Friday 21 August 2015

Sourdough & Yeast Bread with Seeds

Yesterday morning, after non-stop rain on Wednesday, I think I could have give a home to some gold fish in my bike's panniers. That's the downside of having waterproof bags, you see .. the water usually keeps out, but if it gets in, it stays in there ;)

My panniers do have a hole...unintentionally...but it doesn't seem to help much in this case.
In any case it is always surprising how much less heavy my bike is without these panniers and the D-lock on it. 

Well, anyway ... I hadn't planned on having a free morning today, but since I now have one, I am tackling the following very urgent issue now:


Finally ... after moving this note from my desk to the kitchen, back to my desk, being carried around on my phone as a photograph when showing a friend how to make this bread  ... I am now putting it into proper writing for you!

Oh, hold on. Maybe you can just use the note? ;) No? Oh, okay then =P

I've made two versions of this bread now; one with seeds, as my Mum's original version was, and one with left-over red lentils and sunflower seeds. I can recommend both versions or simply using whatever you may have on hand.


Sourdough & Yeast Bread with Seeds


Recipe by Ines Feucht


Sourdough yeast bread with seeds, grains, or pulses. Wholegrain rye and wheat.

Prep time: 12 hours
Cook time: 45 minutes
Total time: 18 hours
Yield: 2 loaves

Ingredients

  • 245 g rye flour
  • 280 g water
  • 50 g ready-to-use sourdough-starter (before feeding)

  • 120 g mixed seeds, soaked in
  • 105 g water OR
  • 1 cup cooked lentils/grains

  • 350 g wheat flour
  • 60 g rye flour
  • 16 g salt
  • 2 tsp dried yeast (or 10 g fresh)
  • honey
  • 50 g water

  • water
  • seeds or flour for decoration

Instructions

On the day before:
  1. Mix rye flour, water and sourdough in a bowl. Cover and place in a warm place overnight.
  2. Mix seeds of your choice with water and leave to soak OR make sure you have your grains/pulses cooked for the next day. You can also cook them on the next day, but since you wouldn't want them to be hot it is easier to have them ready. You can also add in grains/pulses and seeds.
On the baking day:
  1. Dissolve yeast and honey in lukewarm water.
  2. Mix wheat and rye flour with salt. Add to the dough you started the day before along with the yeast mixture and the seeds/grains/pulses.
  3. Knead until the dough comes together in a ball and keep on kneading for a bit until you have a soft and pliable dough. Knead into a ball, as described here in the kneading instructions and place back into your bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place for two hours.
  4. With wet hands remove from the bowl onto a wet surface. Divide into two equal parts and knead into loaves.
    • Either: Place on a baking sheet lined with non-stick backing foil or dusted with a very generous amount of flour. Wet the loaves thoroughly with your hands. Dust with flour.
    • Or: Wet the loaves thoroughly with your hands. Dip, upside-down into a plate full of seeds. Turn back around and place on a baking sheet lined with non-stick backing foil or dusted with a very generous amount of flour. 
  5. Let the loaves rise in a draught-free place for half an hour and pre-heat your oven to 260 °C. If using fan heat only use 240°C. After 20 minutes place an oven-proof dish filled with water in the oven to let steam develop.
  6. With a wet, sharp knife cut into the loaf to determine where it will break up. You can choose the pattern. I did a cross-wise grid sort of pattern, as I remembered too late that I used to make my Mum cut hearts into the surface ;)
  7. Bake for
    • 15 minutes at 260 °C / 240°C fan heat
    • 15 minutes at 220 °C / 200°C fan heat
    • 15 minutes at 190 °C / 170°C fan heat
  8. Remove from the oven and check if the loaves sound hollow when you knock on them to confirm that they are done. Let cool on a rack until completely cooled, then wrap in a dish towel and store in a paper bag at room temperature OR freeze immediately, when still hot, in a sealed freezer bag.
  9. Enjoy :-)


Friday 7 August 2015

Swabian Farmers' Bread

Life has been weird this week ... our house has profited from that in any case, since my housemate and I had a home-improvement DIY day today!
We managed to put up the IKEA shelf we'd been meaning to put up since January and the whiteboard we'd meaning to put up since last year October. ... A small excuse is that we didn't have a drill until May =P Now we've made it and it is nearly straight. For that being the first things we ever hung ourselves that's pretty good, isn't it?
And, well, in fact it must be pretty straight, since the teapot on the shelf is not practising for winter skiing, but is staying in its place :)
Yes, the shelf is now the tea shelf and we were both quite amazed about it until our other housemates came back and told us it was exactly in the walking line and the corner of the shelf really dangerous ;)
So, I guess we'll hang something in neon colours on the edge, but it is not THAT dangerous.



And to keep you up to date in case one of you has started a sourdough here comes the recipe for the first mixed yeast & sourdough bread I made!



Swabian Farmers' Bread


Recipe by Ines Feucht




Swabian farmers' bread with sourdough and yeast.

