next Bread Baking Day, a food blogging event created by Zorra of Kochtopf and this month hosted by Ulrike of Kuechenlatein. Her perfectly chosen theme is bread with sourdough as the sole leavener. Well, I´ve put my sourdough to sleep in the freezer before I left Australia but I already look forward to seeing the round-up!

However, I still wanted to contribute something. And I´m pretty sure that the following two recipes are going to be helpful for the ones with a somewhat erratic schedule and therefore an underdeveloped sourdough culture. In the last few weeks, I couldn´t bake and feed my culture as often as needed. Whenever I did have time to do it, I could never be sure that the wild yeast would be strong enough to let the bread rise sufficiently. On the other hand, I didn´t want to pour all that sourdough down the drain. Remembering the old-dough-technique, I thought that using some weak, old sourdough plus commercial yeast would hopefully reduce my sourdough surplus as well as result in a bread with the deep flavour of matured dough. I guess I´m not the first one to come up with this idea but I was quite proud of the resulting bread nonetheless... The sunflower seed bread has a hearty taste and pairs nicely with cheese and cured meat whilst the sesame bread makes excellent toast topped with jam or honey.

One thing is important when using old sourdough in big quantities: the dough can get rather soft during the rising process. When I tried this the first time, I had to bake individual little breads in muffin tins because the dough was too soft for shaping and I didn´t want to add more flour. However, this didn´t happen to the breads pictured in this post. Another issue is the amount of commercial yeast that is needed for leavening. I was being cautious and added quite a lot but feel free to adjust according to the liveliness of your sourdough.

PS: It´s too early I know... I just can´t help but announce right now that I´m going to be hosting the Bread Baking Day for next February! Well, it´s early, as I said...

Rye Bread with Sunflower Seeds

The ingredients

150 ml water

300 g liquid rye sourdough (weak)

350 g liquid wheat sourdough (weak)

500 g bread flour

3 tsp salt

1 tbsp + 1 tsp sugar

1 sachet dry yeast (7-8g, equivalent to 2 1/2 tsp)

3 tbsp sunflower seeds (or more), toasted

1

Toast the sunflower seeds in a dry pan for a couple of minutes until they have a golden brown colour and start to smell nicely. Set aside.

2

When using a bread maker, first put the liquid ingredients into the pan, followed by the dry ingredients (except the seeds). Make sure to put the yeast on top of the flour where it shouldn´t touch the salt.

3

Start the dough program. When the bread maker beeps, add the sunflower seeds, reserving a little for topping.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius.

4

Interrupt the program after the first hour of kneeding and rising. Take the dough out of the pan and shape into a loaf. To do so, either lightly flour or lightly oil your worksurface depending on your preferences. Let rise for half an hour or until almost doubled in height.

5

Brush the loaf with water several times. If using, dust with flour. Again, brush with water. This results in a sticky surface which will work like glue for any topping. Sprinkle with the remaining sunflower seeds.

6

Insert the loaf into the oven. Splash a cup of water on the bottom of the oven and quickly shut the door (ideally, splash the water on another baking sheet on a lower shelf). Bake the loaf for roughly an hour or until well risen and golden brown. It should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. To get a nice crust, open the oven door after 45-50 minutes of the baking time to get rid of the remaining steam. Let cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Wheat Bread with Sesame Seeds

The ingredients

100 ml water

350 g liquid wheat sourdough (weak)

1 tsp salt, heaped

3 tsp sugar

300g bread flour

1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

3 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Follow the instructions above including toasting the sesame seeds. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for roughly 30 minutes or until well risen and golden brown.

