Managing the Water

Secretly I enjoy the way all of us here in the Low Lands are stumbling into 2012. After days of continuous rainfall and storms coming in, the water levels are rapidly rising. A small stretch of dike in the North has broken, but much worse has been avoided so far by doing what the Dutch were born to do, or so it seems; managing the water. In some parts of the country dikes are broken on purpose to give way to the water in a controlled way. Storm barriers are lowered, risen, unfolded, or whatever which genius technical way they have come up with to protect us from the ever hungry rising water. Don't you love it when a system works? These are the moments that your hard-earned tax money is worth every cent you paid, and more! For instead of huffing and puffing and dragging sacks of sand around, I can sit here behind my computer, with dry feet and not worry about a thing. 'Cause I got some one watching out for me, and all of us out here! The Dutch province of Zeeland ("Sealand") is, when it comes to water, the "epitome" of what it means to be living at or under sea level. Looking at this map, I guess you can figure out why.

Luctor et EmergoThe slogan on their weapon shield reads "Luctor et Emergo", translating into "I struggle and emerge". Even though that slogan goes back a long time and actually refers to the struggle against Spanish occupation in the 16th century, the average Dutchman will associate Zeeland with the biggest disaster ever to hit the province on the 1st of February 1953. In a big storm and the flooding that followed, almost 2000 people drowned and 100.000 people lost everything they owned; their houses, their livestock, everything... They struggled, together with the rest of the country and did indeed "emerge". I an epic mission never to let this sort of thing happen again, they constructed this little baby;

Zeeuwse Bolussen

Brought to Zeeland by the bakers of the Portuguese Sephardic Jews who were forced to flee north at the end of the 15th century, these sticky sweet rolls, traditionally shaped in a spiral, quickly became popular with the locals as well, to such an extent that the "Zeeuwse Bolus" has become the signature bake of the province in modern days. That is another thing the Dutch are quite good at; all through history the Netherlands has been a refuge and safe haven for people on the run. Or should I say; another thing the Dutch WERE good at, because nowadays, even though the biggest part of the world still thinks of The Netherlands as a liberal and tolerant place, the Dutch authorities are sending kids who were raised here out of the country just to set an example. Let this recipe for "zeeuwse bolussen" remind us all how something really good can come from opening up to "strangers" in dire need! Luctor et Emergo indeed...

Ingredients
500 gr. All Purpose Flour
7 gr. Salt 5 gr. Instant Yeast
320 gr. Lukewarm Milk
75 gr. Unsalted Butter
250 gr. Brown Sugar
2 TBS cinnamon
zest of one lemon
Method
Combine the flour, yeast, zest and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Work in the softened butter with the tips of your fingers. Add the lukewarm milk. Depending on your flour, you may have to add a little more milk or need to hold a little back. Start with 300 gr. of milk and add more if needed; what you are looking for is a slightly slack dough that will be easy to roll out in strands. Mix until the dough is well-developed, it should pass the window pane test; approximately 10-15 minutes on medium low-speed.

Lightly oil a container, transfer the dough and coat all around with the oil for a first rise of about 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, divide the dough into equal pieces of about 45 grams. You should end up with 14-16 dough pieces. Form the dough pieces into balls and let them rest for 20 minutes, so the dough will be slack enough to form into strands. First roll out all the balls into short strands of about 20 cm.

Mix the brown sugar with the cinnamon and cover your work surface with it . Then roll out the strands in the sugar mixture to a length of about 40 cm. If the dough really resists, you might have to go for a third round of rolling strands after giving it another 10 minutes to relax. Shape the strands into spirals or knots. The spiral is the more traditional way of shaping, but since the rolls come out of the oven really dark brown, I prefer to knot them, just to avoid associations that I won't go into here and now :-)

For spirals: start in the middle and just drape the dough in circles. It is okay to make it look a little rustic and not too neat! For knots: Place a strand horizontally in front of you. Take the ends and form two loops, leaving some space in the middle for proofing. Make a knot on each side of the loop.

Place the formed bolus on a baking sheet, cover and let them proof until puffed and doubled in size, for about 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 250°C/475°F. Bake the "Zeeuwse Bolussen" for about 8 minutes. You want them to be just done, so keep a close eye on your oven. Too long and they will be crusty, too short and they will be gooey.

