Gone for Beirut , this month .

I know , posting too late again . And even no pictures.
Bad bad Babe !!! And a stupid one too , 'cause the recipe of these little breads from Beirut was on my bookshelve for a long long time . In the beautiful book Home baking , the artful mix of flour and tradition around the world( J . Alford, N Duguid) Karen of Bake my Day gave me as a birthday present once.Rich with pictures of people all over the world, stories and filled with delicious recipes of breads from all over the world you , unlike me , really have to make . All of them !! But somehow I 've missed these Sukkar bi Tahin as they call them in arabic. And thats too bad because they are great.
Thank you Natashya at living in the kitchen with puppies , as our host of the month ,for bringing these swirls up as this months Bread Baking Babe's bread.Otherwise I never , or at least for a long time would have made them and didn't know what I was been missing !!!
They turned out to be kind of flaky rounds , very nice to see . And eat !!! Flavoured by sugar , but not sweet at all and "filled" with Tahini . By the way , Tahini is a paste made out of sesame seeds , very much used in the middle east but avalable even here in Europe"s Holland. It reminds you to peanut butter and to be honest , I think I 'll make these Beirut swirls with that one day. I even could resist a jar of hazelnut-raisin paste as I reached out for the Tahini in the store. And believe me, it made those breads taste great too !!
The rolling out of these breads wasn't as easy as I thought , the paste was peeping out at a lot of places but Natashya told us not to worry because it was all in the game . Hurry to her kitchen table and see for yourselve . There you find the recipe and how you can bake it too and become a Buddy of us , baking Babes. And you can see her pictures or those from the other Babes ( list at the side bar ). Mine....????Sorry , my camera was in Russia with my hard working husband . I tried to keep some breads in the fridge for a pic but ..ah you know , temptation can be so hard to resist. As these swirls are . Try !!!

Amore from Italy

This was real fun to make :
Easy to make dough ,.
Soft as a baby's....you know .
Easy to handle.
Easy to form and you don't even need a high-school degree " knotting " for these little breads.
And then......beautiful to see , to smell but most of all to taste.













Isn't that breadbaking-fun ? Yes , it is !
They are called Italian Knot Breads or Pane di pasta tenera condita .
And they were tossed up by ILVA from Lucullian delights. She invited us all to her kitchen table this month. Please join us there and see for yourselve how easy to do ( but with such great looks ) these Italian knots are.And maybe you'll join us as a Bread Baking Babe's Buddie.
Only one advice :
Because I thought the amount of flour was enough to serve a whole Italian family having lunch under the sun ,somewhere in a Italian farm garden , I made only half of the recipe to get just 10 knotbreads.
That was a mistake !!!
Because they were gone in no-time.And my family asked for more....
So bake them all by using the whole amount . And in the strange case of any leftovers , just pop them in the deepfreezer . Or send them over to me . Because I completely fell in love with them.
Italian Amore !!
Thanks Ilva. You know what is good for us ,Babes !

They made me do this.

How could I think of sneaking away and not blogging my Pane Franchesa pictures ?
They fell over me , my BBBsisters . I hád to post .To let the world know even a BBBabe is not perfect!.... ;-)
So with shame I present : One goodtasting but very heavy Pane. With wholes on places you only dream of in bad nights.
Because I used a starter from spelt and soya.Why ? See my earlier post "it makes me smile ".Thats the bread we eat these days
But believe me, next time it will be Rye and water!!
By the way , I killed my Chef ! Ha !

It makes you smile !

To prove I really can bake bread , this picture.
'Cause I didn't bake anything out of this months Bread Baking Babes " Pane Franchese'.
Don't even dare to show you a pic. Not because the recipe was wrong , no , it is from King Arthur and it's good . Better look at Sara's. from I like to cook . She's this months kitchens host.There you can see how great it can be.
No , its just because I had troubles with my Chef. No , not at work , but with my first starter for this bread, called a Chef ,as in French. At least I blame him , don't we always blame the Chefs ? And I always hated chefs, in any job . Anyway , something didn't turn out right and my Pane became solid as clay.
But to prove I'm a real Baking Babe this picture of a bread I'm very proud of .
Made without wheat or diary products . And still tasty.
I have a child who has a wheat and milk intolerance , we discovered a few months ago .
A difficult combination , its in about everything .
But that boy has a bread and cookie-baking Mama and thats his luck . I now bake him , thanks to a recipe found in the "Laurels' Kitchen Bread Book" , a Soymilk Bread. And I use Spelt in stead of wheat. Spelt is often possible when wheat is not.And it bakes great.
I've never seen a bread having an ovenspring like this. The first one burned on top because it reached the top of my oven.
Every time I take a bread like this out of the stove , it makes me smile.
Because it always looks and tastes great, but most of all that enormous proud feeling I can make my child the best healthy-est bread there is for him . Hand- home- and heartmade !
It really makes me smile !!

