Sourdough bialys and new adventures

6 / 11 / 16

Looking at my last post, it looks I've never returned from Sicily :) Well, I didn't in a way. The memories of beautiful Sicily and its gorgeous landscape and spending time and creating new projects with Clear Sicily team are still so alive. More of the Sicily is coming in the next months and I invite you to follow me on the social media (Facebook, Instagram), where I post the glimpses of my bread adventures. There is one new adventure just around the corner as I'm soon off to the French countryside to bake some bread in a food wired oven - so stay tuned!

And now for the recipe of today's post. I'm a big fan of pizzas (even more than of a loaf of bread, but don't tell anyone, OK?) and I'm always happy to find new shapes and flavors. Bialy is one of those shapes (look at those mini pizzas!) and there is just something magical about the roasted onion in the bread.

Bialy (also bialystoker kuchen or cebularz in Poland) is a type of yeasted roll, being a traditional dish in Polish and Jewish cuisine. It is named after a polish city Bialystok. Bialys can be filled with anything, but traditionally you'll find them filled with onions, garlic, poppyseeds and breadcrumbs.

Bialys are (just like bagels, their boiled cousins) very popular over the Atlantic ocean, in New York City. They were brought to America by Jewish immigrants in the early's 1900.

Sourdough bialys
Yields: 9 bialys

Baking schedule:
Starter for the dough was prepared in the evening and left to rise overnight. The dough was mixed in the morning, left to double in volume, preshaped into rolls, left to rest, shaped and baked immidiately on a baking stone.

Ingredients:

Starter
75 g whole grain wheat flour
75 g water
1 teaspoon of your mother starter

Dough
all of the above starter (appr. 150 g)
400 g white wheat flour (or bread flour)
270 g water*
8 g salt

Filling
2 big onions or 4 smaller ones
fat for sautéed onions

* Adjust the water qauntities to the absorption needs of your flour. My flour doesn't absorb much, the dough was quite dynamic and soft at 65%. You should aim for the dough that is niether soft nor stiff.

Instructions:

Starter

1. In the evening, prepare the starter. Mix 1 teaspoon of your (active) mother sourdough starter, 75 g of whole grain wheat flour and 75 g of water. Cover and leave to ferment overnight until doubled in volume and bubbly.

Dough

2. In the morning, prepare the dough. Mix 270 g of water and all of the above starter. Add flour and mix until all the flour is incorporated and then knead the dough for 5 minutes. Next, leave the dough to rest for 1 hour.

3. Once one hour has passed, add salt and incorporate it well into the dough. Also, check if the dough is stiff and it needs more water. Now leave the dough to rise until almost doubled in volume, puffed and airy. If you want, you can perform several stretch and folds during the rise - it will help the dough to get more strength. My dough needed 5 hours to rise, your might take less or more, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

4. Once the dough is risen, use your plastic dough spatula to gently take it out to the unfloured working surface. Dust the upper surface of the dough with flour and using your bench knife or dough spatula divide it into 9 pieces, each weighting approximately 85 g. Shape a roll from each piece of the dough - see the left photo below. Dust the rolls with flour, cover them with a kitchen cloth and leave to rest for an hour.

5. In the meantime, sauté the onions and preheat the baking stone to the maximum temperature of you oven. Sauté the onions until nicely colored and softened. Feel free to add some herbs, spices or poppyseeds as well.

6. When the dough has rested and your stone has been preheated, start shaping the bialys. Dust the working surface first. Work with one piece of the dough at the time. First, dust the top surface of the roll and then flip it on dusted side down. Next, make a rim at about 1.5-2 cm away from the edge and use your fingers to flatten the middle of the dough. Make sure the middle part is very thin, you don't want the dough to puff up in the middle and get the onions out all over the place. Place each shaped bialy on the parchment paper and fill the indentation with roasted onions.

7. Transfer the parchment paper with a pizza peel onto the hot baking stone and lower the temperature to 240°C (465°F). Bake for 20 minutes or until nicely colored.

Bon appetit!

