Jw's blog

In absence of my camera (the display is broken), I uploaded a few old pictures. When our kids were younger, we once took them to the Bakkery Museum. They were really exited about the figures the bakers demonstrated. If it is not the content of a bread, it will be the form that decides whether they like it are not!

We made some of these breads during several birthday partys, even the 'never eat bread' kids would eat that own bread this time.

I am progressing with the sourdough, more on the art part then on the science part. Baking full week around is also working out so far. Pictures will follow! Groeten, Jw.

A baker at the museum. I remember they put on a real good show, they made everything look so simple.

Some of the figures:

And a picture from a birthday party. The kids added a bit of sugar powder on top... the pictures are from 2002.

it is funny how new recipes or experiments later on turn into 'production bread'. I have making rustic bread almost in production now, trying to become a week-baker instead of a weekend-only baker. That is one of the current challenges.




I have tried sourdough, but the result was a bit rustic too. The smell is ok, the looks are terrible. Hardly any ovenrise. Don't know what the problem is, maybe the master is not yet ready. I will keep trying. I am quite new to sourdough, so that is were the real fun is these days. I will keep trying, Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Jw.

Megapretzels, sunflowerbread and carrot-almond bread

Last time I made pretzels, I received a request for megapretzels. So I made twice the batch of dough this time. But once I was done shaping for the first batch (normal size pretzels), the dough of the second batch became too hard to handle. The result is in the picture (upper left). Taste is still fine, form goes nowhere. The normal size ones turned out fine. You can see how I cut them in half to include e.g. cheese (Edam or Gouda, after all I am from Holland...!)



The sunflowerbread is from a slowrising dough, no mix, 100% wholewheat. Now I know I should put in 1/3 of standard flour and rise no longer then 8-12 hours in the fridge. This could become my new 'no brain bread' (meaning just standard, nothing fancy). Shaping and form is not up to my standard..

The last bread certainly was not boring. I found the recipe in a small booklet "Das kleine Brotbuch" (the small breadbook), which I received some 10 years ago. It mentions a carrot-almond bread, I sticked to the recipe. The taste is pretty strong, this is almost cake-like. It just got out of the oven, so I don't have a real opinion about it yet. BTW the introduction of the booklet reads: "if you read this booklet carefully, it will be easy for you to become a succesful "Baeckerin" (lady baker)". The smell is incredible. Recipe on request!

Happy baking!
Jw.

With a little help from qahtan (tip for walnut oil) and liam (tip for folding), I made wallnutbread this sundaymorning. Two versions: slowrise (from 3-4 days ago, 50% wheat from mill, whole groats wheatflour (?), 50% plain white flour) and an experiment: last night before midnight I mixed about half pain d'ancienne, mixed in the wallnuts and let it rise overnight.

The results: perfect for the pain d'ancienne. A bit sticky bread for the overnight version (btw with 100% wheatflour, no mix), much lighter taste. It was gone in one lunch anyway. The purple around the walnuts did not show up, maybe since I cracked he wallnuts on the evening before. Maybe it was my illusion that the walnuts don't spread so nice in the bread, I am sure I had that problem once before.

On the normal pain d'ancienne the scoring did not work out completely (but still good enough). The structure and taste is very good, almost 'criminal' as one tester put it. Next time I will not shape right away, but wait for half a hour (when out of the fridge). Then shape and score, so that it looks more like a boule.

Last but not least: ciabatta. A lot of work, but definitely worth the effort. This is pushing my oven to the limit (I used to stone). I am ready for a larger group of guests now... BTW the piece of cloth is a quilt 'in development' by Mrs. Jw.

Off topic: what else can you do but bake on rainy day like this...
Cheers,
Jw.

Last week I was out of flour and was able to combine a trip for work to a nearby windmill: http://www.molendevlijt.nl . This mill has better openinghours then the mill I normally go to, and I tested the flour with a simple slow rising bread (next time I will add more simple flour, not just the wheat type). A great mill, I will be back there. I will need a bit more time to look around at the mill. It will take a while before I find the right/best combination of wheat for our weekly bread.

I also made some zopf. Finally, sometimes there are (near) perfect ones as well. We had a to say thank-you to a few friends and neighbours, I always like to give them a zopf. The best shape is from broad to narrow, or thick to small. This is four strands only, I think challah is 6-strand and keeps the size the same. For this zopf I used 1 kilo (2.2 pound) of simplest kitchen flour. Recipe on request.

Last but not least: pretzels. I was a lunchwish from my 'boss at home'. It reminded her of her youth in Austria, where she grew up. Can one get a bigger compliment? These three kinds of bread can hardly be consumed at the same time, the tasts are too different. These pretzels are best with cheese and e.g. ham. The zopf is great with marmalade and chocolate. Bak ze! Cheers, Jw.

I tried something different this weekend, Duivekater. I read about it a while ago in a newspaper and last year we visited the Open Air Museum and received a recipe. It is 'special occasian bread', with Germanic roots, alltough I found a link to the French Hugenotes as well.

You can find the bread in paintings of Jan Steen at the Rijksmuseum, in this particular painting it is leaning against the wall. 

I am not too happy with the result. The dough did not rise as much as expected, I did not follow the recipe for 100% (e.g. warm butter instead of cold). Brioche or Zopf is much softer then this; it tastes more cakelike. I tried Pretzels as well, but failed there with the lye mixture (too high a percentage). The 'simple' bread (full wheat, slow rise, boule) turned out nice. Within a day all bread was gone....

Any tips on a better Duivekater are welcome. I will translate the recipe on request.

Cheers,
Jw.

Really just named after the windmill "De Vriendschap" where I buy the flour.

I started thursdaynight with the dough, finished sundaymorning. Great taste, good structure. It is gone before you know it.

Smakelijk!
Groeten,
Jw.

I had to clean up some 'almost old' flour, so I just made simple bread with the standard recipe this weekend. 

In half of the dough I added a bit more yeast, and then I used a slowrise-overnight method. This is the top-right bread. The bread is not that high, but has more tast. I guess it got too cold, which killed the rising process. 

For the other part of the dough (the larger breads) I used standard yeast, but started that with lukewarm water and a bit of sugar (for about 20 minutes). Standard mixen (a bit kneading, by hand), wait 1 hour, some real kneading and then shaping. wait another hour before I put it in the oven. at 200C. I put some water on top before I put the bread in the oven, repeat after 35 minutes. Sometimes I turn the oven up for the last minutes to get a better crust.

The scoring is also relatively simple here. I sometimes use a string or a sharp knife for better results. The picture below shows the different in structure of the two breads. 

Smakelijk (bon appetit).