hanseata's blog

Coming home from Portland late yesterday evening I had no time to make any pre-doughs for today's baking. So everything was stretched and folded, except for my usual Pain a l'Ancienne dough. No kitchen octopuses to battle this time, the doughs behaved and didn't try to take over the countertop. This morning I got an early start with my baking and was done just in time to Meet The Press.

Tyrolean Pumpkin Seed Mini Breads

I'm baking my own version of Peter Reinhart's Pain a l'Ancienne (from the BBA) regularly for three years now, it is a hot seller at our local natural food store. Since I wanted my bread to be a little healthier than 100% white, I substitute 100 g of the bread flour with whole grain flour, either rye, whole wheat, oat, spelt, corn or buckwheat. I also add a little sourdough just for the taste, and found the right baking technique for my oven.

There are happy testing days and there are less happy ones. This was definitely one of the latter! I decided to use the mandolin my husband bought a while ago. I never trusted that thing and usually take the box grater. But having to grate a lot of potatoes I didn't listen to my better instincts, put the mandolin together and started with the first potato. When the potato was two thirds grated the tool to hold it wouldn't let me chop off any more. I didn't want to end up with one third of the potatoes ungrated - and the other two thirds not enough for the recipe.

In this hot summer I find myself less eager to crank up the heat in our oven - thereby turning our kitchen into a sauna - my mind is more on something cool, tangy and refreshing. North German and Danish traditional cuisine has a treat just for this season: Rote Gruetze or Roede Groede (it's Danish name). Literally translated the name means "red gruel". That may not sound very enticing, but it's an old fashioned dish with an old fashioned name and soooo good!!!

On Tuesday a horror scenario unfolded in my Bar Harbor kitchen. Preparing my breads for Wednesday's sale I made the fatal decision to give my doughs the stretch-and-fold treatment instead of just leaving them to the mixer. I had no idea what dark forces I unleashed!

Follow this link at your own risk:

http://hanseata.blogspot.com/2010/07/little-kitchen-of-horrors-or-tentacles.html

Today's baking was my (less sweetened) version of the German Many Seed Bread from "Whole Grain Baking". Instead of a soaker and a biga I used just the soaker with stretch & fold technique for the first time, adding some more water. The breads turned out really nice, I think it's an improvement.

Sorry, no crumb shot - these breads were for sale.

Sauna-like temperatures helped me hatch a scientific explanation for the mysterious connection between liquors and teen sneakers.

http://hanseata.blogspot.com/2010/07/liquors-and-sneakers-sprituosen-und.html

Baking a big batch of NYBakers' test Hermits left me with the question: what to do with the leftovers? There's only a limited amount of gingerbread cookies that two people can eat - especially if it's very hot outside and Christmas still far away. And there was this pretty, unopened bottle of Limoncello, sitting in my pantry since our spring holidays in Positano/Italy, home of gigantic lemons and wonderful pastry.

Today I revisited my childhood. For the first time I baked Danish Tebirkes.
For many years my grandmother, aunt, two cousins and I would spend our summer holidays in Denmark. Every morning
one of us kids would bike to the grocery store to pick up freshly baked rolls for breakfast. My favorite were Tebirkes, buttery, croissant-like rolls, sprinkled with poppy seeds.

In Portland (the Downeast one) the unbeatable Number One Bakery is, without question, the Standard Baking Co. Their baguettes and pains au levains not only make droves of bakery customers happy but also guests of the wonderful "Street & Company" and the noble "Fore Street Restaurant".