I knew better, but I still tried to rush it. I had fed the sourdough to the Norwich Bread specifications. Maybe, I already did not wait long enough there, to have it at it’s prime bubbliness. Then I made the dough. Ask seemed fine. I formed the breads – 2 baguettes and 1 loaf – put them into the fridge without keying them rise first. Here is where I think I messed up. They do need some rising time before being refrigerated. So, even though I gave them ample time to acclimate to my kitchen temperature before going into the oven, they did not rise enough. So, lesson learned. You have to give sourdough it’s proper time to do it’s magic
I still have the other bread and will see if a bit more rising time will do the job

We had gotten lettuce, beans, tomatoes, potatoes and onions in our Local Food Stop bag this week. It is freakishly hot outside, so we like cool or semi cool dinners.
The array of goodies brought this salad to mind, a salad we all enjoy very much. It looks so majestic, so special, just the way it tastes. What a treat!

Pumpkin (Chocolate Chip) Bread

A soft, sweet, spicy, orange bread. Perfect for breakfast, snack and afternoon coffee or tea.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 4 eggs
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used white whole wheat flour (King Arthur) and it worked wonderfully)
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg (fresh if you can get it)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips (I have left them out before, and it was actually our favorite so far
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (have also tried pecans, and it was delice)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 1 pound size coffee cans, or three 9×5 inch loaf pans. (use mini muffins pans and bake them for 15 minutes – big hit with the kids)
2. In a large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, water, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Blend in flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Fill cans 1/2 to 3/4 full.
3. Bake for 1 hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before removing from cans or pans.

adapted from www.allrecipes.com

I posted it on facebook, and promptly was asked for the recipe. So, here it is …

Farmers Bread (Bauernbrot)

400 g unbleached all purpose flour (used King Arthur, what else?)

200 g rye flour (Arrowhead Mills makes a great one, and it’s organic!)

75 g sourdough (100% hydration) (you can leave it out if you don’t have any, but the taste will not be the same)

1/2 package dry yeast (about 1  3/4 tsp)

10 g salt

350 g water (350 ml)

Weigh all dry ingredients in the same bowl. It makes clean up a breeze! Use the dough hook on your machine – stand or hand held – add water and knead until the dough is elastic for about 5 minutes. Add more water if needed. Let stand for 10 minutes, for gluten to settle.

I used a big ceramic bowl, draped a kitchen towel in it and sprinkled that with flour. (Technically, you can make this in any shape you like, so also in a bread form.) Take the dough and make a bowl shape by gently pulling the sides to the underside and pinching them together. Put the dough top down into your ceramic bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise until double in size for about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 450°F. I put our baking stone in and a deep baking dish with water. If you don’t have a baking stone, still put in the baking dish with water. Take a cookie sheet and sprinkle with semolina flour or line with parchment paper. Carefully take the risen dough out of the bowl by lifting the towel out. Place the bread, seam side down, onto the cookie sheet. Spread the flour evenly over the top that came off the kitchen towel. Now, slash the dough with whatever pattern you desire, at a 45° angle and about 1 inch in depth.

Place the bread in the oven, either on the cookie sheet or slide it onto the baking stone. Reduce the temperature to 410°F. Take the water dish out after 15 minutes and bake for another 30 minutes.  Let cool on a wire rack and have enough patience to let it cool. The reward is a gorgeous, crusty bread with a delicious moist inside, and oh that smell throughout the whole house… Enjoy!

This year, I thought it would be a great idea to bake it with the girls. I had it all planned out, even the cute little origami baskets they would be baking in and certainly a great banana nut bread recipe.

These  baskets, I thought, would make the presentation just perfect. We got out 8×10″ white sheets of paper and cut out the same size of baking paper and folded. Very cute, indeed.

I put them on a baking sheet, not to close to one another so they would have enough room to bake separately. I was a bit worried about the sides being a bit wobbly, you know the part where the handle is supposed to be. Hm, as the batter baked and rose, it pushed just as much on the sides. Well, what happens if there isn’t ample resistance? The banana breads ended up looking as wide as they were long. I should have really taken a picture, but I was so displeased with myself, I did not have enough humor left. I wanted to hand the teachers something scrumptious the next morning.

