Donnerstag, 29. März 2012

(Walnut-Rosemary-) Bread






I bought some kind of "treasure - book", I found it in amazon by chance.
It is called "Ratio" by Michael Ruhlman , and it explains, how you can learn to cook without sticking on recipes.


The first chapter is about bread dough, and it was so fascinating to read (I read it in bed before going to sleep), that the first thing after wake up was:
to try it out!
I bake this Rosemary-Walnut-Bread for breakfast.
And it was nearly perfect!...sure, there are always things you can make better.


But for my first try baking a bread without recipe, it was stunningly delicious.
Timo and me ate the first slices warm, freshly cutted from the loaf, enyoing the
morning sun - ummh! - just with butter. Nothing better!
The same day I gave it another try. With hazelnuts and cranberries.
It worked again. I am so glad I found this book and I am gonna bake a lot more
bread this year, I guess.

People always say, that baking bread is so complex...
But I didn`t make that experience at all.
The only thing is, that you have to be around for the time, the bread has to
rise and to be in the oven.
But seen from the work you have to invest: Not complex at all.


So, try it out!!!
And because you don`t need a recipe, I tell you how it works.

It is all about RATIOS (like the book says).


____________________________________

A BREAD is always 5 parts flour, 3 parts water, some yeast and salt.
That means (in gramm) for example:

100 grams flour
60 grams water
3 grams (fresh) yeast
2 grams salt

You can extrapolate that. I took 300 grams flour, 180 grams water, 9 grams yeast and 6 grams salt
for a little loaf.

You mix the yeast and the water until the yeast completely dissolved.
Add it to the flour & salt and knead it, 10 to 15 minutes...it`s getting smoother and smoother.
The more kneading, the better.

Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise until double size.
Then add your "special ingredients", if you wish (like nuts or cinnamon or whatever)
Knead it again, then cover it with a dish towel and let it rise for another 15 minutes.
After that, bring the bread into the shape you want, cover it with the towel again and let it rise for around one more 90 minutes. Preheat the oven (450°F/230°C).

After slicing a big X into the bread and coating it with olive oil and salt, put the bread into the oven, reduce the heat to 375°F (190°C) after 10 minutes and pull it out after 30 to 50 minutes (depending on the size of the bread...when you tap the bottom, it should sound hollow)

TIP: if you put a bowl in the oven before preheating and fill it with water after
pushing the bread onto the baking tray, you can create steam, what leads to a
wonderfull crispy crust.
___________________________________

Well, this seems like a recipe, too.
But when you wanna learn something you have first to follow the basic rules.
If you bake that bread  2 or 3 times, you always can go back to the 5:3-ratio, and the bread will always be fine!





Dienstag, 13. März 2012

THIRSTY!

...by the way, we realized:
The Walnutmuffins make you very very THIRSTY!
The day I ate them, I enjoyed more than 4 liters of water! MAahhaha!

Samstag, 10. März 2012

~~ Maple-Walnut-Weekend-Muffins



What a wonderful weekend!
Spring is coming, and we had a little bit of sun.
During my breakfast, I flipped through a cute magazine where I found this wonderful recipe here for MUFFINS.
It included only ingredients we have at home, so I didn`t have to go shopping. I could just start baking, yey!

The recipe comes from the "Barcomi`s" in Berlin Kreuzberg, a coffee roasters.
( >> www.cynthiabarcomi.com)

I changed it a little little bit.
PLEASE seperate the dry from the wet ingredients. It is important to get the best out of the final mixture.

MAPLE-WALNUT-MUFFINS
(12 pcs)

xtras:
40 gramms walnuts
70 gramms date (without pit)
1 pear (or apple, if you prefer)

dry ingredients:
280 gramms flour
100 gramms oatflakes (wholemeal, if u prefer)
100 gramms sugar
2 TSP baking powder
1 TSP grounded cinnamon
1/4 TSP grounded nutmeg
1/2 TSP baking soda
1/2 TSP salt

wet ingredients:
50 gramms butter
250 gramms buttermilk
125 ml maple syrup
1 egg (size L)
1 TSP honey (liquid)

>> Chop walnuts & dates (if the dates are too sticky, mix it with a little bit of the flour)
>> Peel pear and rasp it roughly
>> preheat oven 190°C

>> Mix dry ingredients in one bowl
>> Melt butter and mix it HOT into the other liquid ingredients
>> Mix the dry ingredients into the liquid ones - JUST A SHORT TIME, DO NOT USE AN ELECTRIC HANDMIXER! - mix it with a big spoon, or whatever. But only as long as the ingredients are just about mixed...not longer!

>> Quickly fold in the walnut, dates and pear into the dough and fill it in equal parts into the muffin cake pan.
After 22 minutes: out of the oven...cool out about 10 minutes.

YUMMYUMMMMMM!!!

Donnerstag, 8. März 2012

Confession


When you have a Food (photography)-Blog, you have to do several things, before you can post something:

>> You have to chose a RECIPE (easy)
>> You have to go FOOD SHOPPING.... (easy when sun, not easy when rainy or cold)
>> You have to PREPARE the food (for that part, I have my boyfriend, you can see him perfectly   snip on the photo at the end of this post!)
>> You have to COOK or BAKE it (I could do that all day)
>> You have to ARRANGE the food (that one needs a hell of concentration!)
>> You have to TAKE PICTURES (loooove it!)
(>> when you finally eat the food, that cooled down in the meanwhile, you normally can`t stop to shout out ... "Oh , Timo Timo, stopstop...that bite was beaaautiful, hold it!! *click*"...a thousand times)
>> You have to PROCESS the pics you have taken (I love it, too!!)
>> If you are so smart, you have to WRITE DOWN the recipe....like you can see, I am not that smart, yet....this is often one step too much...but I will work at that!

>>Well, and then...then, you have to POST it.

Concerning my workflow, verything is fine, until the last point.
I cook and bake so much, I have so many photograpies...that I can`t keep up the writing-thing.
From all the things, I am at laziest in writing.

So I am sorry for some breaks in updating...I guess, one day comes a FLOOD of pics...the one day, when I am in absolut perfect mood for writing. So keep up reading ! :)

***Thank you!*** :-*   *Fabia*

(I swear, I work at the recipe-write-down-thing!)

Pomegranate, oh Pomegranate

So are a few pics I have taken 9 weeks ago....
A wonderful salad with some of my most beloved ingredients:
POMEGRANATE and PINE NUT...

Aubergine and fresh mint are the other ingredients, yoghurt on the top....



And I made oven roasted chicken with aubergines,pomegranate, walnut and cinnamon...


The first one could be a summer salad, but the period when the pomegranates pop out of the ground here in all stores is round about New Years Eve, a little bit later.
But I newfound this wonderful fruit again and I recommend highly to everybody: EAT IT! It is looovely!
And it fits to many other ingredients.