Showing posts with label bread flour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bread flour. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
My quick and delicious spelt-curd-bread revamped
Maybe you remember the quick and delicious spelt-curd-bread I presented in February, possibly one or the other even tried it out. As for me, it became my favourite bread and I'm baking it almost every week, alternating the seeds I'm putting in.
So why revamping it? Well, I had the problem, that with the given quantity of ingredients, my bread either overflowed the baking dish
or if I separated it in two baking tins, the breads turned out to flat, because there wasn't enough dough. At least with backing two loaf, I've been able to find out, that the bread is staying fresh and fluffy for a really long time. Even after 5 days in my cupboard, wrapped in a kitchen towel, the inside was almost as good as on the second day. Not that its very important to us, because normally we eat that bread within two days, but still good to know.
So last time I was baking with my original recipe, I've put the dough in only one baking tin again and my bread rose so much, that the thin crust broke and the still fluid dough flowed out all over the oven. I almost started to cry.
So that week I decided to reduce the amount of flour and adjust the other ingredients. But I didn't adjust consequently, because I wanted to experiment a bit. The idea of baking a smaller bread was initially grounded in getting hold of smaller packages of instant yeast; instead of 10 g they are only 7 g now. I wasn't sure, how the bread will come out, but as you can already guess, it turned up just better than the previous. Even my husband asked, if I changed something.
So here comes my revamped and improved Spelt-curd-bread with sunflower seeds
So why revamping it? Well, I had the problem, that with the given quantity of ingredients, my bread either overflowed the baking dish
So last time I was baking with my original recipe, I've put the dough in only one baking tin again and my bread rose so much, that the thin crust broke and the still fluid dough flowed out all over the oven. I almost started to cry.
So that week I decided to reduce the amount of flour and adjust the other ingredients. But I didn't adjust consequently, because I wanted to experiment a bit. The idea of baking a smaller bread was initially grounded in getting hold of smaller packages of instant yeast; instead of 10 g they are only 7 g now. I wasn't sure, how the bread will come out, but as you can already guess, it turned up just better than the previous. Even my husband asked, if I changed something.
So here comes my revamped and improved Spelt-curd-bread with sunflower seeds
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Quick and delicious spelt - curd - bread
We ran out of bread yesterday and our shopping day is still a few days away. I haven't baked bread for months, so I didn't have any starter/motherdough to bake my usual bread. I baked already bread without a starter, but they aren't as tasty, additionaly they also don't stay fresh longer then one or two days. I've set my starter immediately, but was still sitting with the problem of not having any bread at home. I decided to give it a try and find a new recipe for a quick bread.
I intended to find a recipe for a spelt or full corn bread, considering us trying to eat as healthy as possible since new year. Christmas time was a killer, we haven't watched our figure at all and since it was as hot as I mentioned already, we had lots and lots of ice cream. Now we are back on track and trying to avoid white flour, too much fat and of course ice cream. I know, my apple - kefir pancakes haven't been really diet food, but one day a week we are allowed to sin - it makes it definitely easer to stick to our plan.
By the way, for our Namibian followers, you get spelt flour only under the German name Dinkelmehl, at least I haven't found it otherwise yet. Please contact me, if you could buy it differently.
Anyway, I discovered this very interesting bread recipe I couldn't wait to try out. I should mention at the beginning, it's not meant to be kneaded by hands, because the dough is too runny.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Sour-dough, a sponge and its starter
As promised in my last post, I want to show you, how to do a starter for a sour dough and the sour dough itself. It's very time intensive, but worth the work. I love my sour dough breads, they are so fluffy and stay fresh way longer, then breads without the sour dough or sponge. I sourced the classic way of preparing der-Sauerteig. The idea for the regular sponge came up by reading that article and I adjusted it to my needs.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Baking bread - Linseed-sesame bread
One of the first things I started doing myself in Namibia, was bread. And not, because you don't get good bread in Namibia, you do. With the German past and still present influence, you will hardly miss the German culinary world. There are not only plenty German restaurants in Namibia, but also the typical occupations like baker and butcher, the Germans are famous for, are either influenced by or in hand of Germans. Beside Namibia importing wast of German products for the "feel at home" sensation.
But it was a new challenge. I asked myself, is it possible to bake bread at home as good as you can buy at the bakery or even better? Well, I don't know, if it's better, but at least as good as and I know, what ingredients I'm using. The main motive for me cooking, was being aware of the ingredients I'm using. After the birth of our daughter even more than ever.
I remember I baked my first breads without a yeast sponge or sour dough. They are tasty, the day you bake them and if you're lucky even the day after. But we need mostly a bit longer, to finish a bread. I remember reading millions of recipes and various websites about baking bread, one of them very helpful from a German baker (Bäcker Süpke's Welt).
The preparation of bread spread to two days or more kind of scared me off. And to be honest, when I was baking bread, then I needed it now or never, always somehow last minute. But after throwing away, I don't remember how many halves of breads, me, who is very aware of being poor and having nothing to eat and of the poverty in our country, I realised, that I have to change my bread baking behaviour. And I did and was rewarded with fantastic bread, sometimes even ready in only one day.
My first sour dough I made from a ready to buy sachet. It was a German product, I don't know if you can buy ready sour dough all over the world. You can always do your starter yourself.
The linseed-sesame bread was again part of my birthday gift for my mum in law. I know, I'm late with my publishing, but I was sick and not really in the mood of writing. No excuse.
So let's start, we don't want to waste any more time. One more thing, I only bake small breads, as I like eating them as fresh as possible. Please join me!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
About flour
I never paid a lot attention to the flour, since I refused to bake for many years. I suppose that was one of the causes for my continued failure in my baking projects. If you want to bake well, you must start to understand the difference between flours. I got that, when I eventually gave baking another try and with lot's of experimenting I started to love it. I still fail now and then, mostly because I don't stick exactly to the recipes, which seems to be very important, but more and more the outcomes are really tasty. The most important thing about the use of flour is the content of gluten and its effect. Gluten is the main protein in wheat and its content is influenced by the milling, the husk and the removing of the wheat germ. Gluten gives the dough its elasticity, as it absorbs water very well, that again makes the dough light and spongy.
Most of the facts below refer to an article in the South African "Food and Home", Issue June 2011. I'm not talking about all flours discussed in the article, only about flours I mostly use.
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