The source

My own creation

Anh's Cottony Cheesecake - Surprise at First Sight

Finally, finally... Honestly, I feel really bad for making you guys wait such a long time... Should have at least added the link to the original recipe - stupid me... As the title suggests, I saw this cheese cake over at Food Lover's Journey - the lovely blog of Anh from Melbourne. Besides loving all kinds of cheese cakes, I was truly intrigued by her love affair with this particular cheese cake. Wondering if I was to fall in love at first sight, too, I set to work. The only change I made was substituting dark rum for the lemon juice and vanilla bean paste for the black sesame powder (it was late at night and I didn't feel like hunting down this ingredient although I'm pretty sure that it's preferable to the rather well-known vanilla flavour).

For some reason, my computer decided to continually hibernate itself so I had a hard time making sure that I got all the ingredients in the right amounts (nearly forgot the corn flour...). This chaos could have been the reason for not thinking about the right kind of cream cheese to choose. Usually, I have the slightly fat-reduced one for breakfast and that's what I used for the cake, too. However, this resulted in a batter with pouring consistency - I definitely had no need to add any more milk as Anh had suggested in her recipe. And I'm pretty sure that I beat the egg whites until far too fluffy. All in all, the whole thing reminded me of souffle batter - not a bad thing in itself but I started to feel a bit worried - the recipe said it should be like your average cake batter...

Anyway, I poured it into my 20-centimeters spring form pan; the left-overs went into my little heart-shaped moulds. And then the waiting began. One hour and ten minutes is an awful long time when you're desperately wanting to eat this cake... I stared through the oven door and watched the batter rising beautifully, just like a souffle. However, I was pretty sure that this lofty appearance wouldn't last very long and during the last third of the baking time the cake flattened out quite a bit. It was then when I noticed that I had simply forgotten the water bath the recipe had called for...

Despite the fact that I had messed up a lot, the cake soon started to smell wonderful. When I took it out of the oven, I could barely contain my impatience and quickly cut one of the little cakes in half. Due to my greediness, I don't have any pictures... The texture was quite different from the large cake. The small ones had retained their airy structure and with their dark brown edges, they reminded me of Canneles. Mind you, i've never eaten any but they looked exactly like this or like that had there been any chocolate in it. Now I definitely have to try the real thing!

The next day, during a dinner party, I cut up the large cake and got my second surprise. Although the cake didn't have the decidedly cottony texture of Anh's original, it reminded me of another French specialty: Far Breton. I had eaten this custardy prune-studded cake only once in my life while on school exchange in Brittany. However, I loved it so much that I still remember the taste of it. And this cake was a darn good replica!

All in all, this cake was surprise at first sight - and what a good one! Now I just have to find the time to try the original recipes. Besides following Anh's recipe to the letter...


The hint
First, I served this cake with warm berry sauce and slightly whipped cream. However, strawberries marinated in a little sugar and Cointreau were an even better accompaniment.

Dan Lepard's Apple and Oats Bread

In order to expand my bread baking knowledge I have been raiding the three libraries in my vicinity and thus was able to track down a couple of books I had always wanted to read: first of all, Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" which I read from front to cover with great delight. Finally, I found a book that features many different recipes for rye bread - quite unusual for an English-speaking author. I gladly read about his "less is more" kneading techniques and his way not to flour the work surface but to oil it. It works much better that way for me!

However, before trying some of his recipes, I first had to revive my still frozen sourdough culture. Luckily, the little boys did survive their long sleep in the freezer. However, although feeding them daily in the beginning, I was never quite sure about their potency. Therefore (and because I didn't want to pour excess sourdough down the drain) I upped the amount of sourdough liberally. Not sure if that's what you should do - that's why I've included the original amounts so everyone can decide which way to go.

This Rolled Oat and Apple Bread is incredibly moist although you can hardly guess which ingredients are responsible for its long shelf-life. In case you have trouble finishing a loaf in time - this is your recipe. The slices also make excellent toast. My favourite toppings are either jam and honey or a soft cheese...hmmm...
This bread is also my entry for The Bread Baking Day #2 - Bread with Fruit. This new food blogging event was invented by Zorra and this time hosted by Columbus Foodie.