Life twists and sourdough cinnamon and chocolate twist bread

2 / 15 / 16

There were some sunny Christmas days spent in the mountains and there was a car crash couple of days later. I was overlooked and there was nothing I could do. I was in shock and I wasn't in shock. I was angry. The moment of collision was long and it was short. I didn't know if I would make it. I did. It hurt and it still hurts. Not much will for baking, but time for recovery and thinking. I don't know if I can call this being lucky, but in that moment of crash and not knowing, I felt how it's like having regrets of not living fully. Because, when you make some steps towards that side, you are alone with yourself. And regrets hurt the most.

So, when life gives you twists, you make a twist bread, right?

" Life has many twists and turns and sometimes what looks like a very bad day can be just clearing the way for good things to come. "

Sourdough cinnamon and chocolate twist bread
Yields: one twist bread baked in dutch oven (you can also use any other round pan)

Baking schedule:
The dough for this bread was prepared in the morning, left to rise until almost doubled in volume, shaped, and left to rise until passing the poking test. It was baked in a same day.

Ingredients:

Starter
100 g water
100 g white wheat flour (bread flour)
1 tablespoon of your (active) sourdough starter

Dough
all of the above starter (appr. 200 g)
180 g warm milk*
370 g white wheat flour (bread flour)
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 tablespoon of sugar
6 g salt

Filling
100 g soft butter
60 g sugar (I used brown sugar)
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
50 g of grated chocolate (I used 70% cocoa chocolate)

* Please adjust the liquid content to your flour. If your flour absorbs more liquid, feel free to add more liquid during mixing. The dough for this bread is soft and not so sticky, but not runny (see photos below).

Instructions

Sourdough starter

1. In the evening, first prepare your sourdough starter. Mix 100 g of white wheat flour, 100 g of water, and 1 tablespoon or your base starter. Leave it to ferment until risen, puffed, active and bubbly, so you will be able to mix it into the dough next morning.

Dough

2. In the morning, mix the dough. First, dissolve all of your starter in 180 g of water. Add egg yolk and melted butter. Next, add all of the flour (370 g), salt and sugar. Mix well, and knead the dough for 10 minutes until smooth. Shape it into ball and place it into a bowl. Cover with a plastic wrap and leave to ferment until doubled in volume (right photo below). My dough needed 3.5 hours, yours might take more or less, depending on the temperature of your kitchen and power of your starter.

3. When you see the dough is about to be ready, prepare the filling. Mix softened butter, sugar, cinnamon and grated chocolate.
Also, take your dutch oven (or any other pan) and line it with a piece of parchement paper and grease it with butter.

Shaping

4. Roll the dough to be 5 mm thick or 30×45 cm (12×18 inch) wide. Drop the filling across the rolled dough and spread it thinly, leaving 2 cm (1 inch) from all sides.

5. Roll the dough from the longest side, then thuck the ends underneath. Cut the rolled dough in half length-wise. You can cut as I did, leaving some part of the dough uncut or you can completely cut it in half. Flip the cut halves outwards.

6. Start braiding two strands one over another. Tuck the ends together to form a circle. Place the twisted bread into dutch oven and let it rise.

Final rise

Leave the dough to rise until puffed (doubled in volume). My dough needed 1.5 hours.

Baking

30 minutes before the baking preheat the oven to 200°C (375°F). When the dough is ready, put the dutch oven into oven and bake it until well baked, 30-40 minutes.

Take care!

Sourdough Krampus directly from heaven!

12 / 1 / 1512 / 1 / 15

It's the first day of December.

Looking back to the childhood, December always ment expectations. Expectations of warmth, kindness, visits, feeling good, having fun, but most of all, the arrival of St. Nicholas. He brought presents - oranges, dry fruits, walnuts and sometimes also some toys.

St. Nicholas day is celebrated in many European countries on December 6th and it's a special day of gift-giving for children.

In Slovenia, St. Nicholas is called Miklavž, and he is accompanied by angels and devils which are called parklji corresponding to the Austrian Krampus.

