Cookbook of the month: December and January

So, first of all: I’m really sorry, that I forgot to upload the ‘cookbook of the month’ in December. For the cookbook of the month of December and January I chose a book that Nadja offered me for Christmas, it is called ‘Brot selbst gebacken’.I chose three completely different recipes that I will present you now: a Brioche, a Unripe spelt grain flat bread and a Georgian cheesebread.

Remember to always read the whole recipe before you start baking/cooking because yeast doughs normally need to rest for quiet a long time. It sometimes happened to me that I sisn’t read the recipe carefully and then I was really angry when it said that the dough has to rest for 5 hours.. Well, I hope you will enjoy baking bread as much as I do!

Brioche:

During my exchange year in France I baked a lot of traditional French pastries, but I actually never baked a Brioche. I ate it very often because my neighbourworked at a bakery an always came overwith some leftover goods, so I was so excited to bake it. Unfortunately the pan I used was too high so only the top of the Brioche was baked, the rest was raw. It was not a big problem because we just first ate the top, and then baked the rest of the Brioche another time – it was good but I hope it will go a bit easier for you! 😉

Ingredients:
Pre dough:
•30g fresh yeast
•1 teaspoon sugar
•2 tablespoons wheat flour (type 550)
•6 tablespoons warm milk
Main dough:
•500g wheat flour (Type 550)
•4 eggs
•3 tablespoons sugar (I used 6)
•250g smooth butter
•1 teaspoon salt
•100ml warm water

Preparation:
1. For the Pre dough crumb the yeast in a bowl. Add sugar, flour, and warm milk. Whisk until smooth and leave on a warm place for 1 hour.
2. For the Main dough, combine the flour and the Pre dough. Put the eggs into a bowl, whisk and add the sugar. Add egg-sugar mixture, butter, salt and warm water. Whisk for about 8 minutes with a wooden spoon until smooth. Cover with cling film and place in the fridge vor 12-15 hours (over night).
3. Butter the Brioche pan an place the dough in it. Remove a piece of the dough (approx. apple size), form a ball and place it on the Brioche. Leave at a warm place for 2 hours.
4. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Combine 1 egg yolk with a little water and brush the Brioche with the mixture. Bake for 40 minutes at the lowest place in the oven. Let cool and enjoy with butter and jam or without anything. (:

Georgian cheesebread:

I recently baked this bread when my friends came over for dinner. You might only be able to eat 1 slice because there is just soooo much cheese inside! 🙂 I served it with field salad, so good!

Ingredients:
Pre dough:
•42g fresh yeast
•1 teaspoon sugar
•2 tablespoons wheat flour (type 550)
•100ml warm water
Main dough:
•500g wheat flour (type 550)
•1 teaspoon salt
•1/2 teaspoon ground caraway
•approx. 125ml warm kefir
•125g smooth butter
•2 egg yolks
Filling:
•1 bunch green onions
•2 garlic cloves
•1 tablespoon butter
•125g Quark
•1 egg yolk
•250g camembert
•250g gouda
•150g feta
•1 bunch parsley
•pepper
•salt

Preparation:
1. For the Pre dough, combine yeast, sugar, flour, and water. Whisk until smooth. Let rest on a warm place for about 1 hour.

2. For the Main dough, combine flour, salt and caraway. Add Pre dough and kefir and knead for about 5 minutes. Cover and leave for 15 minutes. Add butter and egg yolks and knead until smooth. Cover and leave for 2 hours.

3. For the filling, rinse the green onions and cut in rings. Peel the garlic cloves and press them with the garlic press. Melt the butter and roast those two ingredients for about 2 minutes. Let cool and combine with quark and egg yolk. Grate the cheeses and add to the quark mixture. Rinse the parsley, dry and coarsely chop. Whisk, add salt and pepper.
4. Butter a springform tin. Flour and roll out the dough to a circle. Put in the tin and place the filling in it. Close up the dough, cover and leave for 2 hours.

5. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and bake the cheesebread for about 1 hour. Serve right away.

Unripe spelt grain flat bread:

As I asked my mother to choose a bread recipe, she chose this one. She really likes unripe spelt grain and so do I. Thisbread contains unripe speltgrain flour as well as the whole unripe spelt grains. I cut it like a pizza 😉 I grind the grains by myself because I have a machine for that at home. I think the flour tastes much better if it is freshly ground. 🙂

Ingredients:
Pre dough:
•150g rye sourdough
•1 package dry yeast
•1 teaspoon sugar
•100g unripe spelt grain flour
• 125ml warm water
Main dough:
•100g unripe spelt grain
•300ml vegetable stock
•1 apple
•300g spelt flour (type 630)
•100g whole wheat bruised grain flour
•399ml Cidre
•1 1/2 teaspoons salt
•2 tablespoons oil (I used peanut oil)

Preparation:
1.For the Pre dough, combine sourdough, dry yeast, sugar, and unripe spelt grain flour. Add warm water and whisk until smooth. Leave on a warm place for 1 hour.

2. For the main dough cook the unripe spelt grains in the vegetable stock for 25 minutes. Remove the water. Peel and grape the apple. Combine apple and cooked grains. Let cool. Add the spelt flour to the Pre dough and mix with whole wheat bruised grain flour. Combine Cidre, salt and oil.
3. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and knead to 10 minutes. Add the apple mixture.
4. Oil a bowl and put the dough into it. Cover and leave at a warm place for 1 hour.

5. Preheat the oven to 230 degrees. Brush a baking sheet with oil and place the dough on it. Press it into a flat bread and sprinkle some flour on it’s surface. Bake for 35 minutes.

Enjoy,
Noemi (:

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