Homemade Sandwich Bread

Homemade Sandwich Bread

I have missed a great sandwich bread. One with seeds, and some bite to it. Most sandwich bread in stores around here are plain white bread, not worth the calories. 
With all my baking experience, I should have taken the regular bread I bake, into a loaf pan. But apparently I needed another Dane to make this connection for me. Thank you very much Charlotte.

Makes 1 loaf.

Ingredients:

• 500 ml lukewarm water

• 5 g yeast (1 teaspoon dry yeast)

• 50 g flaxseeds

• 50 g rolled oats

• 70 g sunflower seeds

• 3 teaspoons salt

• 100 g whole wheat flour

• 425 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Mix in the rest of the ingredients, the dough should be on the wetter side. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for 4-6 hours. Pour the dough onto a lightly floured surface and fold the dough into it self and shape a loaf. Place the loaf in a greased dish, sprinkle with flour and let it raise covered for another 90 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 500℉ (250℃), with your loaf pan inside.

Gently pour the dough into the hot loaf pan, put a lid (made of foil) on the pan, and bake the loaf covered for about 30 minutes. Remove the lid, and bake the bread for another 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Let the loaf cool on a wire rack before slicing.

Enjoy!

Crispy Baguettes

Normally I buy baguettes if I need them. But why not bake them myself? When I have a passion for bread baking, I need a good baguette recipe. And here it is. Not a classic white baguette, but with a little addition of whole wheat and rye for extra flavor. It turnt out to be fantastic. 

Getting the perfect crust on bread is a science. But I think I cracked the code. Steam we need steam, and folding the baguettes and you will get the perfect perfect oven spring and crust.

Makes 3.

Ingredients:

• 30 g live yeast (3 teaspoons dry yeast)
• 420 ml water, lukewarm 
• 1¼ teaspoon salt
• 50 g whole wheat flour
• 50 g dark rye flour
• 450 g all-purpose flour

Directions:

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add flours and salt, and knead the dough for about 8 minutes. 

Let the dough rise covered in room temperature for about 1½ hours.

Divide the dough into 3. Fold the dough into it self and shape it to a ball, building up the surface tension. Place the ball smooth surface down on a flour dusted surface. Let the dough rest covered for 10-15 minutes.

Fold it a third over and seal the edge with a light press with the lower palm. Flatten again. Fold the other edge over and seal again.

Repeat this. Turn the seal downwards. Gently roll the baguette from the center and out. Tempering the ends a bit. 

Place baguette on a parchment paper lined baking sheet or on a baguette baking sheet.

Let the baguette rise for another 20 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 450℉ (230 ℃). Place a old baking sheet on the lower rack in the oven.

Make 3 diagonal slashes in each baguette with a wafer or a sharp knife.

Bake the baguettes in the middle of the oven.

Splash about ¼ cup of water in old baking sheet, and close the oven quickly. You need the steam to get the best oven spring and crust. 

Bake the baguettes for about 15-18 minutes, until golden.

Let the baguettes cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Cheesy Dinner Rolls

Cheesy Dinner Rolls

I finally got back to baking. I love baking bread, love working with dough. So getting back to baking makes me happy. One can call bread baking my happy place.

Yesterday was a rainy day here in Northern California. I was planing to make soup, and needed to have a good healthy dinner roll to serve with the soup. Thats why I whipped up this cheesy dinner roll, filled with good seeds and fibers. I used blue cheese in mine because, I had it in my refrigerator, but feel free to use any semi-hard cheese in yours. 

Makes 12 rolls.

Ingredients:

• 375 ml lukewarm water
• 30 g live yeast (2¼ teaspoon dry yeast)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 350-375 g all-purpose flour
• 150 g whole wheat flour
• 100 g mixed seeds (I used rolled oats, flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 40 ml olive oil
• 200 g blue cheese

Topping:

• egg wash
• mixed seeds

Directions:

In a large bowl (the one for the stand mixer) dissolve (live yeast) sprinkle (dry yeast) over the warm water. If using dry yeast, add the sugar, this will help to wake up the yeast. Let stand for about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, and stir until just combined. Let the dough rest for about 10-15 minutes. This lets the flour absorb all the water completely, and helps activate the natural enzymes in the flour, and improves the gluten development in the dough.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the dough and knead the dough for about 8-10 minutes, until elastic, add more flour if the dough gets to sticky. 

