A very happy (belated) 4th of July to all American TFL'ers!
Weather's been good lately and I've tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible, so I'm sorry for this late post. To make up for it, I had a go at an all-American favourite this sunday: Yes, you guessed it. And what better way to enjoy a juicy burger than with home-made buns? Here's a link to my recipe.
Now that virtually everyone in Europe is obsessing about the ongoing soccer world cup, I get the chance to hide away in the wonderfully soccer-free corners of my kitchen and indulge in my favourite hobby! Great thing that world cup, isn't it? ;)
Well, this weekend I put together a bread with toasted pumpkin seeds, toasted hazelnuts, raisins and some rolled oats. I just bought some delicious local washed rind cheese, and this loaf was the perfect pairing! You'll find the recipe by clicking here, and a photo below:
I thought I'd give a brief update on what I've been tinkering with in my kitchen over the weekend. I baked a nice rye loaf on Saturday morning - it's based on my regular 70% rye recipe, but I added some toasted sunflower seeds and whole-rye flour to a cold soaker. The dough is a breeze to mix and work with, without being terribly sticky or otherwise up to no good. You can find the recipe here. The loaf is pictured below:
Well, I'm not suggesting putting rye flour into your macaron batter, although that could be interesting for savoury macarons...if such a crazy thing as a "savoury macaron" exists... Let's do the rye thing first and then look at the macarons afterwards.
Last week I've been enjoying a variation of the pain au levain I blogged about in my previous post - I'm really loving the bite the breads get by the rye sourdough. For the loaf pictured below, I raised the whole-grain amount slightly and added a healthy dose of walnuts. I'm such a sucker for walnuts; only bad thing about them is that they're not a "local food" around these parts. The ones I find in the stores are pricey and have travelled all the way from California... Still my favourite nuts, though.
Sometime last week, I built up my rye starter for a run-through of some rye loaves. For some reason or other I ended up with quite a bit more mature rye sourdough than I needed for the loaves I had planned. Too bad to throw it all away I thought, so I put the left-over starter to good use in a pain au levain-style formula. The result was more than I could've hoped for, so darn tasty as a matter of fact, that I worked a bit more on the formula, and baked a few of those rye-sourdough-pain-au-levain breads this weekend.
Better late than never, right?
I've been out of the loop for a little while, but I've still been baking. This week I have slowly worked my way through the flaxseed rye shown below, based on Hamelman's flaxseed rye from Modern Baking (link here to recipe here). I prefer to bake it as a pure sourdough, so the final proof is extended by approx. 50% compared to the original recipe. I've savoured the loaf with slices of brie, smoked ham or fish.
I've been experimenting with some different levain breads recently, all made with more or less the same procedure: Between 15% and 20% prefermented flour, bulk fermentation around 2.5 hours with one or two folds, and retarding in fridge overnight (or at least 8 hours).
I'm still patiently working my way through the Schrotbrot, but with a bubbly and ripe rye sourdough on the counter, I decided to try out a new formula. I love my everyday pain au levains, and I wanted to see how it would work out with a rye sourdough and an increased amount of rye flour. This loaf is 30% whole-rye flour, 70% bread flour and is made with a whole-rye sourdough. You'll find a snapshot from my spreadsheet detailing the formula by clicking here!
It's the time of the year where blistering cold winds sweep the city and the surrounding mountainside. Rest assured, no matter how many layers you put on, the cold will penetrate them and get to you eventually. I'm certain that the freezing temperatures are partly to blame for me baking a dense Schrotbrot this week... I had a careful look over my kitchen shelves, pencil in hand, and jotted down potential ingredients for a solid log. I had a vague idea of what I wanted, but this turned out quite good I think.
This week's Schrotbrot:
