Black Forest Buns | We Knead to Bake #25

I remember going 'oooohh' on black forest cake. Layers of chocolate cake with whipped cream and cherries(whole/compote) in between garnished with more cherries,cream and chocolate shavings.More than anything I was intrigued by the name.I used to believe that it was the chocolate shavings that gave rise to the

name black forest and used to wonder why not brown forest.

Later whenever I took a bite I imagined myself near the Black Forest Mountain range in  Southern Germany. I even used to be jealous of the locals there thinking they would be having the cake all the time.

Only recently I got to know it was named after the speciality liquor of the Black Forest region. The authentic Black Forest which is rated as a Top Gourmet Cake gets its flavour from this liquor distilled from tart cherries.Though ofcourse when the cake got popular worldwide, they were manufactured without alcohol  but cherry preserves.

This time for We Knead to Bake, Aparna gave us the yummilicious Black Forest Buns. A fuss free yeasted bread made fancy due to the use of cherry/berry compote and chocolate sponge cake. Easy to make and Gourmet to taste.

Ingredients:

Water: 1/2 cup
Milk: 1/2 cup
Butter: 50gm or 4 tbsp
Sugar: 4 tbsp
Egg: 1 OR Ener G egg = 1.5 pkd tsp of energ + 2 tbsp water

Salt: 3/4 tsp
Instant Yeast:1.5 tsp
All Purpose Flour : 3 cups to 3.5cups

Filling:
Cherry / Strawberry compote/preserve/jam: 3/4 cup
Crumbled chocolate spongecake : around 2 cups

Drizzling: 
chopped and melted semi sweet chocolate or choc syrup or your choice.

Preparation:

Heat water and milk on medium in a saucepan till quite hot but not boiling. Pour this liquid into a large bowl and add butter. Stir until the butter is melted. Then add in the sugar and stir until it dissolves. Once it starts 

cooling down and  becomes luke warm add the yeast and egg. mix well. Then add about 1 cup of flour and mix well. You can do this process by hand or in the processor. 

Add salt and more flour as much is necessary and knead to get a smooth elastic nonsticky dough.In between if the mix becomes difficult to mix in tun it onto the work surface and continue to knead another 10 minutes or so till it becomes elastic and nonsticky. Mine was slightly sticky but workable.

Place the kneaded dough in an oiled bowl turning to coat with oil. Cover loosely and allow the dough to double in volume for about 1-1.5 hours.Now place the dough on a flat surface and roll it out into a 18" x 12" rectangle.

Spread the cherry compote/strawberry jam over leaving a 1/2 " all around. Sprinkle the cake crumbs atop this. Roll the dough away from you,as tightly as possible starting with the 9" edge like jellyroll sealing the edges using water if needed.

Cut into 1.5" pieces and you will get 12 pieces. Place each piece in separate moulds or a baking sheet with just enough space between them to expand.Too much distance will make these spread rather than become tall which is what we want. Cover loosely and allow to rise for another 1 hour or till double.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350F/180C for 25-30 minutes. Remove and cool completely. Garnish with more cherries. Drizzle with melted chocolate and serve.

Perfect Gourmet Bread Buns. We are definitely taken to black forest land thanks to compote and cake. Bake these to taste for yourself. I am going for another batch as the first batch got over right from the oven.

Hop over to Aparna's to see who all baked this treat.

NeujahrsPretzel - New Years Pretzel | Baking Partners Jan 2015

New Year is celebrated across the world in different ways. Each country has its own traditions or otherwise People even add their own twist which inturn becomes a new ritual/tradition. The idea of celebration is bring together people or family and friends. Celebrating with family and friends definitely enhances our moods and then makes us positive as the the new year dawns. This definitely brings good luck and happiness throughout the year. 

Different traditions are associated with New Year and each one is supposed to bring good luck to our lives. This includes even in some food items consumed during the beginning of the new year or rather even as the clock strikes 12. One of them is New Year Pretzels.These are a speciality in Germany and are supposed to bring goodluck and prosperity if consumed at midnight or before breakfast on New Years' Day. 

In Germany or other German speaking and even other pretzel baking areas, on Jan 1st lightly sweetened yeasted pretzel is gifted among friends and family for good fortune. Sometimes young kids visits grandparents to get their share of pretzels. In fact pretzel is supposed to have got the shape from the German monks who used to pray for peace and prosperity. Whatever the story behind the bread, the New Years pretzels are the perfect option to snack on when you come tired after the celebrations and even during the celebrations

This time around for Baking Partners yours truly got the chance to choose the recipe thanks to Swathy. And yup the breads came wonderful and perfect. I went for one fourth (quarter) of the recipe adapted from  Pittsburgh Magazine given below. 

