Tag Archives: German

main dish, vegetarian

Summertime Happiness

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Being outside. Throwing your arms up in the air. Simply because you can.

Sunbathing. A book to that?

Dancing in the warm rain. And finally being barefooted again.

Counting the stars, whilst thriving in the coolness of the night.

Celebrating simplicity. Complicated can come back later.

Even more sun! And noshing tarte flambee.

Tarte Flambee Goat Cheese

Tarte Flambee with Goat Cheese, Pear, and Mushrooms

Ingredients for 2 portions

For the dough:

  • 185 g wheat flour
  • 90 ml soda water
  • 2 tbsp peanut oil
  • 1/2 tsp salt

For the topping:

  • 150 g soft goat cheese
  • 2-3 tbsp sour cream
  • 1/2 pear
  • 2-3 champignons or other mushrooms
  • some fresh thyme

Knead the ingredients for the dough until it is smooth and soft. Cover the bowl and let it rest for 1-2 hours if you’ve got the time (the resting isn’t really necessary but it will be better with it in the end).

Preheat the oven to 250°C.

Cut the pear into small dices. Cut the mushrooms and the cheese into slices. Divide the dough into two halves and roll out each of them very thinly, until you almost can see through. Put each of them onto a baking tray with baking paper. Spread half of the sour cream thinly onto each tarte and scatter half the remaining ingredients onto each tarte as well. Bake for 5-10 minutes until the dough is crispy. Serve hot.

bread, vegan

Back to Simplicity

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Shredded Wheat Bread

The Easter Holidays are coming and with that recipes for the big celebration pop up everywhere like the spring flowers on the meadows. Instructions how to prepare the perfect lamb roast, the best sauce, the most perfect side dishes, the most astonishing decorations.

To me it is a little bit overwhelming. The inner pressure rises with every year – because, don’t we all want to delight our family with simply the best? Last year it was amazing, so it should be even better this time, shouldn’t it? A new superlative with every year? And so we end up spending so much time on thinking about the greater stuff, worrying about the big picture, that we tend to forget the foundation. The things that really, truly make us feel good, loved, and comforted. Cherished.

Sometimes it takes merely time to give someone that feeling. After all time is a very precious thing these days. But mostly it also is simplicity what we need, so basic that it can be overseen quickly, and regrettably underestimated.

Shredded Wheat Bread

Shredded Wheat Bread

Bread is such a thing.

Simple, candid bread, baked with time and devotion can be is a feast. It can make you more proud of what you eat and serve your loved ones than a perfectly orchestrated course menu. It is pristine, pleasant, and perfect in its plainness, chummy even. It brings people together in its quiet, elementary way and pampers us with everything good.

Like new favourite of ours. Exclusively baked with sourdough and no additional yeast it is easy to digest and with its whole grain shredded wheat and rye flour it also is saturating and a perfect companion for a hearty meal or spicy cheese.

Shredded Wheat Bread

Shredded Wheat Sourdough Bread

For the sourdough:

  • 100 g rye flour
  • 100 ml water
  • 10 g sourdough starter (self-made*)

For the main dough:

  • 200 g shredded wheat (I used whole-grain shredded wheat)
  • 200 ml water
  • 500 g wheat flour
  • 150 ml water
  • 15 g salt
  • the sourdough from above

Additionally:

  • 2 tbsp whole-grain flour (wheat or rye, whatever you can find)

Mix the rye flour with the water and the sourdough starter in a bowl. Cover it and let it rest for 16-20 hours.

On the next day mix the shredded wheat with the 200 ml of water and let it soak for 30 minutes. Put together all the ingredients and knead for 10 minutes. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 1 hour, while shortly kneading the dough from the rim of the bowl to the middle every fifteen minutes. After that let the dough rest for 1 additional hour.

Now fetch a longish baking basket and get the dough out of the bowl to knead shortly but thoroughly. Sprinkle the whole wheat flour on your working surface and roll the dough between your hands and the working surface to form a long loaf that fits into the baking basket and that’s dusted with the whole-grain flour. But the loaf into the baking basket and cover with a clean and dry kitchen towel. Let the dough rest for 3-6 hours, until it has almost doubled its size.

Preheat the oven to 250°C and place the loaf onto a heated baking tray with a sheet of baking paper. Put the tray into the oven, switch the temperate down to 220°C. Spray a little bit of water into the oven before closing the door and bake the bread for 30-40 minutes. It should give a hollow sounds when you knock on the bottom of the bread.

Let it cool down on a baking tray. Enjoy with savoury cheese, sausage or simply with good butter. Even better when roasted.

Shredded Wheat Bread

Time bar

Day 1, evening: 1 day before baking
Preparing the sourdough and letting it rest for 1 day.

Day 2, afternoon and evening: baking day
Making the main dough and baking.

– – –

*Making your own sourdough starter

To make yourself your own sourdough starter you only need water, rye flour and a few days in a row in which you will be at the same place at the same time of the day. And an airtight jar, alongside a small place in your fridge for that exact jar. Maybe even a name for your new baby, but that is not too necessary.

Day 1: Mix 10 g rye flour with 20 ml water, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 2: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 3: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 4: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 5: Add 10 g rye flour, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 6: Congratulations! You just made your first sourdough starter! Put it into the fridge and use it for baking. For example as in the recipe above.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

bread, how-to, vegan

The Essence of Things

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Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

There are only a few things that are as essential as a loaf of bread. For me the last home baked bread, made with my own sourdough, is already too long ago. Fate seemed to be against me, killing first not only my first rye sourdough, but also its successors, and soon after that the wheat starter followed as well. So yes. I needed fresh dough. Because self-made bread is a delight that can hardly be explained.