The second bread baking book I was looking forward to is Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible". In the beginning, I felt a bit put off - this much acclaimed food writer is tackling the subject in an almost scientific way which seemed to destroy the whole mystery about bread baking. Stop, stop, stop, I then thought, isn't that exactly what you were looking for? Ah, right... Once I got accustomed to her very thorough way of explaining things I learned a lot about certain details that had always left me puzzled. For example, I now know that fan-baking is entirely wrong for bread because you speedily lose all the self-injected steam and create an environment too dry for your bread. Since I switched to the classic bake setting, my breads finally have a good crust on the bottom (which had always been too soft) and I finally got to enjoy this mysterious crackling sound of the crust as the bread cools down. I believe that's called "the crust sings" and that absolutely describes my feeling when hearing it. Thank you, Rose, now I believe that there's nothing better than a healthy dose of perfectionism!

The third book in my library-collection is Maggie Glezer's "Artisan Baking Across America". I'm not finished yet and haven't tried any recipes but stay tuned!

PS: Being a "little bit" behind with my blogging, I thought I had better include another of Dan Lepard's breads. This chewy rye-based bread is his Five Grain Bread (although it was only a Four Grain Bread in my case). It really reminded me of the hearty breads from home and was eaten in no time...





Rolled Oat and Apple Bread

The ingredients

50g rolled oats
100g boiling water
200g peeled and grated apple (equals one big apple)
75g water at 20 degrees Celsius
250g white sourdough (original recipe: 100g of Dan Lepard's white leaven)
1/4 tsp dry instant yeast (original recipe: 3/4 tsp fresh yeast, crumbled)
300g + 3 heaped tbsp bread flour (original recipe: 250g bread flour)
1 tsp salt (orginial recipe: 3/4 tsp fine sea salt)
rolled oats for sprinkling
(Dan Lepard also suggests an egg wash which I simply forgot but the bread browns beautifully in any case)

1
Pour the boiling water over the rolled oats and let soak for five minutes while preparing the other ingredients.

2
Add the grated apple, the leaven, the extra water, the yeast, and mix everything together with a wooden spoon. Stir in the dry ingredients. (Dan Lepard mixes the dough quick-bread style but I prefer to do it all in one bowl - less dish washing...)
Mix until you have a soft sticky dough. Cover and leave for ten minutes.

3
Rub 1 tbsp of oil onto your work surface and knead the dough for ten seconds. (Between kneading Dan Lepard always returns the dough into the cleaned and lightly oiled mixing bowl - I just put the bowl over the dough on the work surface to prevent the dough from drying-out).

4
Knead the dough once more for ten seconds and shape it into a smooth, round ball.

5
Either return dough to bowl and cover or again put the bowl on top of the dough as a cover. Leave for one hour at 21-25 degrees Celsius.

6
Lightly flour your work surface and shape the dough into a loaf. Final rise: Either leave the loaf seam-side down on a piece of baking paper or put the loaf seam-side up into a proofing basket. Leave for 1.5 hours or until almost doubled in height.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 210 degrees Celsius (conventional). I also like to put in an extra baking sheet to splash on some water at the beginning of the baking process. This helps to create steam for a nice rise and good crust.

7
At the end of the final rise, I like to brush my loaf with lots of water, sprinkle some flour on top, rub it in, and brush with more water. This is similar to a glaze and results in a shiny surface after baking. It also helps to glue on toppings like rolled oats.

8
Bake the loaf in the middle of the oven. Splash a cup of water on the lower baking sheet during the first five minutes. After 30 minutes in total, lower the temperature to 190 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 15-20 minutes. The loaf should be golden-brown, feel light in weight and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

The source
Adapted from "Dan Lepard: The Handmade Loaf"

The hint
This bread tastes best on the second day. On the first day, the crumb is almost sticky with moistness and you can feel pieces of apple. On the second day, the flavours will have combined beautifully. This loaf has an incredible shelf-life and will stay fresh for a week (I store my bread in a fabric bag made out of a tea towel). However, it's also delicious when toasted.