A HINT OF PROVENCE - LAVENDER BREAD

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In front of the store where I sell my breads I saw a bed of lavender in full bloom. The smell was wonderful, recalling memories of glorious summer holidays as a student in the Aix-en-Provence.

It also reminded me of a bread recipe with lavender that I always wanted to try.

Lavender in full bloom - a feast for nose and eyes

The lavender buds in my garden have not opened, yet, but I have some dried lavender flowers, and the assurance of reliable sources in the internet that fresh and dried lavender had the same strong aroma, and were therefore interchangeable.

At the first bite the breads' seasoning appears a bit unfamiliar, but then the taste buds open up, and welcome the subtle lavender flavor - a hint of Provence.

Especially good with butter and honey

LAVENDER BREAD          (adapted from Richard Ploner's "Brot aus Südtirol")
(6 mini breads or 8-12 rolls)

STARTER
22 g whole wheat mother starter (or white starter)
63 g all-purpose flour
45 g water

DOUGH
3 g instant yeast
270 g water, lukewarm
all starter (130 g)
400 g all-purpose flour
100 g bread flour
20 g sugar
12 g salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 tsp. dried lavender flowers, or fresh lavender flowers (from 6 stems)

DAY 1
In the morning, mix starter. Cover, and let sit at room temperature.

In the evening, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add to all other dough ingredients. Mix at low speed (or by hand) for 1 - 2 minutes, until all flour is hydrated. Let rest for 5 minutes.

Knead at medium-low speed for 2 minutes, adjusting with more water as needed (dough should still be sticky). Continue kneading for 4 more minutes, the last 20 seconds at medium speed (dough should still be somewhat sticky).

Transfer dough to lightly floured counter, and (with wet hands) stretch it gently into a rough square, and fold it like a business envelope. Turn it 90 degrees, and, from the small sides, fold it again in thirds.

Gather dough package into a ball, tucking edges under, and place in lightly oiled bowl (seam side down). Cover, and let rest for 10 minutes. Repeat Stretch & Fold 3 more times, at 10 minute intervals. After last S & F place dough in oiled container, mist with baking spray, cover tightly, and refrigerate overnight.

DAY 2:
Remove dough from refrigerator at least 2 hours before using. Its volume should triple.

Preheat oven to 425ºF/220ºC, including steam pan.

Divide dough into 6 (mini breads) or 8-12 (rolls) equal pieces. Shape pieces first into rounds, then roll them  into strands. Cover, and let rise at room temperature for about 45 minutes, or until an indentation, made with your finger, remains visible. Slash lengthwise.

Bake breads at 425 F/220ºC for 12 minutes, remove steam pan, rotate loaves, and bake for another 13 minutes, or until rich golden brown (internal temperature at least 200 F/95 C)

Let breads cool on wire rack.

Karin and friends taking French language classes in Aix-en-Povence (1970)

WELTBESTE POPOVERS - UND SO EINFACH!

Die Popovers sind inzwischen aktualisiert und umgezogen - auf mein deutsches Blog Brot & Meer:

RICHTIG AUFGEPUFFT - AMERIKANISCHE POPOVERS

WORLD'S BEST POPOVERS - AND SO EASY!

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Let's call Yorkshire pudding
A fortunate blunder:
It's a sort of popover
That turned and popped under.

Ogden Nash twisted the facts a little bit - though American popovers are relatives of of the English Yorkshire pudding, they are, off course, the offspring, not the origin. Not only that, over time they turned from a savory side dish for lamb into a dessert.

I've tried several popover recipes, they were quite good, but I was never able to make popovers that really "popped over". Compared with the famous popovers at Jordan Pond Restaurant on Mount Desert Island (which, by the way, get a little smaller every year), mine never rose much over the rim of the pan - even the ones I baked from Jordan Pond's own recipe.

Fortunately there are the good people from "Cook's Illustrated", working tirelessly in America's Test Kitchen, trying to come up with THE best version for every imaginable recipe. I gave their popover recipe a shot - and they POPPED! And not only that, the recipe is really one for dummies, you practically can't screw up.

