Potato Bread as sandwichbread

 This month Zorra of Bread Baking Day asked Susanne of Magentratzerl to be the host for BBD #84. Susanne came up with the theme "sandwich bread". I have to admit at first I had no idea what sandwich bread was. It's bread that can be roasted and is good for sandwiches. That sounds like good bread to me.

Today I make Dan Lepard’s crusty Potato Bread. The original recipe is found in his book “The Handmade Loaf”. I’ve tweaked it a bit, using whole wheat bran, rye and I love the smell and taste of wheat germ.

Because of the grated potato the dough was wet. I used the mixing method from Maggie Glezer’s Royal Tortano and let it mix until the dough cleaned the bowl. This took about 10 minutes. I could almost pour it into the slightly oiled bowl. But it was tacky in stead of sticky, a good thing.

I wanted to use my second hand cast iron pan to bake this bread. Thai food doesn't use 

cast iron pans; most Thai food is stir fried over high heat. 

Luckily for us our second hand cast iron pan was found in a second hand shop in Amsterdam 

and traveled in a backpack to our kitchen. 

36 hours sourdough Baguette with rice flour

When we came home from our yearly trip to the Netherlands I had a quick look at Zorra's page Kochtopf to see what type of bread we were asked to bake for Bread Baking Day 83. Zorra came up with the idea of baking with special flours.

Since I don't have access to the special flours like emmer, buckwheat, kamut or einkorn Zorra mentions in her post I was happy to see rice flour. We have plenty of rice flour here in Thailand. But, what can I bake with rice flour?

After a good look in my long list of "breads I want to bake" I saw a recipe by TXFarmer. She baked delicious looking baguettes and added some rice flour after a trip to South East Asia.

Before we left for the Netherlands I dried my starter and revived it in just a few days! I'm so happy with "my" Lievito Madre. I'm using for this one a few years already.

Even though I'm baking bread for some years now, I'm still not very good at shaping baguette. I let the bulk rise go too long (because of the high temperature) it showed beautiful big bubbles, but this makes it very hard to shape into a good looking baguette. There is only 50 grams of rice flour in the dough, but it still makes a difference in taste. I was happy with the result and the baguette tasted delicious.

Povitica

5 years ago I baked my first kind of Povitica. We visited Peter’s daughter, Nieke and her husband Miron and our granddaughter Stella (now she has a sister Emma). There we met Visnja, Nieke’s Croatian mother in law. We talked about baking bread and she told me about Povitica (poh-vee-TEET-sah) Croatian walnut bread. She told me that her father loved this bread, but her mother couldn't bake it. I told her I would (try to) bake it for them. Because we can’t give them the real bread, since they are in Holland and we are here in Thailand we will share it with friends. This way, more people will enjoy this Croatian Povitica. Povitica means "to roll" or "to wrap".

My first Povitica was NOT a success. 5 years ago I could find 1 recipe on Internet. The recipe was not clear and I had no idea how Povitica should look like. Today it's completely different. Internet is filled with recipes for Povitica. It was on tv too. The contestants of The British Bake Off baked it. I used Paul Hollywood's recipe and it worked good for me. 

Today I made it again. Next month we are going to the Netherlands again to visit our family and friends. Thinking of them helped me to choose bread to bake for Bread Baking Day #81 with the theme: Breads from all over the world. Sandra of Snuggs Kitchen is the lovely host for this month's BBD.

Povitica, this sweet or savory pastry is made with yeast-raised dough that is rolled or stretched out thinly and then spread with a filling. It is then rolled up jellyroll-style and baked variously as a log, in a crescent shape, in a loaf pan or in a Bundt pan. 

Finely ground walnuts sweetened with honey or sugar is the traditional filling and that's why many people refer to these pastries as nut rolls.

It's delicious, festive looking, great smelling and ready to eat bread. And it's really fun to make. I will make this again.

(*) I followed Paul's recipe, except for the sugar. I try to avoid sugar. But baking sweet bread asks for sugar or a sweet substitute. I grounded granulated organic sugar for the dough, because the size of the granules has an effect on the dough and the outcome of the bread. Since this doesn't apply for the filling I used natural sugar. In Thailand we have a lot of coconut sugar and cane sugar. I'm not saying this is better or healthy sugar. It's still sugar, but for me less bad then refined sugar.  