Boy, I was afraid of Krampuses! As I lived in a village, local boys dressed up into Krampuses, yell as loudly as they could and went knocking from doors to doors. Sometimes they would sneak into the house and search for the kids who "misbehaved". I was always hiding under the bed and closing my ears until the screaming passed.

Nowadays, I don't expect anything from December. But I just can't wait for the days to be longer again, starting on the winter solstice. It's when my New Year starts.

Let's sneak into what St. Nicholas brought this year for you - it's the recipe for corn Sourdough Krampus - so delicious, coming directly from heaven!

Sourdough corn Krampus
Yields: 4 big Krampus breads or 6-8 smaller ones

Baking schedule:
Sourdough starter for these sourdough Krampus breads was mixed in the evening, left to rise overnight and mixed into the dough in the morning. The dough was left to rise untile doubled in volume, then shaped, left to rise again until proofed and baked.

TIP: you can also prepare the dough in the evening, leave it to rise until doubled in volume overnight (make sure, you don't overproove it!) and bake the breads in the morning.

Ingredients:

Starter*
50 g water
50 g whole grain rye flour (or any other flour)
1 tablespoon of your active sourdough starter (I used rye starter)
* add more starter to the dough if you want it to ferment faster

Dough
100 g finely ground corn flour
100 g boiling water
220 g slightly warm milk
400 g white wheat flour (or bread flour)
9 g salt

Other
ground anise
pumpkin seeds
raisins
ice cubes for creating steam in the first minutes of baking

Instructions:

1. In the evening, prepare your starter. Mix 50 g of whole grain rye flour, 50 g water and 1 tablespoon of your active starter. Cover and leave to ferment overnight until nicely puffed bubbly, and active.

2. In the morning, first prepare the corn flour - pour the boiling water over it, mix well and leave to cool. Once cooled, prepare the dough. Dissolve all of your starter in milk, add wheat and steamed corn flour, and salt. Mix well and then knead the dough for 5 minutes so it becomes elastic, soft and workable (left photo below).

3. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl and cover the bowl with cloth or wrap to prevent the dough from drying out. Leave it to rise until doubled in volume. It took my dough 5 hours, yours might take more or less, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

Left: Mixed and kneaded dough. Right: proofed dough ready to be shaped.

4. Once the dough is ready, transfer it to unfloured working surface, lightly dust some flour over the top of the dough and shape it into ball. Cover the dough with a cloth or wrap and leave to rest for 10 minutes, so the gluten relaxes. In this way, the shaping will be easier.

5. After 10 minutes, divide the dough into 4 parts. Take each part (one at a time) and first elongate it to a rectangular shape. Use your scissors or bench knife to cut into the bottom part of the dough to shape the legs. You can leave them as they are or you can roll each leg with your hands a little bit.

6. Cut into the upper part to make the horns. Finish the horns by rolling and thinning each part with your hand. Next, turn them on the inside on outside. If the dough feels sticky, wet your hands with little water and then try again. You can use your imagination to shape the Krampus bread in any shape you like.

7. Brush your Krampus breads with water and decorate them with raisins (make eyes), pumpkin seeds or ground anise to give them an extra sweet taste - it goes well with corn flour.

8. Transfer the breads to a lightly floured parchment paper and cover them with a plastic wrap to prevent them from drying out. Let them rise for about 90 minutes or until they pass the poking test. Make an indent with your finger and observe the reaction. If the indent comes back quickly, leave them to rise more. If the indent comes back slowly, your breads are ready to be put in the oven.

9. At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready to be put in the oven, preheat your baking stone (or a tray, if you don't have a baking stone) and a separate baking tray that you put on the lower rack to the highest temperature of your oven.

10. When ready, load the Krampus breads with a parchment paper on a pizza peel and slide it on a baking stone. Throw 10 ice cubes on a baking tray, close the oven door and lower the temperature to 230°C (446°F). Bake for 20 minutes or until nicely baked golden crust. If you can't put all the breads into the oven at once, transfer the rest of them into fridge to prevent overproofing.