Ingredients:

Warm Milk: 1 ½ cups

Sugar: ½ cup

Butter: ½ cup

Warm Water: ½ cup

Yeast: 1 tbsp yeast (along with 1 tsp of sugar)

Bread Flour/ Apf: 6-7 cups

(You can make your own bread flour by adding 1 tsp of vital wheat gluten to 1 cup of all purpose flour.)

Salt: 1 tbsp

Egg: 2 OR Ener G Egg = 1 tbsp EnerG + 6-8  tbsp of water

Icing:

Confectioners Sugar: 2.5 cups

Almond/Vanilla extract: 1 tsp

Water : as much as needed

Garnishing:

Toasted Sliced Almonds

Candied cherrries

Confectioners/Powdered Sugar

Preparation:

In a bowl mix together warm milk, sugar and butter and stir until the butter and sugar are dissolved.

In another bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water with few sugar grains. and let it sit until foamy.

I didn’t have bread flour and added vital wheat gluten to my all purpose flour. In the small steel plate in the pic is vital wheat gluten ready to be mixed in.

To the milk bowl, add in the 5 cups of flour, salt, yeast mix and egg .

Mix until you get a soft batter. Add in more flour ½ cup at a time until a soft dough forms. Continue knead until the  dough leaves the sides of the bowl.

Take the dough onto a floured counter and knead it to form a smooth ball.

Put it into a greased bowl and let it rise until doubled in size.

Turn onto the counter, divide into half.

Roll each half into a long rope and shape into a pretzel.

You can refer this video for shaping the pretzel.

Lay the pretzel into a parchment lined baking sheet and let it rise for another hour,

I made one big pretzel with one half of the dough. Other half I divided into smaller pieces and made smaller pretzels.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375F/175C for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

The bigger pretzel came out like this

The smaller one ..

Garnish with powdered sugar.

Else mix together the confectioners sugar with vanilla/almond extract with as much water as needed to get a spreadable icing. Pour the icing over the bread and decorate with toasted almonds and candied cherries.

The bread is soft and light right out of the oven. It is similar to any soft sandwich bread that we make or buy. But once you decorate then it looks regal.. Its all the love and hope and positive that makes the simple pretzel superb centre piece in the New Year menu and gives a perfect start for the New Year .

Lets hop across to Swathi's and check what other partners baked for New Year.

KartoffelSuppe-German Potato Soup

This is a simple potato (kartoffel) soup (suppe) from Germany.The creamy soup is very quick to make and this version which I found here is practically vegan.There can be several additions of meat and veggies to this soup but the king ingredient remains potato (kartoffel).The spices used is minimum only bayleaf,if you leave out the salt & pepper which are a must-have in every soup.Also garlic though healthy is left out.It is said that Germans rarely use garlic as it leaves a bad breath!.It is only recently that garlic has been accepted due to the Italian and French influences. Well whatever it is the soup is hearty and delicious.

Ingredients:

Potato: 2 -3 medium
Onion: 1 small chopped
Carrot: 1 medium(The carrot is completely optional and is my addition)
Celery: 1 small stick with leaves and stalks

BayLeaf
Salt
Pepper

Water: as needed to cook the veggies

Preparation:
Peel and cube potatoes and carrot.Chop celery and onions finely.

Heat oil in a pan,add the chopped veggies together and saute till they get coated with oil and start cooking and the onions turn transparent.

Add little salt,pepper and bayleaf and water and bring to a boil.Reduce the heat,cover the pan and let it simmer till the veggies are cooked.This takes around 15-20 minutes.

Once done,with a masher or the ladle,mash the potato into the the soup.You can also use a handheld immersion blender.This gives it a creamy texture.Alternately,you can drain the veggies into the blender,keeping the cooked water/stock separate,then puree the veggies adding little stock water and then depending on the thickness you want keep adding more stock water or even milk which makes it look more creamy but actually thins it out,in which case heat through the soup,but do not boil.