Tea and Popovers at Jordan Pond

WORLD'S BEST POPOVERS (6) (adapted from Cook's Illustrated)

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 cup/140 g all-purpose flour (or exchange 14 g/5 tsp with whole grain flour, see note below)
1 tbsp. butter, melted
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. vegetable oil

In a blender, mix eggs and milk until smooth. Add flour, butter, and salt, and continue to blend on high speed until batter is bubbly and smooth, about 1 minute. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Measure 1/2 tsp. vegetable oil into each cup of popover pan. Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place pan in oven, and preheat oven to 450ºF.

After batter has rested, stir it and pour into measuring cup with spout. Working quickly, remove pan from oven and divide batter evenly among cups. Bake for 20 minutes without opening oven door.

Lower heat to 350 F and bake until golden brown all over, 15 - 18 minutes more. Gently flip popovers out unto rack and let cool slightly before serving (2 minutes).

Serve with butter and strawberry jam (or other jam).

You can exchange 10% of the white flour (14 g/5 tsp) with whole grain (I like Einkorn) without having to add more liquid or compromising their popping.

Popovers can be prepared in a 12-cup muffin pan (fill only the 10 outer cups), but they will not rise quite as high as in the special popover pan.

Popover batter can be made 1 day ahead and stored in refrigerator, wrapped tightly. Let come to room temperature and stir thoroughly before using.

Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park

"Hazel" and "Little Nut" Are Growing - "Hasel" und "Nüsschen" wachsen

Hazel
Little Nut
In 2008 I stuck some fresh hazelnuts in the ground at different places in our yard. I also gave some to our friend Tamara for her gorgeous garden. In spring 2009 I checked for weeks the planting sites, but nothing showed, only some more weeds.

I don't bother too much about those, and when my husband complains about our untidy lawn, I say: "Green is green!" This motto was already an annoyance to my neighbors when I was living in Germany. My eco-friendly garden was a fertile breeding ground for dandelion and burning nettle seeds, and other horticultural threats that law abiding, Round-Up toting garden owners abhor.

Last year I looked at some puny rhubarbs planted many years ago along the fence before cedars and maples blocked the sun. I noticed a seedling with round, serrated leaves that seemed familiar. After almost two years a hazelnut had sprouted! Though I scanned every centimeter of our yard for more, it was the only one. But Tamara gave me another nut-ling, she got several of them.

My two little hazelnuts cheerfully grew more leaves, while I watched them like a hawk, knowing my Richard's merciless efficiency with the lawnmower. They survived last winter, buried by tons of snow, and outgrew their yogurt container collars (protection from certain people to who believe that nature should be "beaten into submission").

With some luck, and if some people - I name no names - keep their greedy weed whackers off them, "Hazel" and "Little Nut" will grow into nice, big bushes, providing us with an abundance of delicious nuts. Unless our fat squirrels eat them first!

2008 steckte ich ein paar frische Haselnüsse an verschiedenen Stellen entlang unseres Grundstücks in die Erde. Ich gab auch einige unserer Freundin Tamara für ihren wunderbaren Garten. Im Frühjahr 2009 sah ich wochenlang nach den Pflanzstellen, aber nichts liess sich blicken, ausser ein paar mehr Unkräutern.

Die kümmern mich nicht allzu sehr, und wenn mein Mann sich über unseren unordentlichen Rasen beschwert, sage ich: "Grün ist grün!" Dieses Motto war bereits ein Ärgernis für meine Nachbarn, als ich noch in Deutschland wohnte. Mein öko-freundlicher Garten war eine fruchtbare Brutstätte für Löwenzahn- und Brennesselsamen, sowie andere hortikulturelle Bedrohungen, die gesetzestreue, Unkrautvernichtungsmittel-schwingende Gartenbesitzer schrecken.
Letztes Jahr schaute ich nach ein paar mickrigen Rhabarbern, die vor vielen Jahren entlang dem Zaun gepflanzt worden waren - bevor Zedern und Ahörner das Sonnenlicht blockierten. Ich bemerkte einen Sprössling mit runden, gezähnten Blättern, die mir bekannt vorkamen. Nach beinahe zwei Jahren war eine Haselnuss gekeimt! Obwohl ich jeden Zentimeter des Grundstücks nach weiteren absuchte, blieb sie die Einzige. Aber Tamara gab mir einen zweiten Nuss-Sprössling, bei ihr waren mehrere gekommen.