Please feel free to comment and subscribe if you want me to keep you updated. Also I want to ask you to endorse my growing BreadLab initiative on Facebook; every like gets me closer to realizing a 6 episode "breadomentary", chasing the beast bread the world has to offer. Thanks in advance!

Freerk

Comfort

When asked where, or who, or what I would turn to when in need of comfort, I blurted out:

"I bake" All around the table there were people nodding in agreement. Comfort, food, baking. A no-brainer.

My answer caused a growing feeling of unease within myself though. As the rest of us came up with their ideas (books, photo albums from the attic, secret benches at water fronts) I counted the number of times a week I throw something into my oven, and started to get slightly worried. I must be in need of an awful lot of comfort...

Ever since, every time I bake, I ask myself; why am I baking?

Sometimes the answer has indeed something to do with comfort. A missed job that had my name written all over it will spark a very comforting autumnal frangipani.

Last week I found myself baking Dutch crust rolls after I shattered two (!) plates I really liked. At times, it is about a passion for new things and learning. Croissants, ensaimadas, macarons, complicated sourdough breads that take up to 36 hours to make, bring it on!

Most of the time the answer seems way more trivial. All the bread eaten in this house come from our own oven. I bake because there needs to be bread on the table in the morning. Simple as that, or is it...

Sharing as a disease The best part of baking, especially when baking bread, is eating it together. Sharing bread is right up there with the big boys when it comes to what is ingrained in our very genes from the start of humanity.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the ground."

No sooner were we kicked out of paradise, or bread came into our existence... It is at the heart of what makes us human and has stayed with us till this very day!

I heard a wonderful story of a guy, here in Amsterdam, who has made it his mission to GIVE in life all that he can, without ever asking anything in return. He helps complete strangers to a new bike, finds lost photo albums and brings it back to the rightful owners, things like that.

One of the people, a radio journalist, who was touched by all this - he himself got a new bicycle after complaining on a radio show that it was stolen from him - dug around a little and found out the guy was operating... from a mental institution.

He was diagnosed mentally ill. His own words; "over here they consider sharing a disease".

The disease that is called sharing... Personally I hope it is airborne and viral, very contagious and practically incurable. This world could do with a bit of sharing.

This recipe for Swedish Kanelbullar (cinnamon rolls) came to me by way of a baking friend. She got it from a new food channel, who got it from somewhere else, etc. Along the way tweaks were made in the recipe, and what you end up with are some really stunning, very tasty cinnamon rolls that are real easy to make. Maybe something for at the coffee table on Thanksgiving? For me, any old day will do to make them; they have become very popular quite fast in this household.

Swedish Kanelbullar

For the filling:

150 g almonds
150 g sugar
100 g unsalted butter
8 TS cinnamon
4 TBS water

For the dough

500 ml milk
150 g butter
12 g instant yeast
120 g sugar
13 gr. salt
1 TS cardamom
850 gr. bread flour
1 egg
(pearl) sugar for decorating

Warm the milk and melt the butter into it. Add the yeast, sugar, salt, cardamom and bread flour. Make sure the milk has cooled enough before adding the yeast. 35° C is okay. Mix on low speed until the dough is nice and stretchy, around 10 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the filling. Pulse the almonds together with the sugar and the cinnamon in a processor until fine. Add the water and the butter to it and mix until well incorporated.

Rest your dough in an oiled container until almost doubled in size. The warmer it is the quicker it goes. About one hour or so. Next, roll out the dough to a big rectangle on a lightly floured work surface. Make sure it doesn't stick, it makes working this dough much easier.

Put the cinnamon paste on half of the dough and fold it onto itself. Roll out again to even it out and cut the dough into strips. Form the rolls by stretching and winding the strip of dough, loosely, around your hand twice, go over the width of the roll and tuck in the end. No matter how you do it, it will always look lovely, so don't get too over zealous in trying to get them to look all the same!

Let the rolls proof until they are nice and plump, about 45 minutes. In a warm kitchen they might be ready within 30 minutes or so.

Preheat the oven to 200° C. Take out all the racks and prepare to bake on the second lowest rack.

Give the rolls an egg wash with the slightly beaten egg (use only egg yolk for a deeper, richer shine and a more dramatic contrast) and sprinkle with small sugar pearls if you have them. Normal sugar works as well, but won't look as classy. Bake for about 20-25 minutes with convection until they turn a deep golden brown. Let them cool on a rack and.... SHARE!

happy baking!