Here it is :
2 1/2 cups unflavoured soymilk (cooked and cooled down)
2 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup handwarm water
6 cups of spelt flour ( mostly I do 2 cups whole- and 4 cups white spelt flour)
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons soy -"butter" or 6 tablespoons oil.( I mostly let the butter melt in the cooling down soymilk )

In your mixing bowl , solve the yeast in the warm water with the honey , mix in the soymilk with butter , and 2 cups of the flour . "Cover" it with the rest of the flour ( + the oil if you don't used the butter) and the salt.Let stand for a few hours (but no more than 12). The yeast will be cracking the topping flour in that time.
Knead it , but no longer than 4-5 minutes because the Speltgluten will loose their strenght if you knead too long.Easy , isn't it ?
Let rise for 1 hour , then flatten and shape , let rise for 45 minutes. In the mean while heaten up your oven at 350 F . Bake the bread in 45 minutesuntil done.
Of course you can roll in / or over some seeds like poppyseeds , sunflourseeds , pumpkin- or flackseeds.
That funny smiley...can't help you with that . But just look into your mirror while holding your bread !

My kind of bread

And a special kind , also.
Because it is our 1 year anniversary of the Bread Baking Babes .
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US !!!
A year we bitched ,baked ,laught and cried together, as when we lost our BBBsister Sher.
We did send lots of mails , advices good or not , jokes and drinks over the world to each other.
And became good friends. Friends you can really " Bake on ".
And we found two more friends , because we became to little in number, after Sher died and Glenna left.(They will stay with us in mind). So , we found two new Babes ,and now we are a splendid dozen again . And we make a good mix.
Like this bread : a five grain with walnuts , from "the Italian Baker" of Carol Field. The Pane ai Cinque Cereali Five~Grain con Nod.
And, oh yes.... it has every-thing I like :



Walnuts , rice , whole wheat and just plain allpurpose , Rye , rolled oats , I milled all that and it made a good healthy bread .Great texture , great taste!


I made rolls and a bread :


For the complete recipe , visit our host of the month Tanna , who tossed this bread up and can tell you all about how to become a Bread Baking Buddie . And why we will stay a small group but love you to join baking with us.



And don't forget to sit at all the other BBB's kitchen tables and taste their breads .
And a very special welcome to our two new babes,
Gretchen
Natashya
who allready proved to be real BBBabes.
Yeah , we'll make it for another year , the twelve of us !

Dutch winter

It's smelling French here...

Picture this:
Early in the morning , sun just rised . Open your window in your authentic little hotel in Paris ( or anywhere else in France ).Hear the noises of a city waking up and smell.......
The little "Boulangerie" on the corner just made them...



...... FRESH CROISSANTS

Well ,wrong place ,but the smell was there and just the same when they came out of my oven.
Katie of time for cooking made me bake them in this month Bread Baking Babes challenge.
Scary things to make , I tried once but they turned out to be just normal breads in a croissants shape. But Katie made me do it again and she had a great recipe. I'm really greatfull, Katie , thanks .
Although at the end the amounts of milk were very different between us Babes ( different countries, different wheats and flours ) they came out fine.
The only thing I changed was the way of folding-in the butter , now according to Bernard Claytons " the Breads of France ". His recipe for Flaky Croissants was more or less the same as Katie's from Michelinstar-winner Michel Roux.Except for this.
Here's what I did with that butter ,it was very easy to do:
When you roll out the dough ( see the full recipe at Katies) into a rectangle (60-30 cm or 24x12")you spread out the butter on the lower 2/3 of the dough. Fold the top 1/3 over half the butter and lift the bottom 1/3 up and fold over as for a letter.The layers now will be dough , butter , dough , butter , dough.Wrap and refrigerate.
After 4 of that foldings you have 55 layers, the book told . I didn't count them. Maybe you will , because they are really worth making !
Beware ,it takes you 9-13 hours to make them, resting time included.
In that same time I can drive to Paris, wake up in that little hotel and open my window....



But that's not the Bread Baking Babes spirit , is it ? !



If you want to bake your own " morning in France " yourselve and post your results at Katies before febr. 2 , she'll send you your Bread Baking Babes Buddie "button".
And don't forget to peak at the other Babes blogs , list on the top on the right site.They show you what you can do more with this great-to-work-with-dough.