Norwich Sourdough with Breadcrumb

I have a big bowl with homemade breadcrumb. It all started with delicious smelling and good looking baguettes from Chad Roberts Tartine, book no. 3.

I dried the bread in the sun and ground it in the food processor. 

Everything went as I hoped it would. But then I noticed no oven-spring. Were they over-proofed? It's hot, 34 degrees, in our house at the moment. At that time there was nothing I could do. At least they had a nice color ;-) After they cooled enough I cut one open and the dough was still raw!! Then it finally struck me, we were out of gas!

Luckily I knew I could re-use the old bread as bread crumb. One day I will bake Chad's  baguettes, because they smelled great. But today I use the bread crumbs in a no fail Norwich Sourdough by Susan's WildYeast

Julia Child's French Bread

Always delicious and easy: Julia Child's french bread. Today with the best soup ever: Roasted Garlic Soup, what a combination

I send this bread to We Love Yeast

Bread with sourdough and oat porridge

Zorra of Kochtopf, the lovely host for BBD 80 and initiator of the Bread Baking Day and World Bread Day asked us to bake Bread with Sourdough. I have sourdough in my fridge and it's ready! 

 Chad Robertson's latest book, Tartine No. 3, Modern, Ancient, Classic, I found a recipe with Oat Porridge. 

I use Lievito Madre, a Italian sourdough. I love it because it stays in the fridge until I need it and it doesn't tastes and smells too sour. This is how I make it

Lievito Madre, start mixture: (ferment 2 days at roomtemperature)

200 gr Unbleached AP 550, 100 gr Water, 25 gr Honey, 15 gr Oil     

Firsth feeding: (ferment 1 - 2 days at roomtemperature)100 gr from start mixture, 100 gr Unbleached AP 550, 50 Water, 5 Honey

2^nd (and continue) feeding: (ripen 2 -  5 days in refrigerator)100 gr from 1th feeding, 100 gr Unbleached AP 550, 50 gr Water

Chad really knows what he and his team are doing. His loaves taste good! I will definitely bake this again!

Sourdough sprouted wheat loaf with a biga

This time Zorra of Kochtopf and the host for BBD 79 and initiator of the Bread Baking Day and World Bread Day asked us to bake with a Biga (a firm preferment, which is used mainly in Italian breads). Zorra also asked us to experiment. I think I did. 

In Chad Robertson's latest book, Tartine No. 3, Modern, Ancient, Classic, I found a recipe with sprouted wheat that appealed to me. In fact all loaves appeal to me, but that is for next time. Chad uses leaven for his loaves and I used a biga because I love to participate with the Bread Baking Day. Instead of high-extraction wheat flour and medium strong bread flour I used flour 550 and added sprouted wheat.

We found organic wheat berry and they sprouted beautifully. It took me 4 days to get this freshly sprouted wheat 

Normally I use my electric mixer for kneading dough. But, not today. Chad uses his hands instead. He uses “the master method” for most of his breads. I followed Chad’s instructions used my hands and let time do the rest. 

I proofed the dough in the refrigerator and it proofed very well. When I wanted to transfer it to the Dutch oven it almost slipped out of my hands, it was so full of bubbles. I was happy not to burn myself and didn't care for the shape. 

The result is good smelling, very good tasting and healthy bread. I will definitely bake this again!

French countryside with poolish

Every year on 16^th of October it's time for Zorra's World Bread Day. 

This year I want to honor my bread with soup. I've seen it often but never done it myself. It looks so good to eat the bowl too and it was! Especially when you know the bowl is delicious bread.

I haven't had time to start my dried sourdough since we came back from the Netherlands so this bread is made with instant yeast. I made a nice broccoli soup for this bread. It goes very well together. And with some nice cheese it will be even better.

Enjoy your meal like we did! 

Potato rolls with Lievito Madre

This month Sandra of Snuggs Kitchen is the lovely host for Bread Baking Day 77, the great invention of Zorra of Kochtopf. Sandra came up with the theme: Summer buns and rolls. These go well with hot weather.
Back to the potato rolls. They are delicious. The potato and the yoghurt makes the dough soft. The rolls smelled a bit sweet. These rolls are in the top 3 of “our favorite rolls”. The crust is good, not too thick and the crumb is open and the flavour is slightly sweet. 