Freerk

Thanksgiving day 2010

Rotisserie barbecued turkey (okay, so it's not bread)

Glenn (on the left) meets turkey (on the right). 

Day after Thanksgiving breakfast

San Joaquin Sourdough Baguette

Cinnamon rolls & Pecan rolls (made in muffin tins using NY Baker's Babka dough)

Cinnamon rolls, for kids who don't eat nuts

Pecan rolls, for the rest of us

Glenn makes challah

He's on a roll!

You should have seen the one that got away!

Here's the proof

Ready to bake

Cooling

Challah c rumb

The challah made fantastic turkey sandwiches!

And, for dessert, the much anticipated Apple Crostada, inspired by trailrunner!

Apple Crostada!

Delicious! It had the flakiest, best tasting crust ever!

For better or worse, as I was enjoying a second slice while mentally reviewing the recipe, I realized a stick of butter actually is 8 tablespoons, not 4 tablespoons. That means I used 9 tablespoons of butter rather than the 5 T Caroline's recipe specified. No wonder the crust was so flakey!

David

I used to make my own cinnamon rolls with brown sugar and shredded apples as the topping before rolling up the whole wheat dough and cutting. Would agave or honey work or would it be too moist? I live in a very dry climate in AZ.

As I was feeding my starter (Ralph), rather than discarding I fed the discard and used it to make my first sourdough cinnamon rolls.  I'm up to my ears with sourdough pancake mix and just couldn't bear to flush half of Ralph.  I happened on the following recipe in COOKS.COM and with only very minor adjustments, I made the cinnamon rolls shown below.

SOURDOUGH CINNAMON ROLLS
Printed from COOKS.COM

1/2 c. starter
1 c. evaporated milk
2 c. flour
1/4 c. butter
3 tbsp. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 c. flour (approx.)
1/2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. melted butter
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. chopped nuts
Melted butter

Combine starter, milk and flour (2 cups) in a large bowl. Cover and leave at room temperature overnight. Next morning, beat together the butter, sugar, and egg. Blend into sourdough. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, soda, and baking powder and mix with other mixture. Turn out on floured surface and knead until shiny. Add flour as needed.

Roll out to an 8 x 16 inch rectangle. Brush surface with melted butter, sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins, and nuts. Roll up dough, cut roll at intervals, dip in butter and place in 9 inch square pan. Let rise about 1 hour and bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.

I eliminated the nuts (allergies) and used granulated white sugar rather than brown sugar (pantry deficiency).  I made an orange glaze using the zest of one orange,  juice of 1/2 orange and 1 2/3 cups powdered sugar.  Waiting for them to cool before I can report on the taste but they smell devine.

 One of my favorite things to do when I'm up overnight at our little mountain cabin is to make cinnamon rolls, with a long slow rise. I get a batch of dough going, and let it sit for a long time in a cool corner, to rise all day. Before turning in for the night I roll the dough out and shape the rolls. Sometimes I make them all the same size, and sometimes I make them look like mountain peaks, the way I've done in this recipe. They're just perfect the next morning with freshly brewed cabin coffee.

Cascade Cabin Cinnamon Rolls

Makes 8 large rolls

For the dough:

½ cup water at 100º

2 teaspoons yeast

2/3 cup milk, scalded and cooled

4 Tablespoons butter

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoons salt

4 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup flour for benchwork

For the filling:

2 Tablespoons butter, lightly melted

¾ cups raisins (I use golden raisins)

3 teaspoons cinnamon

2 Tablespoons sugar

Make the dough: Mix the water and yeast in a 4-quart bowl and let sit for 10 minutes to foam. Scald the milk in a small saucepan and add the butter to the milk while it's cooling. Add the ¾ cup sugar, the salt and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture in the bowl and, when the milk has cooled to body heat add it as well. Stir with the handle of a wooden spoon for 200 beats to make a smooth batter.

Add the other 2 cups of flour and work it into the dough to incorporate. Make a ball with the dough, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for 5 minutes. Clean and dry the bowl.

Long rise: Put the dough ball into the bowl, cover with a lid or a piece of plastic wrap, and let sit in a corner to rise. Optimal temperature for this rise is 55-60º. If you can't achieve this temperature you may have to improvise by putting the dough by a doorway or on a cellar step. Let sit for 8 to 10 hours, punching down if the dough is super active.