I decided to make our success-proven Chocolate Chip Scones, cut up the banana bread and present those to the teachers with a cute little sign, wrapped in cellophane paper finished with a bright, cheery ribbon.

Chocolate Chip Scones

adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups All-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp unsalted butter
3/4 cup cream–half and half, light, heavy, or whipping
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups to 2 cups chocolate chips
coarse white sparkling sugar or demerara sugar, for topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) a baking sheet.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder till thoroughly combined. Cut butter into small pieces and work it into flour until the mixture is unevenly crumbly.

Whisk together the cream , eggs, and vanilla. Set aside 2 tablespoons, and add the rest to the dry ingredients, along with the chocolate chips. Mix to form a moist dough.

Transfer the sticky dough to a heavily floured rolling mat or other work surface. Gently pat it into an 8″ square. Brush the dough with the reserved egg/cream mixture, and sprinkle heavily with coarse sugar.

Cut dough into squares, then into 4 triangles each. For miniature scones, cut the triangles again. Space the scones evenly on the prepared pan.

Bake the scones for 20 minutes (13 minutes for miniature size), until they’re golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and serve warm. If not serving immediately or within a couple of hours, store in an airtight container. To reheat, wrap loosely in aluminum foil, and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for about 10 minutes. Yield: 16 to 32 scones depending on size.

Banana Nut Bread

adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar, light or dark, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium or 2 large bananas)
3 tablespoons apricot jam or orange marmalade, optional but tasty
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

1) Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.

2) In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, beating till smooth.

3) Add the mashed bananas, jam, honey, and eggs, again beating until smooth.

4) Add the flour, then the walnuts, stirring just until smooth.

5) Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smoothing the top. Let it rest at room temperature for 10 minutes.

6) Bake the bread for 45 minutes, then gently lay a piece of aluminum foil across the top, to prevent over-browning.

7) Bake for an additional 25 minutes. Remove the bread from the oven; a long toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean, with at most a few wet crumbs clinging to it. The tester shouldn’t show any sign of uncooked batter. If it does, bake the bread an additional 5 minutes, or until it tests done.

Allow the bread to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Remove it from the pan, and cool it completely on a rack.

It’s the end of the school year. That always means I will be baking for end-of-year parties. With most people bringing chocolate chip cookies, I usually try to make something different. This year, I stumbled across an old recipe of Amerikaner. They are like your Black and White Cookies.

Why are they called Amerikaner (Americans) in Germany? Nobody is sure, but there are two good stories. In one GI’s were not able to find all the ingredients for an American Cake during the Second World War, thus creating the “Amerikaner”. The other has Germans not being able to pronounce “Black and White Cookies” which the Americans brought over in the 50′s, so that they just called them “Amerikaner”. Either one has their origins from the Americans and I thank you for it!

I love their vanilla flavored, cakey-soft texture with a slightly crunchy icing on the underside, which becomes the upper side. Oh, and the choices of icings and decorations – there are no limits. The traditional icing is just powdered sugar and water- at least in Germany- but who is to keep you from using melted chocolate or colors in your icing? This is actually a wonderful treat to make or decorate with children. They get to make faces with M&M’s, beautiful sprinkles or melted chocolate in a candy melt bottle. As you can see our Emily had quite a lot of fun with it!

Amerikaner / Black and White Cookies

Ingredients:

125 g butter
175 g sugar
3 eggs
1/4 tsp. salt
250 ml milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
500 g flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder

Directions

Heat oven to 395 °F. Beat butter, sugar, eggs and salt till foamy. Mix in milk and vanilla. Whisk together flour and baking powder. Add to liquid mixture and mix well.

Drop by tablespoon fulls onto baking paper lined cookie sheets – I use the cookie scoop, which works perfectly with this sticky batter. Just keep a glass of water nearby and dip the cookie scoop in it when batter starts sticking too badly.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown around edges.

When cookies have cooled, the decorating can begin. 250 g powdered sugar with 3-4 Tbsp. of hot water + 1 tsp. vanilla makes a great white icing. Melt about 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips + 1tsp. shortening in microwave – you can do this in a bowl and then put in a pastry bag to decorate your cookies with, but I did it right away in the candy-melt bottle. You heat it for 30 seconds and stir or knead bottle, heat again for 30 seconds, then stir or knead bottle, until the correct consistency has been achieved. Either put the melted mixture right onto the cookies, in a pastry bag or decorate right from the bottle. I iced them first and then we had fun decorating them, as you can see.

