Whilst visiting my Sister and family in Germany, I did of course take the opportunity to check out the baking section of the local supermarkets. I love a good nose around to see whats different. Baking powder and vanilla sugar in individual sachets, different types of bread flour including a lot more rye and spelt flour and of course trying to translate it all. Thank goodness for
Google Translate!!
In the Bakery section you see lots of lovely breads and rolls, topped with a mass of seeds and flatter tray bake cakes, cut into individual portions, seem more popular than our round, higher ones.
Whilst here I got a packet of
Country Bread and muddled through the instructions.
It kept me quiet for quite a while. A nice mix of rye and white flour, plus you get the yeast and sourdough sachet all included in the packet. Just add water! It was a bit touch and go with the oven though, as I'm used to an electric oven. Baking in a gas oven was totally different, especially one with an erratic temperature control :(
Still you mix the various packets together to get a sticky wet dough like this.....
No need to knead it due to the high ratio of rye flour. Leave to fester in the bowl for 20 minutes and then pop into a lined loaf tin. Allow to double in size........
Pop in the oven and it came out like this.......
Well it certainly tasted nice......... my translating was debatable sometimes, but hey if it tastes good!
Also got to have another go at the Swiss Tante Heidi's chocolate and hazelnut splats. Here in Germany you can get hold of ground hazelnuts in all supermarkets, which was just what the recipe required. Yippee. And Woohoo it works with ground hazelnuts so much better. They held their shape well, though I think rolling them slightly thinner than a centimetre might be wise as they give your teeth and jaw a blooming good work-out!
Splat recipe
Mix 9oz castor sugar with 1 egg white and beat for a few minutes. Add 2 tbs cocoa, 1 1/2 tbs plain flour and 9oz ground hazelnuts into the sugar and egg mix with 1 dessertspoon of water to create a firm paste. It may take a little more water to bind properly, so just add gradually. Roll out to finger thickness on a sugared board (you may want to make them thinner!) Cut out shapes and arrange on a non-stick baking sheet.
Bake in a cool oven (170c) for about 18-20 minutes. Do not allow to become hard or dry and voila.............. non-splatted splats. Hmmmmm the cookie pixie might have had to test a corner, purely taste testing you know!
Gas Oven - Gas mark 3-4 for 170c. Top part of oven much hotter than lower shelf. 18 or so minutes for splats.
I was also delighted to find a brand new copy of
Dr Oetker's "Backen macht freude" baking book in a gorgeous cook shop in Bielefeld. I had been lent a 1963 copy, so was great to see it still in print. I think I might be needing Google translate again!
Some translations that have helped so far:
Weizenmehl Type 550 = strong white bread flour
Hefe = yeast
Roggenmehl = rye flour
Dinkelmehl = spelt flour
Sauerteig = sourdough
Vollkorn = wholemeal
Leinsamenbrot = linseed bread
Landbrot = country bread
Brotbachmischung = bread mix
Schoko Tropfchen = direct translation "chocolate droplets" or as we know them choc chips!
Haselnusskernmehl = ground hazelnuts
Happy baking!
