Sunday, August 19, 2012

Pierre Nury’s Rustic Light Rye

This is great tasting bread. Even though the crust could be a bit harder for our taste. I’m getting to like this stiff levain a lot; it’s easier and stronger than the 100% hydration starter and slightly less sour.

A while back a Thai friend gave us organic whole wheat berries so we could make our own wheat grass. The other day I found weevils in the bag of berries. A few hours later they were all out, they just walk out if you let them. Normally we like beetles a lot. Because we don’t use chemicals in our mango garden we have plenty of them. But, I don’t like them in my flour. I wanted to use the berries before the weevils eat it all. I decided to grind the berries and use the flour. For the stiff starter I need just a little bit. Next time I will make this delicious loaf with home ground wheat instead of rye.

After a retard proofing for the night I baked the big loaf straight from the refrigerator. I sat expectantly waiting for the oven window for the oven spring. But because the dough was cold from the refrigerator it took longer than usual. But, finally it started to grow and the result was a beautiful loaf.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Estonian Kringel with coconut

Shelley of C Mom Cook is the lovely host of Bread Baking Day #53. She would like us all to bake Swirly Breads. I had a beautiful swirl on my list of ‘breads to bake’. And I love to bake from this list because it’s growing and growing. There are so many delicious looking breads out there. 

12th of August is the birthday of the Queen of Thailand, everybody is celebrating. And  this day is also mothers day in Thailand. On this day all National Parks in Thailand are free. Mothers day is a nice day for a picnic and we invited some Thai-Canadian friends. On the way we stopped at the market to buy food for our picnic. 
Because of the rainy season the river in the park flowed hard. The 11 year old son of our friends was jumping to get in the water. In Thailand most of the people go swimming in their shirts and trousers’. It was funny to see how the flowing water almost took his pants. He enjoyed it so much we couldn’t talk him out of the water, not even for food. So, his mother brought him his food while he kept playing in the water.

Our picnic started with the Estonian Kringel and then we had lots of good Thai food; whole fried fish, sticky rice, spicy salad, Chiang Mai sausage and spicy chicken. After a few hours in the Park we left to see a beautiful waterfall. We had a short walk through the jungle. 

Waterfalls are so powerful you can feel the energy standing near it. It was a nice mother’s day.

The Estonian Kringel is delicious and nice to look at. It’s a great gift and nice to share with friends. The original kringel has only cinnamon in it, but since I bought 1 kilo of fresh grated coconut you can imagine where I wanted to put it. First I had to dry the coconut and I placed it in the oven on 100°C until I smelled it. Luckily I was in time before it started to burn. It took me two times to dry 1 kilo of grated coconut. And instead of water I used coconut milk. 
Shaping Estonian Kringel takes some skill because of the smooth butter/sugar/cinnamon filling. It helps to work quickly, especially when your kitchen is hot like mine. Maybe I should cool the dough next time before shaping it? Anyway, I managed and let it proof even though the recipe didn’t call for it. 

I’m very happy with the result and the coconut added something extra. It gives the Estonian Kringel a nice texture and tropical flavor.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

French Bread for Julia Child’s 100th Anniversary

Today it’s 15th of August and Julia Child’s 100th birthday!

When I grew up in the Netherlands I learned to cook from my mother as she had learned to cook from her mother. As I grew older and got more interested in International food I started to look for recipes in cookbooks and talk with my friends. As a young girl I had Indonesian friends and I loved Indonesian food. Growing older there were more immigrants coming to the Netherlands and this meant a lot of good International food. There was European food, African food, Asian food, American food, Australian food. You name it and it's probably available in the Netherlands. 

Food unites people. Even if you can’t understand what the other is saying or you don’t understand the culture; you can share, taste and enjoy food together.

The first time I heard the name of Julia Child was in the movie; “Julie and Julia”. A lovely  movie with the great Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci and Amy Adams, as you all know. When I saw a recording of Julia Child on You Tube I saw how lifelike Meryl had played the role of Julia.

When I was growing up we heard about some American people who couldn’t or didn’t cook at home. We were so surprised. In the Netherlands everybody ate home cooked meals. Only for very special occasions you went out for dinner. We heard about American people who ate out every day and even for their breakfast. This was unthinkable in the Netherlands. Although people in the Netherlands went out for dinner sometimes, but never for breakfast. As you understand by now, this was many many years ago and things have changed a lot. Many people in America discovered the cookbook of Julia Child. They eat their home cooked meals and there’s delicious American food in all States. And nowadays some people in the Netherlands go out for breakfast.

