A Sunny No Knead Bread

Cinzia of Cindystar choose no knead bread for this month of Bread Baking Day #38. I like no knead bread. I like he process and the final bread.

I baked no knead breads before. Today I wanted to bake something special. I choose two breads, one with sunflower kernels and one with Thai herbs. The bread with sunflower kernels was delicious.
In the other bread, with Thai herbs, I used chili, lemongrass, kaffir leaf and Thai basil. I used dried herbs, cut them in very small pieces and added them to the dough. The herbs fermented with the dough for about 19 hours. But then there was a strong smell of perfume coming from the dough. I decided to bake the bread anyway. It looked nice but the smell of perfume in bread is not my idea of a good bread flavor. Peter gave it a try and said ‘with our homemade peanut butter it’s ok’. But I'll try again with my experiment of baking bread with Thai herbs.

So I send this Sunny no knead bread with sunflower kernels to Cindystar for Bread Baking Day of this month.

Tartine Country Bread

I saw a video of Chad Robertson in his shop Tartine in California. You can feel he loves to bake good artisan bread. In this video he talked about the importance of slow and cool proofing the loaves. He said it gives the bread more flavor.
So I went for Tartine bread; with the explanation of Cathy of Breadexperience. She made a real photo explanation. Thank you very much Cathy. I’ve learned something important and this helped me a lot. She wrote to get your hands wet before touching wet and sticky dough, to prevent it from sticking too much to your hands. This tip helped me folding it into beautiful soft and smooth dough. This will help me next time making ciabatta’s again. That’s sticky dough!

And another great tip by Cathy is how to check if you starter is ready. She wrote ‘to find out if it’s ready, test to see if it floats in water. Drop a spoonful into a bowl of moderate room-temperature water. If it sinks, it is not ready to use and needs more time to ferment and ripen’

Mint Lemon Knots

The first time I used the original recipe my bread looked a little bit like the snowflakes Susan made; Lemon Anise Snowflakes. I had enough candied lemon peels. Last week I bought lemons and after a few hours I had my own candied lemon peels. I have to hide them for Peter, because he eats them like candy, and he really doesn't like lemon.Tomorrow we are going to Chiang Mai and like something to eat during the 4 hour drive. I decided to use this recipe, but with a few changes. The first time I baked them I had a hard time grinding the anise seeds, probably not the same Susan used. Peter, my husband, suggested using Thai mint. This herb is something we always have in our kitchen. We buy fresh Thai mint, which tastes milder than the European mint. We dry it in the suns and drink it as a tea. It tastes delicious and it calms the tummy. Peter offered to chop the herbs.

Yoghurt Semi Sourdough

We like to make our own yoghurt. It’s easy to do and delicious to eat. The yoghurt we can buy in Thailand is sweeter than we prefer. But, one day we ate yoghurt at a shop on a artisan market and this was delicious yoghurt; it had the sourness we like. The girl told us she makes her own yoghurt. So, on the way home we knew it was a matter of time before we would make our own yoghurt. Every time we go to Mae Sai we visit her shop for a cup of yoghurt with caramel sauce and fresh whipping cream! She has a very nice shop in this border town in the North of Thailand. Whenever you visit, go for fresh yoghurt.

When I saw the yoghurt bread Zorra made, I knew I had to bake it. We also make our own yoghurt cheese and it is probably great on this bread.

The crumb was soft and the crust crunchy, great bread I will bake again. The flowerpot works better when steaming, than the hot stones in boiling water, but the pot is heavier to handle.