Meine kleinen Haselnüsse liessen fröhlich weitere Blätter spriessen, während ich sie wie ein Habicht überwachte, in Gedanken an Richards erbarmungslose Gründlichkeit mit dem Rasenmäher. Begraben unter tonnenweisem Schnee überlebten sie den letzten Winter und wuchsen aus ihren Joghurtbecher-Kragen heraus (Schutz vor gewissen Leuten, die glauben, Natur solle "gewaltsam unterworfen" werden).
Mit ein bisschen Glück, und wenn einige Leute - ich will keine Namen nennen - ihre gierigen Rasentrimmer von ihnen lassen, werden "Hasel" und "Nüsschen" zu hübschen, grossen Büschen wachsen und uns mit massenhaft leckeren Nüssen versorgen. Wenn unsere dicken Eichhörnchen sie nicht vorher fressen!

KORNTALER

STARTER
10 g rye starter, 100% hydration
60 g water
100 g bread flour

SOAKER
115 g whole rye flour (or medium rye)
120 g whole wheat flour
30 g flaxseeds
30 g millet
4 g salt
210 g water

FINAL DOUGH
all soaker and starter
105 g bread flour
6 g salt
60 g dried soybeans
40 g water, or more as needed


DAY 1

Mix together all ingredients for starter. Cover, and let sit at room temperature for 14-18 hrs.

MIx together all ingredients for soaker. Cover and let sit at room temperature.


DAY 2

Pour boiling water over soybeans and let soak for 15 min. Drain, let cool, and chop coarsely. Dry and slightly toast them at 170 C/325 F for ca. 20 min. Let cool.

Combine all dough ingredients, mix on low speed for 1 - 2 min., then 4 min. on medium-low speed. Let rest for 5 min., then continue kneading for another 1 min.

Ferment sough for 3-4 hrs, or until it has grown 1 1/2 times its original size.

Shape dough into boule, place into banneton, seamside down, and proof for ca. 2 hrs,. or until it has grown 1 1/2 times. (Preheat oven after 1 hr.)

Preheat oven to 250 C/500 F, including steam pan.

Bake bread at 240 C/475 F for 10 min., steaming with 1 cup of boiling water. Reduce heat to 220 C/425 F, and bake for another 10 min. Remove steam pan and rotate loaf 180 degrees. Continue baking for ca 20 minutes more (internal temperature at least 93 C/200 F). Bread should sound hollow when thumped on bottom.

Let cool on wire rack.

The recipe was adapted from Nils Schöner: "Brot - Bread Notes From A Floury German Kitchen".

E-Cookbooks Really Suck, But Some Are Worth It - E-Kochbücher sind bescheuert, aber einige sind ihr Geld wert

Much as I enjoy my Kindle for reading novels - e-cookbooks really suck!

My favorite baking books are full of scribbled exclamations, observations and suggestions. But try to enter notes in an e-book - and then IDENTIFY them again in their separate storage space on the e-reader - nothing is more cumbersome and annoying.

Therefore my only e-cookbook is Nils Schöner’s: “Brot - Bread Notes From a Floury German Kitchen” (written in English). First I got the free online version, but after I realized how much experience and work went into this compilation of recipes, I decided to give Schöner his due, and pay for the Kindle edition - a print version doesn’t exist.

Working with e-recipes is easy as long as you follow the recipe to the t, but if you want to change something, you have to write your notes on a piece of paper, and copy the recipe plus alterations and comments in your recipe program (or write them in a notebook) for later use.

Schöner didn’t make the task of navigating his book any easier by forgetting to add a table of contents to his book - but you can find it at Amazon with the book listing, and print it out.

His recipes are not “Bread Baking for Dummies”, either, and the procedure is often not described in great detail. So I adapted his recipes to my preferred method, introducing a soaker and overnight fermentation. I also found that baking it with slightly different temperatures resulted in a better crust.

In spite of all these obstacles - the “Floury Kitchen” puts out so many interesting recipes, that it’s really worth the little extra effort.

So gern ich auch Romane auf meinem Kindle lese - E-Kochbücher sind wirklich saudumm!

Meine Lieblingsbackbücher sind vollgekritzelt mit Bewertungen, Beobachtungen und Tipps. Aber versuch mal, Anmerkungen in ein E-Buch zu schreiben - und sie anschliessend in ihrem separaten Speicherplatz auf dem E-Reader wiederzufinden - nichts ist mühseliger und nerviger!