Susan of Wild Yeast is the talented host for the Bread Baking Babes. She asked us, Buddies, to bake Julia Child’s French Bread as a tribute to her 100th Birthday. Of course I bake for Julia. Reading trough her book I saw what an amazing accomplishment she has made by writing this book. The instructions are detailed and clear. Probably because of the movie, I could hear Julia talking trough the recipes. She made it look very easy and that’s what you need when you want to make something for the first time. This is not my first French Bread, but the first one for Julia.
I checked the recipe and was surprised to see 82% hydration. I decided to hold back 0.25 cup of water (60 grams) and see what happens with the flour. I was happy I did, this worked great. It was wet dough and because I wanted to follow Julia's instructions I wanted to knead the dough by hand. But, Julia's method didn't work for me and I used Richard Bertinet's method for sweet dough. I love the pull and trow-method. It works great and gives me one big arm muscle. 
It was hard to choose between all the options; batard, baguette, boule, ficelle or petit pain. I went for 1 rustic loaf, 1 baguette and 2 petit pains. 

Julia's instructions on shaping baguette are so clear. I try to show you with photos. 

Thank you Julia Child for your legacy of baking this delicious authentic French bread!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Flaxseed Triangles

I’m happy BYOB choose Stefanie’s Hefe und Mehr for our Featured Blog. I’m a regular visitor of Stefanie’s blog. She has a long list of bread and treats to choose from. And her explanations are clear and helpful. Even though I haven’t seen everything she has baked, I know what I will bake today: Flaxseed triangles. 

Tomorrow we have to go to Chiang Mai, a 3 hours drive and we need to be in the car very early. Peter loves to eat jog; a soft rice soup with coriander, pepper, ginger and crunchy noodles. Normally they add a raw egg and some restaurants have a selection of pork balls, fish, shrimp or pork intestines. Peter loves it with a raw egg and intestines. I normally stick with the fish. On the way to Chiang Mai we pass his favorite jog restaurant, but because it’s closed at this early hour I will bake the Flaxseed Triangles for our car breakfast.


The original recipe of Stefanie’s Flaxseed Triangles is for 3 Breads of 600g each. Even though the big loaves look delicious, I thought small triangles were more convenient for the car ride. I divided the amounts by half and I changed the recipe a bit. I try to replace yeast for sourdough starter because of my gout. And I grinded some of the flaxseeds coarse and added some multi grain to boiling water because I didn’t have enough flaxseed. I was very happy with the result of these mixed seeds and grains. The last thing I did was adding some roasted malt; it gives the bread a nice dark brown color without the sweet taste of molasses.

Thanks Stefanie for these delicious triangles. We had them with Dutch cheese, a real treat.

I hope you will visit Stefanie’s blog and bake from her long list of recipes. Send your post  to BYOB and help us to fill the breadbasket of August and the basket of the featured blog.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

It’s time to link your baked breads of August to BYOB – Bake Your Own Bread.


We are so happy to see the great amount of breads you all send to BYOB to share. There were 70 ! loaves of bread, buns, flat bread, pie, cakes, artisan and many more bread related submissions. 
As you might have seen, we started with something new: Featured Blog. We picked a blog for inspiration. These 4 bakers baked from July's Featured Blog: Cathy's Bread Experience.
1. Joyce from Kitchen Flavours baked up a perfect loaf of Light Wheat Bread (inspired by this post).
2. Karen from Karen's Kitchen Stories baked a big, beautiful loaf of Polaine-style Miche (inspired by this post).
3. Connie from My Discovery of Bread baked a lovely loaf ofSourdough Seed Bread (inspired by this post).
4. Heather took advantage of her bread machine in the hot weather and baked up a loaf of Light Rye Beer Bread (inspired by this post).

There’s a big breadbasket to be filled with homemade breads baked in August. We have a few full baskets already from the previous months; go and see and be inspired. 
Come and join us all in filling the August basket. All the breads you bake during this month are more than welcome. But, there’s more. Also if you want to share knowledge on baking bread, have a bread book review or have bread based recipes you want to tell us all.

This month we've picked a fellow home baker and bread blogger and now we all meet her. The Featured Bread Blog of August is: Hefe und MehrStefanie has baked a lot of breads and other delicious  treats. Her recipe box is filled with great recipes. There are so many, it must be easy to choose one or more to bake this month.

How do you participate?
1.    Bake bread in any form (use your own recipe or use one of Stefanie's)
2.    Post about it on your blog and make a manual back link to BYOB (name BYOB in your post) or by using the BYOB button in your post (you find the button here otherwise the Linky tool doesn’t work!)
3.    Click here to fill the basket of August  When you are linking a post that was inspired by the BYOB - Featured Bread Blog of the month; Hefe und Mehr, please put in your blog name - *name of the bread.  The little * (asterisk) will allow us to list your post twice and identifies you as a featured blog poster.