I simply mashed the potato using a ladle leaving few chunks of potato and did not add milk . Serve ladling into bowls removing the bayleaf and adjusting salt and pepper.The recipe serves 2-3 people comfortably

The onion,celery and optional carrot I used acts like a stock base .Also instead of just carrot,you can add a whole lot of vegetables like turnip etc which enhance the stock and soup.Instead of/addition to the bayleaf you can add spices like dill/marjoram and fresh herbs like parsley.Such version can be found here

A warm bowl of soup is warming AWED:German ,an event by DK and hosted by Lakshmi

Honig brat Mandeln

This is a simple dessert recipe from Germany made from Almonds.Well,not much of a recipe as its very easy and also don't ask the pronouncication just enjoy the delicious sweet Honig brat Mandeln or Honey roasted almonds which I found from here.The dish takes around 15 minutes but less than that to be consumed.

Ingredients:

Almonds: 1 cup

Honey: 1 tbsp

Water: 1 tbsp

Vegetable /Almond Oil: 1 tsp

Sugar: 4 tbsp granulated (I used a mix of powdered+granulated)

Salt: 1/4 tsp

Preparation:

Spread the almonds in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet.Bake in a cold oven at 350F for 12-15 minutes stirring periodically,till it gets roasted and start turning brown.I stirred once only.Take out and let it cool outside on the baking sheet itself.

Meanwhile,mix together sugar and salt and pour half of it in a wide bowl.

In a saucepan, bring to boil,honey,water and oil.Add the slightly cooled almonds to it and let it simmer till the liquid is completely absorbed and the almonds acquire a glossy shine.This takes about 5-6 minutes.

The journey of almonds from the raw,roasted and the glossy stages can be seen like........

where the rightmost one is the raw almond.

Once the liquid is completely evaporated,immediately put the almonds in the bowl where sugar-salt mix is kept.Put the other half of the sugar mix on top of this,cover it with a lid and gently toss it so that the mix gets evently coated on the almonds.

The sweet,very slightly soft almonds with a perfect roasted taste are ready to be consumed.And a fresh bowl is on way to AWED:German an event by DK and currrently hosted by Lakshmi.

Potato Goulash

Goulash is a stew or soup which originated in Hungary.It is originally/traditionally a stew but can also be converted into a soup.A goulash(pronounced go-yash) consists of meat,onion,vegetables and spices of which most important or must one is 'Paprika'.Paprika is a spice obtained from powdering dried red and green bell peppers.It is little similar to 'Degi Mirch' chilli powder from India.

I first came across this 'goulash' word a few days backs when I heard Paula Deen working on a dish.I could not see what it was as my daughter changed the channel.Yesterday while searching for paprika based vegetable dishes it popped up again and intrigued by it,I googled and yahooed and found this vegetarian German Potato Goulash.I have tried to recreate it with little adjustments and so here it is.

Ingredients:

Potatoes: 1 big
Green Bell Pepper: 1medium
Carrot: 1 medium
Onion: 1 medium
Tomato: 1 small
Paprika powder: 2 tsp
Bay leaves: 2 small crushed
Salt:as per taste
Olive oil: 2 tbsp

Preparation:

Finely chop onions and peel and cube the potato.Also chop into bite sized chunks the carrot and bell pepper.Chop/crush/puree the small tomato.

Heat oil in a deep kadai/soup pot/pan, add onions,saute.Once they start turning brown,add the vegetables except tomato,salt and paprika powder and mix well till coated.Add water to cover the vegetables,and bay leaves and bring to boil.Once it bubbles,simmer till the water is reduced to half,without covering the pan.Add tomato pieces and more water if needed for gravy and cover and cook till tender and thickened,about 10 -20 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread,pasta,rice,roti or as per your wish.

In this you can add whatever vegetables you want,but potatoes should be more and also can add other spices as per your taste but paprika is a must and it is paprika that flavours this otherwise spiceless dish.It is the real hero of this dish.Also green and not red bell peppers must be used and tomatoes are used just to enhance paprika but not overshadow.So keep tomatoes to minimum.

This paprika-based dish is my entry to Think Spice-Think Paprika ,an event started by Sunita and hosted currently by Mimi .

Since this is a sensational side dish-it is similar to Indian curry and Mexican chilli and it shadows the main dish and can be taken as a soup(in which case all the vegetables and finely chopped and croutons or cooked pasta and more water are added to it)-this is also my entry to Monthly Mingle -Sensational Sides hosted by Ruth.

I actually could not believe that it tasted like curry-"German and curry flavour!!!",but it was as spicy as curry if not spicier!!So do make this goulash and do not be frightened by the name.It is best with rotis and also easy to prepare.Remove bayleaves before serving hot with bread/rotis.