I love to use my Lievito Madre sourdough. I've used other sourdough starters, but this one is so easy and forgiving. I found the recipe at Stefanies Hefe und Mehr. The rainy season can be tricky for sourdough. Last year it went bad when I fed the sourdough during the rain with the window open. But, it's so easy to start a new Lievito Madre.

That's also where I found these delicious potato rolls. Stefanie likes to bake overnight rolls. Even though we wake up pretty early, around 5.30 - 6.00 o'clock, I can't find the time to proof and bake them. I'm more a fan of baking during the day and eat them the same evening. So, I did let the dough ferment overnight in the refrigerator I baked them after breakfast.

We ate the rolls with our friends who came for dinner. We had potato rolls, Baba Ganoush, Hummus, Garlic butter, Guacamole and a nice salad. We had a nice evening.

Sourdough English Muffins

Immer wieder Sonntag is the host for Zorra's Bread Baking Day 75. She likes us to bake our favourite weekend bread for the 75^th Bread Baking Day.

Every Tuesday we visit our friend Gerard who lives in a small Karen village 25 km from our house. First we visit the local market and then we all have breakfast. Many local hill tribes come to this Tuesday market; like Longneck Karen, different kind of Lahu, Lisu, Thai and us foreigners. They come to sell their home grown vegetables and fruits. 

At our breakfast we eat a lot of local food (fruit, noodles, sweets, soy products) and most of the time I bring some freshly baked bread. This morning I brought English Muffins. I'd seen them at Susan's blog Wild Yeast a long time ago and this was the perfect moment to make them. 

I fermented the dough in the refrigerator during the night and the next morning I shaped the muffins and let them proof in the car. It was the first time I proofed bread in our car! I baked the muffins at our friend's house and we ate them warm. 

Our friend had made a delicious jam with mango, apples, banana and wild honey.

This was our favourite weekend bread. It's delicious: soft crumb with a nice crust, the taste and smell are really nice. It's fun to make!

Persian Flatbread or Nan e Barbari

Brotwein is the host for Bread Baking Day 74 and she asked for savory bread. I knew I wanted to bake flat bread because we love savory flat breads. It goes well with so many dishes. We love to eat sesame seeds, garlic and onion. I can say we almost every day have some in our food.

It’s an easy recipe as long as you can accept the slack dough. I have to admit I had to control myself to add just a bit of extra flour during mixing to give it more strength. It's good I did control myself because it worked very well. The dough rose very well. I shaped it by pulling it with wet hands under the dough. I pre-cooked the garlic and onions and dry roasted the sesame seeds. The romal (sauce) is spread over the dough before baking.

We ate the Nan e Barbari with sun dried tomato soup; this brought the sun back to our rainy day.

Hamburger buns

 They taste as they look: absolutely delicious 

with Peter's hamburger

soft good tasting and good smelling crumb and nice light crusty crust

Dutch Sourdough Brown Bread with Oats

"Breads from all over the world" is what Susanna from Mehlstaubundofenduft likes to see. She is the host for Bread Baking Day 73.

I'm born in the Netherlands and moved to Thailand almost 10 years ago. I started to bake our own bread because Thailand has no original bread culture. Of course you can buy bread everywhere in the world, but all we could find here was white fabric baked bread. Nowadays you can find very nice baked artisan bread in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, and probably in other places too. But in our small village in the North of Thailand we still can't find a nice artisan baked bread. 

Susanna likes to see bread typical from my country. The Netherlands is a typical Bread country with enough bread to choose from. The first one that came to my mind was a typical Dutch loaf: tijgerbrood or Dutch crunchy crust. I had no rise flour in the house, only rise starch and that doesn't work. Of course I tried it and it gives a nice whitish crust but not the beautiful tiger pattern I was looking for.

Today I baked typical Dutch bread; brown bread and I rolled it in oats. It tastes very nice. 

Here in Thailand we just finished Songkran; Thai new year celebration for the year 2558. So with this delicious typical brown bread from the Netherlands we wish all you a happy new year.