And so one beautiful day my new sourdough starter was finished, and ready to be to a good use. His name is Eren… let’s see how this one will turn out. My fingers are crossed!

The bread that we are baking for Lena today is a mild one with mainly wheat. The adding of potatoes gives the bread a wonderful juiciness that helps making it stay fresh longer. The crust is not too thick and not to thin and the crumb is amazingly soft and fine pored. A perfect companion for cheese and a new favourite.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

Sourdough bread with potatoes, baked in a pot

Ingredient for 1 loaf

For the sourdough:

  • 10 g sourdough starter*
  • 100 ml water
  • 100 g rye flour

For the main dough:

  • 2 fist-sized potatoes, cooked on the previous day and completely cooled (about 200-250 g without skin)
  • 400 g wheat flour 1050
  • 100 g spelt flour 630
  • 8 g fresh yeast
  • 275 ml water
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 14 g salt

Mix the ingredients for the sourdough in a bowl, cover it with a lid or cling foil and let it rest for 20-24 hours at room temperature.

On the next day peel the potatoes and mash them thoroughly. Add the remaining flour, the water, the yeast and the honey and mix it with the kitchen machine for 5 minutes on the lowest setting. Add the salt and mix another 5 minutes. The dough is very soft and will be steadied by the pot during baking anyway. But if it seems to be too runny add 1-2 tablespoons of additional flour with the salt.

Cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for 90 minutes, whilst folding or rather kneading it once to the middle of the bowl after 30, 60 and again 90 minutes. Now get the dough out of the bowl and roll it around in 1-2 additional tablespoons of wheat flour so it it covered generously and put the flour dusted dough back into the bowl. Cover it again and let it rest for 60 to 90 minutes once more.

30 minutes before the resting time is up put an iron cast pot including the lid into the oven and preheat it to 250°C.

Get the pot (caution: very hot!) out of the oven and cautiously let the dough drop into it. Cover the pot again with the lid and bake the bread for 30 minutes at 250°C. After that time switch down the temperature to 200°C and bake the bread for another 30 minutes. For a nicer crust remove the lid during the last 15 minutes of baking. Turn the bread out of the pot and let it cool down on a cooling rack.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

Time bar

Day 1, evening: 1 day before baking
Preparing the sourdough and letting it rest for 1 day.

Day 2, afternoon and evening: baking day!
Making the main dough and baking.

– – –

*Making your own sourdough starter

To make yourself your own sourdough starter you only need water, rye flour and a few days in a row in which you will be at the same place at the same time of the day. And an airtight jar, alongside a small place in your fridge for that exact jar. Maybe even a name for your new baby, but that is not too necessary.

Day 1: Mix 10 g rye flour with 20 ml water, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 2: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 3: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 4: Add 10 g rye flour and 20 ml water, mix it, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 5: Add 10 g rye flour, cover it airtight and let it rest for roughly 1 day.
Day 6: Congratulations! You just made your first sourdough starter! Put it into the fridge and use it for baking. For example as followed.

Kartoffelbrot aus dem Topf

sweet tooth, vegetarian

Comfort for the heart

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Baking. Butter. Sugar. A dream team in December, when the cold, wet and grey as its grip on us. The world outside has become complete stark during the last past weeks and becomes more and more cheerless with the all surrounding darkness that creeps closer and closer.

With all that it’s time to attend to your heart again and to what it needs most during this time of the year: Warmth. Some rest whenever you can take it. And some endorphins, caused by crumbly shortpastry out of everything that’s good. Carbs, fat, vitamins (almonds!) and sweet things. Add a few lovely spices to that and the soul can smile again – a happy smile, not a creepy one – and make us endure this year’s final spurt much more easily again.

All of that is even better, when the recipe is easily done. And like that it isn’t really that sad, when all the delicious little half moons are eaten up almost too quickly again.

Chaikipferl

Chaikipferl

after a recipe by the lovely Lena

Ingredients for about 40 pieces

For the Kipferl:

  • 150 g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 100 g cane sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 200 g wheat flour
  • 100 g ground almonds
  • 1 pinch of salt

For the sugar mix:

  • 80 g cane sugar
  • 1 TL freshly ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 TL freshly ground cardamom
  • 1/4 TL freshly ground cloves
  • 1/4 TL ground ginger
  • some freshly ground pepper

Mix up the butter and the sugar. Add the egg yolks and keep on mixing. Add the flour, the almonds and the salt and knead to a firm dough.

Roll it out into one or two logs that are about as thick as a 2 € coin (or 2 £ coin) and wrap it in cling foil to let it cool down in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 160°C (hot air) and lay out baking sheets on two baking trays.

Cut the dough logs into 1-2 cm thick slices and roll them between your hands. They sould be about 5 cm long in the end and a little thicker in the middle. Slightly curve them to get a half moon shape („Kipferl“ in Germany) and distribute them on the baking trays.

Bake for about 12-15 minutes (with the hot air you can bake both trays at once), until the tips of the half moons start to turn slightly brown.

Meanwhile mix the ingredients for the sugar mix.

Let the baked Kipferl cool down on the trays for about 5 minutes, so they won’t crumble apart at once. Place them into the sugar mix and sprinkle them with more oder very carefully turn them around in it.

Let them cool completely on a roast and store them in tin containers.

Chaikipferl

pantry, soul food, vegan

Strawberry compote

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The world has become so complicated. Let’s meet and visit that place that only we know. Let’s pretend everything is as it used to be: The world is simple, the future open but definitely bright, sparkling and wonderful. Let’s enjoy the simple things again. Without having to think about any troubles. Without questioning ourselves and asking if we might be different than the others. Let’s do exactly what we want to do, just for one moment, without any hidden agenda, doubts or rules. Continue reading Strawberry compote →