Shape the rolls: Roll the dough into a 10" x 18" rectangle. If your cabin has no rolling pin use a wine bottle, as I do. Spread 2 Tablespoons of barely melted butter over the flattened dough.

Cut the dough into equal quarters, and then cut each quarter in half lengthwise at a 20º angle so that one end of each finished piece is 3" wide and the other 2".

Mix the raisins, cinnamon and sugar in a coffee cup and spoon equal portions along the center of each dough piece. When all the raisin mixture is distributed, roll each piece up, starting with the widest end and keeping one side flat as you roll.

Overnight rise: Arrange the somewhat unwieldy rolls in a buttered 8" square metal or glass pan. They'll want to flop some, so let them. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise for 7 hours at 55º.

Bake the rolls: In the morning, let the rolls sit near the morning fire for an hour to warm up some. Preheat the oven to 425º and, once hot, put in the rolls. Bake for 10 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 350º and bake for 25-30 minutes more. If the tops get too dark, drape a piece of foil over the rolls for the last 10 minutes.

When the rolls are baked, put down your snow shovel and grab some coffee. The rolls should probably cool for 30 minutes, but I really wouldn't know - I've never been able to wait that long!

Disclaimer: These results were obtained in a mountain cabin with thin insulation and a 40-year old electric stove. Rising and baking times will vary.

For complete text and a few more photos, see original content at www.woodfiredkitchen.com

Hello,

Here is a great recipe for not to sweet but delicious cinnamon buns.  If anyone else has any good recipes please let me know.  I am looking for something ideally a little flakier than this and more along the lines of a danish spiral, but with a cinnamon filling.  Enjoy the recipe!

Skylar

BBA Cinnamon Buns (adapted from Peter Reinhart)

3.25 oz granulated sugar
.25oz salt
2.75oz butter or shortening (at room temperature)
1 large egg (1.65oz) slightly beaten
1 tsp lemon extract or 1tsp lemon zest
16oz unbleached bread flour or all-purpose flour
2 tsp (.22oz) instant yeast
9-10oz whole milk or buttermilk at room temperature or 1oz dry milk and 8oz water
½ cup cinnamon sugar (6 ½ Tbsp sugar plus 1 ½ Tbsp cinnamon)

Mix together the sugar, salt, and shortening on medium-high speed in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment.  The recipe said to "cream" them, so I mixed them until they seemed smooth and well blended.  I never liked the word "cream", because it always seems so ambiguos as to how thoroughly the mixture should be blended.  If you are using the powdered milk, mix the milk with the sugar, but add the water with the flour and yeast.  Mix in the egg and lemon extract until blended.  Then add the flour, yeast, and milk.  Mix on low speed (or stir by hand) until the dough forms a ball.  Switch to the dough hook and increase the speed to medium, mixing for approximately 10 minutes, or until the dough fairly smooth, tacky but not sticky (I wound up adding a little extra flour to make the dough not stick to my hands completeley.  You may have to add a little flour or water while mixing to achieve this consistancy.  The dough should pass the windowpane test (and it did!) and register 77F to 81F on your fancy little thermometer (I wish I had a thermopen so I wouldn't have to wait a half minute for a reading!)  Lightly oil a large bowl and turn the dough in the bowl to coat with oil to prevent a skin from forming.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Ferment at room-temp for approximately 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.  Mist the counter with spray oil and proceed as follows

Roll the dough out into a rectangle 2/3 inch thick and 14 inches wide by 12 inches long for large buns or 18 inches wide by 9 inches long for small buns.  Don’t roll the dough too thin or it won't be soft and tender like a cinnamon bun should be.  Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the dough and roll the dough into a log (I like to roll in towards myself so the finished roll is right in front of me).  With the seam down cut the roll into 8-12 pieces for larger buns or 12-16 pieces for smaller buns.  Place the buns approx ½ inch apart so that they are not touching but are close to one another.  Proof at room temperature for 75 to 90 minutes, or until the buns have grown into one another and have nearly doubled in size.  You can retard the buns in the refrigerator for a couple days supposedly.  I baked them straight away.  Bake the buns at 350F for 20-30 minutes or until they are lightly brown.  Cool the buns in the pan for about 10 minutes and then smear or drizzle the glaze over the top of the buns.  To make the glaze combine: 4 cups sifted 10x sugar with 1 tsp lemon extract or juice and about ½ cup warm milk.  Enjoy the buns!  (Preferably the day they are baked, they stale pretty quickly!)