Krusti's with carrot mix

Crispy Krusti's 

Yesterday we had Stefanie's Krusti's and today I tweeted them a bit. I used 750 flour and 50 grams of Carrot Mix by Ireks, given by Schmidt to try. The result is a good tasting and nice smelling roll with seeds and dried carrot slices. 

delicious with cheese

Krusti's or crusty rolls

In the Netherlands you can buy these delicious crusty rolls. Long before I baked my own bread and long before I had any idea about sourdough I knew there was something with these rolls. Regardless of the time of day you came into the bakery shop and buy these crusty rolls, they would ALWAYS be crusty. Not like the rolls I made, after a while they turn softer. Of course when you placed them in the oven for a few minutes they are crusty again. But, mine never stayed crusty the whole day. 

Until I found these crispy rolls on Stefanie's blog Hefe und Mehr. Stefanie said "to turn on convection mode for the last 10-15 min while opening the oven door ajar". Since I have no convection mode on my oven she suggests: "reducing the temperature to 220°C after you put the rolls in the oven and bake them with falling heat a little bit longer than normal. That creates a thicker crust which normally stays longer crispy".

I have to admit it's difficult for me to bake them, because my oven doesn't have a proper working temperature sensor so I always guess the precise temperature. Most of the time I bake on the highest temperature and this works for most of my loaves. 

nice crumb

tasty krusti's 

They taste good!

Millers loaves by Bourke Street Bakery

I've a happy sourdough starter that is waiting in the refrigerator for a nice bread. This recipe is easy and the bread has good taste. 

I've baked it often. Here is the recipe

I hope you enjoy it as much as we do

Sourdough Walnut Raisin Bread

I was happy to see it’s time for Zorra’s Bread Baking Day. This is the 72^nd time and the host is Tanja of Greenway36.Tanja came up with the great theme: Nuts.

I found a nice recipe for sourdough bread with walnut and raisins. I used my Dutch oven and it came out looking very nice and smelling even better. It was a bit denser than I had anticipated but still a very nice tasting and smelling loaf. We ate it with cheese, homemade jams and tahini. And it’s also very nice by itself.

I can’t wait to see all the other Nutty loaves.

Sourdough Yoghurt Bread

With this big Sourdough Yogurt Bread I wish you all a Happy Healthy New Year.

I have a list of breads I would like to bake. This is one of the list. A while back I found bread baked by Tim "breadbakinbassplayer". He bakes good looking bread. 

In stead of the two loaves I decided to bake a 2 kg big loaf. A Big Bang Bread to end 2014. 

Sourdough Bagels

I’m baking Bagels, the first ones I bake and eat. Peter ate store bought bagels a long time ago and didn’t like them. I promised him he would love the ones I bake for him.

I’m baking Bagels for Peter and they better be good!

I’m sure I can bake the best bagels he ever ate because I use a recipe from Susan of Wild Yeast. I baked the bagels the next morning for breakfast with friends and we all loved them!

Sourdough Roasted Garlic Buns

It’s been a while since I posted my baked breads. I do bake even though I don’t post about it.

We just came back from a visit to the Netherlands. This time we had a very nice reason to go. Our second granddaughter was born. It was great seeing her with her 4 year old sister. We had a good time with family and friends. We love our Thai life, but it’s also nice to be back. Giving all those we love a real hug. Visiting all those great museums, bare feet walking along the beach, enjoying the forests and eating food we normally don’t eat anymore.

The Netherlands is a land of bread and cheese. I dare say it has the best cheese in the world (and France has the best mold cheese). If you ever visit the Netherlands don’t forget to sample the cheeses. There are many delicious old, mature and young cheeses, but for this bun it has to be mature Weydeland cheese. It’s creamy and mature. The best taste experience is when you eat just cheese and forget the rest. But, that’s my opinion. I’m NOT paid by anyone to talk about our love for Dutch cheese!

Zorra organize WorldBread Day for many years, what a great job!! This 9th year year! 

Have a look at the huge number of breads baked by home bakers from all over the world.

I looked forward to World Bread Day and came up with bread we love in our house. It has both of our worlds: Thai garlic and Dutch cheese. I found this amazingly delicious bread baked by Susan of Wild Yeast; sourdough roasted garlic bread. I was in the mood for buns and I changed the recipe a bit. I added whole wheat bran, spelt and wheat germ.

For me the smell of roasted garlic is one of the best smells coming from the kitchen. I added 2 onions and mixed it with the garlic paste. Who knows when we can send the smell of roasted garlic with melted Weydeland cheese digitally? Till that time we have to bake these buns ourselves.