Broetchen

German rolls are called 'Broetchen' and thus should count as small breads, right?

All white flour, for a change, 60& hydration, half milk, half water.

Fresh! flour and a tiny loaf

Finally we made it again to the Barton Springs Mill, after having tried some award winning olive oil.

Got some flours: red fife, sanora, turkey red, yecora - all new for me, last time we bought other varieties (and they were outstanding).

The flours are whole grain (except yecora, 85% extraction) and are superfine.
Kneading these is a revelation, much, much stronger gluten building in very short time - and outstanding flavors, all organic, too.

So here's a product, a tiny whole wheat loaf so I can bake more often ;-D
 (a 2 cup flour sourdough loaf = 300g, 80% hydration). Moist, crunchy, and outstanding flavor with this flour.

Crunch Batard

I admit it: 50% whole, 50% white. But NICE.
Not used to doing batard shaped loaves, this came out quite nicely.

Sourdough - with and without caraway

Started this morning, just had a slice and then packed it away.
Two small loaves backed in a cast iron pot, 1/3 rye, 2/3 whole wheat.
The darker loaf was bake 10 F hotter and has also caraway seeds.

Buttermilk bread

Just a very light, fluffy toast-bread-like bread, made with very little yeast, same amount of sugar, 2 teaspoons honey and buttermilk instead of water, whole wheat, of course. Brushed with milk a few min before pulling it out of the oven for a soft crust.

Sourdough bread

Every time different - this one had a really good crust and crumb, only slight sourness. More than half gone the first day :-).

Trying to avoid baking right now, it's so super hot. But it's hard

Bread

And another bread - but this crust cracked nicely, don't you think?

On the picture it is visible what I use on my baking sheets - oatmeal. Before, I mainly used corn flour, but I found that 1 min oats work as well to keep the sticking to a minimum, the flavor is much better. And as I often use some oats in the dough as well....

 And I just love my steel baking sheets, tried them all, nothing better than steel. 

Orange bread

Guests are coming, so I was wondering what to try. I found some nice dried orange peel, and recalled a nice bread I once made with fresh orange and lime peel.

 So, found the recipe, and substituted the fresh with dried orange peel (organic). Especially with citrus I don't want to use the rind from not organic limes, I decided to substitute the lime with lemon verbena syrup.
This late summer I made a larger batch of lemon verbena syrup, had a lot of leaves to start with and also a nice recipe for a shake with blueberries, the syrup and sparkling water. SO good.

The first bread I made... did not fly, so to say. Bricks don't do that. I think the yeast might not be fresh enough, or the salt and citrus peel hinder the yeast, or I had just too little liquid in it.
So... second try a bit more water... and it came out quite delicious. Best, with a bit of fresh butter, though almond butter and cream cheese are pretty good with it, too. Nice, dark and soft crust, delicate, very slightly moist crumb. Won't last long....

Flour, water, yeast, salt

Came out nicely, I think.

And no photoshopping this is as is, just scaled: convert bread.jpg -unsharp 0x6+0.5+0 -resize 550 bread-sm.jpg .

Onion-Bacon-Wheat Bread

Just a quick one:

Wheat (full), some cut up center-cut bacon, one small chopped onion, water, yeast.
Mix, stand, knead, let rise, bake. Prepared yesterday, baked this morning. Very decent outcome :-) , not too salty, moist but no yeasty flavor.

Sourdough

Sourdough tastes great - and not sour at all. But the bread has a great flavor, much more complex than other bread, and 1000 x better than store-bought.

We had the other half while it was still warm from the oven...

Some years ago I tried, not too great success then, but this is my 3rd bread in the last 2 months, and it came out pretty good. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and good taste. My last one was a bit darker and had a very different taste, but I like the lighter kind.

This is NOT all about food!

OMG, I just took a look at this blog, right after linking it to my professional blog (andreas-wpv) and website (directorinternet.com). This is nearly all about food!

Folks, this is just half of the truth, or even just one third. You can see the making of food - I definitely love that.
Second, I love to eat it too and having polite friends and family the eat the stuff too.
Third, I work it off in 4 to 5 hours of slow running, biking or swimming!

So, no worries about all that food, and wait 'til I show you my latest breads!

Nice to be out, nice to be home again

That were nice 2 weeks off, but I am glad to be home again. And it smelled of sweet Christmas tree when we came in.
Today I made a sweet bread, German recipe. Changed half of the flour to full grain wheat, and that actually tastes a lot better even. We ate half (!) of the bread right away, still warm, with some butter and a bit apricot jelly. Hmmm. Like it. First a slightly yeasty scent, then more and more we could smell the full wheat in it, this is so rich, a little nutty. I'll make it again soon, for sure!