Soft Butter Rolls colored with Thai herbs

Katha of Katha Kocht is the host for Bread Baking Day#55. She came up with the lovely theme: Colored bread. 

Living in Thailand we see a lot of food with colors. Thai people use natural colors from Thai herbs for rice and sweets. There are many herbs to choose from and I used these:

Rosella (Hibiscus sabdariffa). The juice is prescribed for gallstones, kidney stones and urinary tract infections. Also to treat indigestion flatulence, peptic ulcer, fever, cough, hypertension, kidney cramps and back pain. It’s high in calcium and lowers blood cholesterol. 

Butterfly pea (Clitorea ternatea). The seed is used to treat constipation and to soothe stomach pains and cramps. The herb is aalso a hair tonic, used to treat baldness and falling hair.

Tumeric (Curcuma longa). The rhizome is used as a digestive stimulant and for gastrointestinal complaints. It is said to lower blood sugar and a remedy for cough, arthritis, chronic back pain and painful or blocked menstruation.        

Beside the health benefits we love the taste of these herbs. We love to drink hot and cold Rosella juice and turmeric is often in our food along with garlic, chili, Thai basil and of course Gotu Kola.

Christmas stollen 2012

 It’s the first day of Christmas and we are all enjoying the Christmas stollen I made 3 weeks ago. This year our family came for a holiday to Thailand. I baked 2 stollen and we already ate the first one. It was delicious!

Today we ate the second one and it was delicious too. I can’t taste the difference between the two stollen.

I used raisins, hazelnuts (instead of almonds), orange peel and cranberries (instead of lemon peel) and almond paste.

I used the same recipe as last year.

We wish you a joyful holiday

Oat Bread with Avena Vital

Only when you leave the familiar surroundings you can explore new surroundings and discover new ways of doing. Growing up in a country where everyone eats bread we arrived in a country where everyone eats rice and only sometimes for us not so tasty factory baked bread. And because we live a four hours drive from the nearest big city, baking our own bread was the only option to eat good and tasty bread. But good bread needs good flour to begin with. 

In my search for unbleached flour I found Schmidt near Chiang Mai. They sell high quality products for pastry, baking and confectionery in Thailand. They have all those products you like to have when you’re baking bread and other treats. When I asked them if they were interested in advertising on my blog they suggested giving me 13 different pre-mixed flours instead. Even though their customers are confectioners, hotels and restaurants, caterers and artisan and industrial bakeries, the people of Schmidt are interested in artisan baking bread. They have no commercial interest in advertising on my blog, but are so kind to give me pre-mixed flours. Coming year they give me 13 pre-mixed flours to bake bread. Every month I bake one or more breads with their flour and write about my experiences on my blog. And maybe more people in Thailand will (start to) bake their own bread or ask their bakeries for healthy bread.

The first pre-mixed flour is: Avena Vital.
Of course the first question is: ‘what’s in there’. More than 60% of oats; a high percentage of whole meal oat flour, thick rolled oat flakes and coarse oats. And sunflower seeds and yellow linseeds plus aromatic brewing malt.

Depending on your taste you add 20% – 50% Avena Vital to your wheat flour. This first time I added 50% because we wanted to taste the full flavor of oats.

My conclusion: we like it!

The bread has a nice soft and moist crumb. The taste is full of oats. The crust is topped with oats flakes and sunflower seeds which gives it a nice bite. It’s a loaf you keep on eating until it’s gone. This one will be back on our breakfast table.

What I baked this week

Sometimes it looks like I didn't bake any bread. But I only post about breads I never baked before. But, every week I bake bread. Last week I baked some of my favorites again.  

Country Bread Tartine, the recipe is found here

Norwich Sourdough rolls, the recipe is found here

And again I baked 36 hours Sourdough Baguettes, the recipe is found here

For next week I want to bake Christmas stollen, Pull apart Buttery dinner rolls and Oat bread with Avena Vital. 

It's time to link your HOLIDAY bread to BYOB

This is our last month as host for BYOB. Sometimes it's hard to let go something you like. But, live is full of changes and it will bring something else to like. 

First I want to thank Heather of Girlichef for inviting me to join her as co-host, I had a great time. I loved watching the bread basket be filled with your breads and visited most of your blogs. I saw some amazing breads and you inspired me to try them too. I have a list of breads to bake (who doesn't) which grows and grows. But, one day I'll bake yours too. 

Thanks for sharing your breads and ideas these last months. 

We hope you fill our December Bread Basket with your HOLIDAY BREAD. It shouldn't be difficult to find a good recipe at you fellow bread bakers blogs in this festive December month. 

We give the breadbasket to Roxana of Roxana's Home Baking. We wish Roxana a great time too and we're all glad BYOB has a new host and we all keep sharing our home baked breads. Have a look at Roxana's blog for more details.   

Last month there were 56 loaves and bread related submissions, thanks for sharing.  

We like to thank MC of Farine. These last two months Farine was our Featured Bread Baker. MC is a very talented home baker and has baked a lot of breads and other delicious  treats. Have a look at her recipes, there are so many. I baked her Meteorites and they were delicious! even if one looked like a comet and the last one like the actual meteorite. And last month I baked MC's Egg in Cradle; you really should try them! If you didn't baked with us from this featured blog you have another month; go and have a look at her blog. 

We collected all the breads of BYOB, since 2009; go and see and be inspired. 

How do you participate?

1.    Bake bread in any form (use your own recipe or use one of MC'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!)

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

This last months hosts for BYOB are: Heather of Girlichef and I, Connie. 

Let the filling of the December bread basket begin! 

---