This is one of the easiest breads you can make. It is as fitting and delicious for breakfast with some jam as for dinner with chili or soup, but you have to have a bottle or can of beer in the house.

That can be a challenge for me. Even though I am German, I am not a big beer fan. That said, I love it fresh off the tab in a Beer Garden or with a little sprite on my mom’s balcony, not that I’m choosy or anything

Years ago a friend of mine had made beer bread – a box mix – and it was delicious. We don’t usually have beer in the house, but had some left over after a dinner party, so I set off to find a from scratch recipe for beer bread (I am not a box mix kind a gal). I found several ones and mixed them to this simple recipe that I have stuck with for several years now. It is also SO simple, I can’t fathom why beer bread should be made from a box, but that’s just me. I’ll get off my high horse now and get on with it …

One of the best parts about  this bread is that it is started in a cold oven. Our girls like it so much that I have mixed it and left it in the oven overnight to bake on time-bake in the morning on more than one occasion. There is no better way than to wake up to the scent of fresh baked bread!

I have also been known to pack the simple ingredients when going on vacation. It makes for an easy side item, and it is just as easy to bring it back. I just did that last Easter and made myself the official beer bread maker of the family.

One thing I have to warn about, though. The beer has to have some taste, so no dishwashing water, please!

Another warning … it is a bit addictive … thus no picture of the beautiful, golden crumb …

Beer Bread

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. turbinado sugar

1 bottle or can of beer

1/4 cup butter, cut into small pieces

Directions

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium size bowl. Add beer and stir until all flour has been absorbed. Spray or butter a 1.5 to 2 quart loaf pan. Spread dough into pan and top with butter pieces.

Place pan into cold oven and set to 375°F. Bake for 1 hour. Let it cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.

I am finicky about the food I eat, but especially about the bread. There is the German side of me, having grown up with the world famous German bread. The memories of, as a young girl, going to the local bakery to buy Brötchen (rolls) or bread fresh out of the oven for breakfast or even an afternoon snack, the same baker, who later made Michael’s and my wedding cake are so precious to me.

Yes, it is usually heavier, but not always. We also have our delicious Weißbrot (white bread), but it is considered a special bread or dessert bread. It’s nothing like the white bread here. American white bread in many families is used every day and is all fluff from sugar, fat and bleached flour … thus, if I have to go the route of buying bread, I go for the all natural baked goods or at least whole wheat containing ones.

So, when it came to burger buns, I had just usually picked up a few rolls of “good” ones. They still have too many ingredients that I can’t pronounce, I guess to extend their shelf life, so I thought I would give it a try and make them myself. It can’t be that hard, right? It really isn’t.

I adapted the following recipe from one on the King Arthur Flour website as it was an all white flour recipe and I added some white whole wheat flour.

I have to admit, I was sneaky. I did not want anybody to know until AFTER they had eaten them. I still took pictures, which everybody is used to, but they thought it was for the salad When revealing I had made the burger buns, everybody was amazed. Comments were: “They are heartier, but good.” “Why?” (Never mind that one, the same person asked if she could have them for breakfast the next day!) but even the kids really liked them. I was pleasantly  surprised by how beautiful they looked, their texture, though a little denser, and the taste they added to the mix.

Try them and dare to go back … I can’t.

Burger Buns

Ingredients

3/4 to 1 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons butter
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 3/4 cups White Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast

Directions

1) Mix and knead all of the dough ingredients—by hand, mixer, or bread machine—to make a soft, smooth dough.
2) Cover the dough, and let it rise for 1 hour, or until it’s doubled in bulk.
3) Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a round 1″ thick (more or less); flatten to about 3″ across. Place the buns on a lightly greased or parchment papered baking sheet, cover, and let rise for about an hour, until very puffy.
4) If desired, brush buns with melted butter. Or brush lightly with egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water), and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

shaped and risen burger buns; in front with egg wash and sesame + the farther ones with butter

5) Bake the buns in a preheated 375°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, till golden. Cool on a rack.
6)Brush buttered buns with more melted butter to keep the crust soft.

burger buns with butter and sesame topping

Submitted for Susan’s terrific Yeast Spotting.