Notes:
I had to add a bit of extra flour (quite a bit actually) to make the dough workable.  This could be because I used A.P flour versus bread flour, hence lower absorption.

You can put raisins and nuts into your buns!

I used 1% milk versus whole milk.  Is there a difference?  I can’t tell you that, perhaps you can tell me!

I finally tried making some cinnamon rolls and my wife and neighbors claimed they were the best they've had.Of course they would say that anyway.My real critics are my neighbors kids.They agreed with the others so I reckon they were OK.Here are couple pics.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Soft-Moist-and-Gooey-Cinnamon-Buns/Detail.aspx

My mom had a special request for cinnamon rolls for her birthday so I'd like to thank zolablue for the recipe here (It's the second recipe down the list):

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/cinnamonrolls

I'm another happy customer!

I'm mostly posting as a thank you but also with some of my personal experiences that others might benefit from reading about if they choose to make these WONDERFUL and EASY rolls:

1) I used 6g instant yeast instead of a packet (7g) of active dry.  Therefore I added an extra half cup of potato liquid to the recipe because I didn't have to disolve the yeast in the beginning.

2) I used lard instead of shortening.  I don't know if this is the reason that when I added in the eggs, milk, potato, and potato liquid, it came together with rather a curdled look.  I did add the eggs one at a time and when the first one did not mix in smoothly, I broke out the electric beater.  The concern was all for naught, though since once I added the flour everything came together beautifully - So don't worry if you get this curdled looking texture beforehand.

3) I used KA organic AP flour and it took 5 cups to create a workable dough, though I may have been able to get away with even less flour.

4) I couldn't find cinnamon chips at the grocery store so I just spread the sugar out on the buttered rolled out dough and sprinkled the whole thing with as much ground cinnamon as I thought would be desirable - A complete but thin layer.

5) I got 14 pieces out of the roll and packed them into a 9 1/2" x 13 1/2" nonstick metal baking pan that I had sprayed with coooking spray.

6) I made vanilla icing and did not use the full amount of milk since I was leaving out the chocolate and it would have been too watery.

I know that it looks like I went crazy with the icing (I actually did have some left over!) but once the roll was on my plate it looked perfect!

Summer

Starter Dough

• AP Wheat flour (9,5% protein, i.e. nothing special)
• Milk 250 ml
• Sour cream 100 ml
• Yeast, more than for your ordinary non sweet doughs.

Rest for 45 min

Then add

• White syrup (or sugar, but white plain syrup makes it more moist)
• One egg
• Ground cardamom seeds. First roast them quickly on the stove until they crack open, then grind the black seeds inside.
• Some more flour or any old white dough lying around.
• Salt
• 200g butter in cubes at room temperature is added slowly after 4-5 minutes of machine action.

Rest, divide if necessary and shape each to a smooth heap, rest again. Roll out to 0,3-0.5 cm thickness.

Spread evenly with a soft mix of:

• Butter
• Vanilla flavouring
• Cinnamon

Roll together. Be careful not to roll to thin. Rolling "back" to a thicker size creates a less attractive end result. With QUICK cuts and a non-jagged knife cut the roll in around 3 cm thick slices. Place with minimal space apart on a baking sheet. Not totally together but tight together. Optional: Fill the small spaces in between each roll with raspberry jam.

Let it rise, possibly in a mildly heated and dampened oven, though careful not to melt the butter filling.

Brush with a whisked mixture of

• One egg
• 2 tbsp water
• A pinch of salt 

Sprinkle over some chopped nuts or almonds.

Bake for about 15 min at 225 degrees C in the middle of the oven.

Cool as quickly as possible perhaps even outside to retain moisture.
When cool, garnish with some icing sugar, lemon juice or water mixed to form a thick paste. When half was used i dropped a few drops of Grenadine in what was left and got two colors.

The result from real butter, sour cream, white syrup gives a fantastic taste and moisture while the pre-dough procedure ensures a stronger gluten structure to form and support the rise without the interference of too much sugar initially. As you can see from the picture I only filled some of the gaps with raspberry jam, but the result was good and next time I'll fill them consistantly.