11. When baked, let them cool on a cooling rack and then enjoy with a cup of warm milk and jam.

What are your childhood memories of December? Let me know in a comment below.

Happy December!

Rustic rye sourdough bread with milk kefir

8 / 16 / 15

Freestyling is a kind of skill I am still learning in my life. It's about how to act spontaneously, from the heart and without being burdened by many "what if-s" and "it should-s". It's about riding the flow and about being present in each moment, observing what is happening and re-acting accordingly.

Writing this, I remembered the words by John F. Demartini, one of the most inspiring people on the planet, that whenever we think something is missing in our lives, we actually already have it - but just in different form. I realized that in my life freestyling comes in the form of sourdough bread baking.

I visualize, mix and then I ride the flow - the act of creating something new.

In today's post I share my latest freestyling - rustic rye sourdough bread with milk kefir. This hearty and warm loaf will charm you with its deep earthy flavor and lightness in every bite. Just like that - spontaneously.

Rustic rye sourdough bread with milk kefir
Yields: one big loaf

Baking schedule:
This bread was mixed in the morning, left to rise for 3 hours at the room temperature, shaped, left to rise again at the room temperature and baked on a baking stone.

Ingredients:
250 g whole grain rye flour
250 g white wheat flour
110 g milk kefir
250 g water
200 g active whole grain rye sourdough starter (100 % hydration)
10 g fine sea salt

Instructions:

1. In the evening prepare your sourdough starter. Mix 100 g of whole grain rye flour with 100 g of water and one teaspoon of your active (or straight from the fridge) sourdough starter and let it ferment until puffed and bubbly (until the next morning).

2. In the morning, dissolve all of your risen starter in the mixture of 110 g of milk kefir and 250 g of water. Next, add all of the flour (500 g), and 10 g of salt and mix all ingredients until they come together. Knead the dough for 5 minutes so it becomes a little bit stretchier. Since there is rye flour, the dough will stick to your fingers. Try to wet your hands in-between the kneading from time to time to avoid that.

Left: mature rye sourdough starter. Right: Mixed dough.

3. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl and let it rise until doubled in volume. Cover it with a lid or a piece of cling film to prevent the dough from drying out. My dough needed three hours to double, yours might take less or more, depending on the environmental temperature and activity of your starter. If you want to speed up the fermenetation, place the bowl to a warm place, i.e. slightly warm oven.

4. When the dough has risen, take it out to the working surface using your plastic dough scraper. Dust the dough with a flour, flip it upside down and fold it in half and slightly shape it into a ball. Let it rest for 10 minutes. In the meantime, prepare a piece of parchment paper and dust it with any bran (I used spelt bran) or coarsely milled flour.

5. Take your bench knife and transfer the dough to a parchment paper. Use your hands to shape the dough to a round shape (see the photo below) and then generously dust it with any of white flours (I used wheat flour). As the dough will rise and expand it will leave a beautiful pattern (see the photo of the baked bread above).

Left: Proofed dough ready to be shaped. Right: shaped bread.

6. Leave the bread to rise. My dough took 2 hours, yours might take less or more. As the dough will rise, it will expand and it also might tear at some places, but that's OK. How will you know your bread is ready to be put in the oven? Check the dough by pressing it lightly with your finger from time to time. If the indent comes back slowly, it is ready.

7. At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready to be put in the oven, preheat your baking stone and a separate baking tray that you put on the lower rack to the highest temperature of your oven.

8. When ready, load the bread with a parchment paper on a pizza peel and slide it on a baking stone. Throw 10 ice cubes on a baking tray, close the oven door and lower the temperature to 230°C (446°F). Bake for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 220°C (428°F). Bake for another 30 minutes or until the bread's crust gets beautifully dark. When baked, let it cool on a cooling rack for at least 2 hours before slicing.

If the bread was perfectly fermented, it will feel light in your hands and the crumb will be uniformly aerated. The crumb of the underproofed bread will be dense and crust pale.

Enjoy your bread with a slice of sheep cheese, fresh tomatoes and a glass of wine ;)