This carrot salad is what I most often make with them – at least every other week. It comes together quickly – especially if you have a food processor – and is quite healthy, too. The Vitamin A in the carrots is a fat soluble vitamin, meaning that your meal has to include some fat for your body to be able to absorb it. This is where the canola oil and walnuts  come in. Both are chuck full of omega-3 fatty acids and polyunsaturated fats.

This fresh, sweet, tangy, nutty and wonderfully crunchy salad pleases most any palate and goes with just about any dish. It can be made ahead of time (leave out the raisins to add later, or they will plump up too much), making it a great salad to bring along to a dinner with friends or picnic, but leftovers are still perfect a day later. I always have to make a double batch in my house …

Carrot Salad

Ingredients:

1 lbs. carrots, scrubbed and peeled (if necessary)

1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/3 cup canola oil

2 tsp. mustard

1 tsp. brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1/4 tsp. black pepper

Directions:

Shred carrots on grater with large holes or in a food processor and chop walnuts. Mix together the rest of the ingredients in a medium size bowl for the dressing. Add shredded carrots, walnuts and raisins. Toss to coat. It can be served immediately or made ahead of time.

We did not eat our strawberries right away, when I brought them home in our weekly CSA (community supported agriculture) bag last Wednesday.

They are fresh and organic, absolutely to die for sweet, juicy and tender, need I say more? If you leave them too long, they get soft and overripe. So, we like to eat them fresh with just some sweetened yogurt sauce – just plain yogurt with sugar, sometimes or often, may I confess, with whipped cream folded under for a lusciously rich, smooth taste. 

But, I needed to find another way to use those strawberries that do not pass the fresh strawberry perfection test.  I pondered strawberry bread and strawberry cheesecake ice-cream. While perusing one of my favorite websites for sure-fire recipes, King Arthur Flour (my flour of choice!), I came across the Fresh Blueberry Scones recipe I had made before with frozen strawberries since my 8-year old Emily isn’t much of a blueberry fan. I know, I can’t believe it either. Who does not like blueberries? She does like them freshly picked off the bush when we go blueberry picking, but not in muffins, pancakes or any other form once they are brought home. It’s kind of like when we go to the supermarket, nosh on the samples, pick up some of that delicious dip we loved so much, just to find it in the back of the fridge weeks later… with a many more hues of color than I care to remember…

But I digress … I made the scones and at Emily’s request tried three different toppings. After slathering them with melted butter I sprinkled granulated sugar or sugar crystals/sparkling sugar on them and left some without sugar. While I liked the sparkle and crunch of the sugar crystals, I preferred how the granulated sugar and butter married into a barely-there, but would-miss-it-if-it-wasn’t-there pearly, crunchy sheen.

These scones serve happiness on a rainy spring day or a refreshing treat in the muggy Atlanta almost-summer air. They are moist, yet fluffy and light; fruity and just sweet enough to still let the strawberries be the stars they were grown to be.

So may I introduce:

Fresh Blueberry Scones

Ingredients:

2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
2 large eggs, beaten
1/3 cup vanilla yogurt (or strawberry yogurt or plain with 1 tsp sugar + 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (or 1/4 teaspoon lemon oil)
1 cup chopped strawberries

Topping:

2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the dry ingredients with your fingers.

Stir the eggs, yogurt, vanilla extract, and lemon zest or oil together. Add to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Gently stir in the strawberries. Don’t squoosh those babies, or you end up with mooshy scones. This dough is the consistency of a wet drop-cookie dough, meaning sticky with a capital S.

Liberally flour your counter and your hands. Take the dough out of the bowl and place it on the counter. Pat it into a 1-inch-thick rectangle. Cut into 10 triangular scones (I cut 12 and still had made them plenty big. You can also make 24 mini scones) . Place on a well-greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned and a cake tester inserted into a scone comes out dry. Cool completely on a wire rack (somehow that NEVER happens in my house and may I say … They are delicious warm!). Yield: 10 – 24 scones.

I am submitting this recipe to Susan’s YeastSpotting.