Let the dough rise for about 60 minutes or until doubled in size. 

Pour the dough unto a lightly floured surface and divide the dough in 16-18 balls. Insert a piece of the cheese into each ball, and make sure to close the dough completely, to prevent any leakage.   Place the balls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet a few inches apart. 

Let the rolls rise for another 30-40 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃).  

Brush the rolls with beaten egg and sprinkle with mixed seeds. Toss about a cup of water in the bottom of the oven when you have put the rolls in the oven, quickly closing the oven door. This will produce steam, and give a better rise to the rolls.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until deep golden brown.

Let the rolls cool on a wire rack. 

Serve the rolls with dinner.

Enjoy!

Overnight Bread

Overnight Bread

Bread will always be my kryptonite. After a long pause in my bread baking, I started up again with this simple overnight bread. 

Great tasting bread with a good crispy crust. An easier take on a sourdough bread, when you don't have time to bake a Basic Country bread a la Tartine. 

Makes 2 small round loafs.

Ingredients:

• 150 g whole wheat flour
• 500 g all-purpose flour
• 500 ml water
• 5 g live yeast (about ½ teaspoon dry yeast)
• 50 ml sourdough (leaven)
• 15 g salt

Directions:

Leaven:

Feed your sourdough or leaven the night(about 8-10 hours) before you want to start making the dough. 

To test leaven's readiness, drop a spoonful into a bowl of room-temperature water. If it sinks, it is not ready and needs more time to ferment and ripen. If it floats, it's ready to use. As it develops, the smell will change from ripe and sour to sweet and pleasantly fermented.

Bread:

Mix water, yeast, sourdough and whole wheat flour in a stand mixer. Add all-purpose flour and salt, and knead the dough for 10-12 minutes, to build up the gluten in the dough.

Grease a dough-rising bucket  with a thin coat of olive oil. Let the dough rise in the prepared bucket, lid on, for about 90 minutes at room temperature. Place the dough overnight in the refrigerator.

Next take out the dough, and pour the dough on a non-floured kitchen table, divide the dough in 2 and shape them into rounds.

Line 2 baskets with clean kitchen towels, generously dusted with flour. Transfer each round to a basket, smooth side down and let to rest, covered, at room temperature, about 1 hour before baking. Meanwhile preheat oven with the dutch oven to 500℉ (260℃).

Gently flip one bread into heated dutch/french oven. Score top twice using a razor blade matfer lame. Cover with lid. Return to oven, and reduce oven temperature to 450℉(235℃). Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove lid and continue to bake until crust is deep golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes more.

Transfer loaf to a wire rack, and let it cool completely.

To bake the second loaf, raise oven temperature to 500℉ (260℃), wipe out dutch/french oven with a dry kitchen towel, and reheat with lid for 10 minutes. Repeat the bake.

Enjoy!

2 Kinds of Hveder - Wheat Rolls

Toasted rolls - ristede hvedeknopper

Even though I'm a expat, I do celebrate Danish Holidays. This gives me (almost) double-up on holidays, the more the merrier 😃

Store Bededag or Prayers Day is coming up on Friday. According to traditions everybody had the day off on Store Bededag even the bakers. You were actually meant to stop all work, play, travels and all games. To make up for not being able to get any fresh bread on Store Bededag, the bakers made an abundance of hvedeknopper (wheat rolls), to tie people over. And the tradition of eating the toasted hvedeknopper the night before Store Bededag was born. Ok people was meant to save the rolls to the next day, but who can resist a fresh-baked roll?

Hveder is one of my favorite rolls. The soft, sweet, fresh baked cardamom roll is so delicious served with some butter. Most people toast the rolls, but I prefer them not toasted. 

Here are my recipes for Hveder:

Traditional Hveder - hvedeknopper:

Hveder - sweet rolls

Grove hveder - 3-Grain sweet rolls:

Toasted 3-grain rolls - ristede grove hvedeknopper