Total time: 18 hours + sourdough
Yield: 1 bread

Ingredients

  • 160 g rye flour
  • 200 g water
  • 40 g sourdough

  • 160 g wheat flour
  • 140 g rye flour
  • 80 - 160 g water, lukewarm
  • 1 tsp dried yeast (or 8 g fresh)
  • ½ tsp honey
  • 10 g salt
  • bread spice (fennel seeds, coriander seeds, caraway seeds, anise seeds)
  • flour

Instructions

  1. Mix together the first three ingredients (rye flour, water and sourdough). Take the sourdough from your sourdough starter ready for use. Don't forget to feed the remaining starter. Let this sit, covered, in a warm place overnight or for about 8 hours.
  2. Grind up bread spice and mix with flour and salt. Add to the dough. Dissolve yeast and honey in a part oft the water. Add to the dough and start kneading. Add water as needed.
    • It is considerably easier to knead this with a kneading machine, since rye dough tends to be very sticky.
  3. Knead until the dough comes together. Cover and let rest in  a warm (!) place for half an hour. Don't hesitate to use a cherry stone pillow or some other gently warming device.

  1. Knead again and form into a dough ball (on a wet surface with wet hands, form into a ball by folding in the sides and rotating the ball of dough until the bottom side of the dough is smooth). Take a bowl and line with a dish towel. With a fine sieve dust the towel in the bowl generously with flour. Place the ball of dough in this bowl, the dough end facing up. With something pointed, such as knitting needles, poke the dough a couple of times. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
  2. Preheat your oven to as high as it goes. Place an oven-save dish filled with water in the oven so that steam can develop.
  3. Generously dust a baking sheet with flour. You can also use a non-stick baking. In one swift movement turn out the bread on the sheet. Poke the bread again a couple of times. With a sharp knife slice the bread in a grid pattern. The cuts should be about 1 inch/ 1 ½ cm deep. Wet your hands and wet the bread. dust it with more flour.
  4. Place the bread in the oven. Bake, turning down the oven over time:
    • for 15 minutes at 260 °C (or as high as your oven goes) - this develops the crust
    • for 20 minutes at 220 °C and
    • for 15 minutes at 190 °C.
  5. Remove from the oven and check for doneness by knocking on the bottom of the bread. If it sounds hollow the bread is done.
  6. Let cool on a rack or freeze immediately.
    • Store, wrapped in a dish towel, in a paper bag at room temperature. OR
    • Freeze in a freezer bag, then defrost overnight at room temperature (within the bag) and, if you wish, reheat and crisp up briefly in the oven.


Friday 31 July 2015

Homemade Sourdough

These past weeks I've done so much, and time seems to pass so fast.

Still, there was time for a trip each week and after the Isle of Wight, last week we went to explore the area around Chichester by bike. We stopped in West Wittering, which has the most impressive beach I've seen since the last holiday in the Netherlands, which was about four years ago.

West Wittering Beach


It was low tide when I took that photograph, but this    s p a c e  ... isn't it amazing :)
I just love the beaches and the waves. Oh, and if you happen to come to this area, do take the ferry from Bosham to Itchenor. It was the most amazing ferry I've ever been on! A three meter boat was totally not what I had expected xD

But now that's enough of impressions ;)

Exciting things have been going on in our kitchen this week! And no, this is not a joke! I was actually jumping around excitedly when my first ever half-sourdough-bread started to RISE in the oven. It had been a very dense ball of dough and it did in fact look less than promising, but it turned out just as if my Mum had made it =) And according to my housemate it looked as if was from the lovely Czech bakery we have in town.

...That's just to let you know what you can expect if you choose to take up the experiment challenge =P
If you want to jump around excitedly then give it a try!

But to start from the beginning: I finally started a sourdough about two weeks ago! Something I'd wanted to do for ages, waiting for the right time to come, which of course has never happened. ... So I just went for it.




Basic Sourdough


Recipe by Ines Feucht

top left: directly after mixing, bottom left: day 1, right: day 3

Prep time: 1 week

Ingredients

  • flour
  • water
  • 1 big glass jar
  • 1 cloth
  • 1 rubber band
You can use wholewheat flour or regular flour. Don't use any self-raising flour, though!


Instructions

  • Day 1: Start with ½ cup flour and and ½ cup lukewarm water. Place in the jar and mix well. Place cloth over the jar and secure with a rubber band. Place the jar in a dark, warmish place.
  • Day 2: After 24 hours add ½ cup flour and ½ cup lukewarm water. Mix and cover and return to the warm place.
  • Days 3 & 4: Each day empty the contents of the jar into a bowl. Clean the jar, since otherwise mold may develop if the sides of the jar are not clean, since you are keeping it in a warm place. Mix the starter in the bowl. Place ¼ cup of the starter back into the jar. Add ½ cup of flour and ½ cup lukewarm water and mix well. Cover and place back in the warmish place.

You can use the leftover starter in waffles or pancakes - I will post a recipe for you.

  • Day 5: Proceed as on days 3 and 4, but only add ¼ cup of flour and ¼ cup of water.


After this time you can use your starter as in any recipe it is asked for.

  • Feeding: For feeding keep ¼ cup of starter and add ½ cup of flour and ¼ cup water.
    • If you use it on a daily basis, proceed each day as on day 5.
    • If you use it on a weekly basis, proceed the same way once a week, keeping the starter in the fridge. In this case you can put a lid on your jar.


Minor deviations from your feeding schedule (missing one day or getting the time of the day wrong won't affect your sourdough, but make sure to maintain your overall pattern.

Note: After day three the sourdough became less bubbly and didn't seem as active anymore. I was a bit worried, but it doesn't seem to have done any harm. So if the same happens to yours, don't freak out and just keep on feeding it.