Daher ist mein einziges E-Kochbuch Nils Schöners: "Brot - Bread Notes From a Floury Kitchen" (in Englisch geschrieben). Zuerst hatte ich nur die kostenlose Download-Version, aber als mir klar wurde, wieviel an Erfahrung und Arbeit in dieser Rezeptsammlung steckte, beschloss ich Schöner das Seine zu geben, und für die Kindleausgabe zu bezahlen - eine Printversion existiert nämlich nicht.

Mit E-Rezepten zu arbeiten ist so lange einfach, wie man ihnen buchstabengetreu folgt. Wenn man aber etwas ändern will, muss man seine Notizen auf ein Blatt Papier schreiben und für späteren Gebrauch das Rezept samt Änderungen und Kommentaren in sein Rezeptprogramm kopieren (oder in einem Notizbuch festhalten).

Schöner macht einem das Navigieren seines Buchs durch Vergessen eines Inhaltsverzeichnisses auch nicht gerade einfacher - aber man kann es bei Amazon bei seinem Bucheintrag finden und ausdrucken.

Seine Rezepte sind überdies auch nicht "Brotbacken für Anfänger", und die Vorgehensweise ist oft nicht im Detail beschrieben. Daher habe ich seine Rezepte meiner Lieblingstechnik angepasst, mit Einführung eines Quellstücks und Übernachtung im Kühlschrank. Ich fand ausserdem, dass leicht veränderte Backtemperaturen eine bessere Kruste ergaben.

Trotz all dieser Hindernisse - die "Mehlige Küche" enthält so viele interessante Rezepte, dass sie die kleine Extramühe wert ist.

Flying Crumbs and Shower of Flour

With St. Patrick's Day approaching I was asked whether I could bake some Irish Soda Breads for A & B Naturals, the store that sells my breads. Never having successfully baked one before - my first trial at King Arthur's "Whole Grain Soda Bread" ending in a brittle brick - I said, of course: "YES!"
"Yes" usually means that I know where to find a recipe, and, indeed, I remembered having seen one in "Cook's Illustrated". I studied the write-up for Irish Soda Bread to find out what had gone wrong with my prior misbegotten trial.
Mixing Irish Soda Bread has nothing in common with making regular breads. Apart from the right kind of flour - Irish white flour is quite low in protein, it has less gluten than American all-purpose flour - it doesn't require yeast but is leavened with baking soda.
Clueless about the true nature of this Irish tradition, I had given my King Arthur bread the usual treatment, kneading the heck out of it, adding more and more flour because it seemed too wet, and then cursing helplessly because, in spite of all my efforts, it strongly resisted being folded and shaped. What finally came out of the oven was a grainy, unappetizing brick that would have surely gone to the dogs if Buffy had already been with us.
Fortunately America's Test Kitchen never fails to take the scary out of cooking. Reading their introduction I understood that, with my uncouth handling, I had debilitated my hapless first trial bread. To achieve Soda Bread perfection the dough had to be mixed like muffin batter, barely allowing the ingredients to come together, before turning it out onto the counter and gently patting it into a round.
Enthusiastically I started preparing my first Classic Soda Bread, following the instruction. Everything went well until I emptied the bowl over the counter. The dough fell apart in larger and smaller lumps, and, also, shed quite a bit of loose flour. When I gingerly started turning it over, trying to capture the loose flour, a band of unruly crumbs broke free, rolling all over the counter.
When I finally managed coaxing all loose flour to stick, and herding back the crumbs that had gone AWOL, the sweat I broke was not only due to the oven heat.
While my bread was baking I looked through all those other Irish Soda Bread recipes I had gathered, and, also, consulted with Youtube. Did anybody know a way to make this procedure less of a crumbly challenge, more streamlined? For baking several loaves at one time? Even using a mixer?
What I read and saw was all hands-on only, even Jeffrey Hamelman, one of the bread baking VIPs, described his experiences in Dublin as being "literally up to the elbows " in dough. The idea of handling a large batch of soda dough more likely to resist centripetal forces than submitting to them seemed rather daunting. Moreover, handling it with the gentlest touch!
My Irish Soda Bread turned out very nice, it was well worth the effort. And finally, I found at least a way to make it a little easier to bring the dough together without overworking it.