Salome's blog

The Swiss have the reputation for being very punctual. Well, you might think now, that we're this time to early. But - you're mistaken.

The 6th of december is here Santa Claus' day, or as we say, "the Samichlaus comes". Sadly, the real Samichlaus doesn't come to our house anylonger as my siblings and me are considered to be too old by now. (Well, I understand, we're 22, 20 and 17 ...) But we still keep the rest of the custom up.

I undigged an old and beloved recipe, which I somehow just didn't bake in the last time. It's a rather simple recipe; I got it from a woman originating from South Tyrol, she calls it her Farmerbread (Bauernbrot). It's a sourdough bread which can be altered fairly much.

This time I used only whole-grain flours, although the recipe originally asks for high extraction flour (partly).

Finally... I've done it again. I must confess that I didn't get to baking very often in the last couple weeks. Of course I tried to bake every now and then, but most of the times just well known formulae like my potato-walnut-bread, or a simple white bread such as Hamelman's rustic bread, or something comparable.

I found it rather hard to fit the  baking into my schedule, as my days differ considerably and I always find myself busy when I'd like to bake.

I have to confess that I'm not very busy these days. I've got a lot of free time because university hasn't started yet and in addition to that, I'm very limited in what I do because I've got some weird inflammations in my feet. And my friends are all working or have already started school or . . .

100 % sprouted grains? 'Sounds great and interesting', I said to myself 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.

Gosh, my oven was running hot today. I was basically all day busy baking, which is a real threat. 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 liked the Buttermilk-Whole-Wheat-Bread which I baked just a couple days ago so 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'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.