Are you new to BYOB? Have a look at this for more information. Do you have questions? Send an e-mail 

Heather of Girlichef started to fill the breadbasket in 2012 and since July Michelle of Delectable Musings and I, Connie, are helping her. On all these blogs, when you see the BYOB logo, you can add your bread and it will be linked to the big breadbasket.

Let the filling of the August bread basket begin!



1. Fuss Free Flavours - Local Lammas Loaf
2. Culinary Adventures with Cam - Nutella Bread Pudding
3. Culinary Adventures with Cam - Speedy Yeast Bread
4. Piece of Cake - Black Sesame Loaf
5. My Discovery of Bread - *Flaxseed Triangles
6. The Spice Garden - Vienna Bread
7. In Cindys Kitchen - Chocolate Bread Two Ways: Chocolate Loaf Bread and Chocolate Monkey Bread
8. French Nyonya - Ratatouille Sunflower Seed Sourdough Bread
9. Lavender & Lovage - Grandmas Yorkshire Season (Bread) Pudding w/ Herbs for Lammas Day
10. My Little Space - Yuzu Giraffe Bread
11. Curious Cuisiniere - Lemon Dill Biscuits
12. No-Frills Recipes - Guinness Beer Bread
13. Karens Kitchen Stories - *Pain de Beaucaire
14. cynthesizing food and fun - Olive Rosemary Focaccia
15. Live Free, Gluten Free - Seeded Multigrain Bagels (gluten, dairy, soy, and egg free)
16. Raias Recipes - Cinnamon Yogurt Banana Bread {GF, EF & RSF}
17. Dont Waste the Crumbs - Beer Bread
18. girlichef - Country Bread
19. Cookingpleasure - How to make sweet bun dough
20. Kitchen Flavours - Apple Kuchen
21. Cooking Pleasure - Chocolate Custard Sweet Buns
22. Blue Kitchen Bakes - Goats Cheese, Walnut, Red Pepper and Thyme Rolls
23. cynthesizing food & fun - Peach and Cream Cheese Kolaches
24. Sweet and Thats it - French Bread Julia Childs Centennial
25. My Discovery of Bread - French bread for Julia Childs 100th anniversary
26. Something Sweet - Tabbouleh Herb Bread
27. The Hobby Room Diaries - Seasoned Croutons
28. blog from OUR kitchen - Julia Child French Bread (BBB)
29. girlichef - Julia Childs French Bread: Batards
30. Living in the Kitchen with Puppies - Julia Child French Bread!
31. Kitchen Flavours - *Yoghurt Sesame Rolls
32. My Discovery of Bread - Estonian Kringel w/ Coconut
33. Dont Waste the Crumbs - Maple Oatmeal Bread
34. Vivian Pang Kitchen - Cream Cheese Buns (17-hr pre-fermented sponge dough)
35. Jessie: CookingMoments - Red Bean Rolls
36. Bread Experience - Sprouted Einkorn Bread
37. Cookingpleasure - Soft Milk Tea Loaf
38. Sweet and Thats it - Sourdough buns with lemon and thousand fragraces
39. blog from OUR kitchen - Jalapeno Cheddar Buns
40. Briciole - six-strand challah
41. My Discovery of Bread - Pierre Nurys Rustic Light Rye
42. La Belle Aurore - Banana nut cinnamon swirl bread
43. cynthesizing food & fun - Peach Tomato Mozzarella Crostini
44. Culinary Adventures with Cam - Green Olive & Thyme Loaf
45. Me and My Sweets - Healthy Quick Berry Bread
46. Cookingpleasure - Honey Milk Loaf [straight dough method]
47. Karens Kitchen Stories - Pain Francais
48. Living in the Kitchen w/ Puppies - Traceys Jalapeño Cheddar Rolls
49. Vintage Kitchen Notes - Roasted Tomato Bread
50. La Cocina de Leslie - Chorreadas con Queso
51. Cindys Recipes and Writings - Olive and Sun-dried tomato Bread
52. Bread Experience - Hakkaido Milk Bread
53. French Nyonya - Ciabatta with Poolish
54. Karens Kitchen Stories - Three breads from The Bread Bakers Appretice
55. girlichef - *Cocoa Buns
56. Jessie: Cooking Moments - Potato Bread Rolls with Purple Sweet Potato Filling
57. girlichef - Chicken n Biscuits
58. 21st Century Housewife - Oatmeal Raisin Bread
59. Foodness Gracious - Apricot Danish Braid
60. The Meltaways - Rosemary Wheat Rolls
61. blog from OUR kitchen - Yeasted Corn Bread
62. girlichef - Rustic Potato Loaves
63. Aunt Nubbys Kitchen - Raisin, Cinnamon, and Nut Bread

This linky list is now closed.