Mooooo . . .Oh Sugar Sugar . . .

# 62 - 2008

There are so many reasons I would never have baked this bread if I didn’t blog and know other bloggers. I only found it in one of the books I have. On the face of it this is a simple recipe just as the DB Lavash was. More and more I remind myself that it’s often the very simple things that can trip you up the most. I loved making the Lavash and I appreciate that it taught me what is and what is not thin in a flat bread and it taught me how much easier it is to roll flat bread and crackers out on parchment. Now in my bread baking world, those two things will always be a pearl of knowledge that I’ll associate with Lavash.

This bread came to us from Bread Baking Babe Monique in the Netherlands. (That means Monique is Kitchen Of The Month. Which means if you want to be a Bread Baking Buddy this month you’ll need to bake the bread, post on it and send her the link or leave it on her blog in a comment.) The round up then should appear on October the 8th on her site LivingOnBread&Water. You’ll also find the recipe there later this evening.

The way I understand it, Monique knows this bread well and found the recipe in a very old cookery book. The recipe directions seemed a little open to me, so you have to use your head a little. Monique was also helpful with things like when there was no oven temperature given she’d already baked it and suggested 400° would be about right and it was.

And so I started my bread.

I went out to the back yard and ask my Boss Friesland Bull to bring me 2 dl of Friesland cow’s milk from his favorite cows. Well, Clarence didn’t know what 2 dl was and neither did I. Monique said it was about a glass - a glass - I have juice glasses that hold 6 oz and I have water/ice tea glasses that hold 3 cups. Finally, I was able to find the info on the internet and told Clarence I needed 200 ml of the warm milk. That he and I can do!!

The the recipe called for Dutch sugar balls. Now Dallas is a huge metro city scape and there are lots of speciality markets but no, I’m not finding these little babies in any store here. I found this little bag in my pantry - score! Karen had given me a bag when we baked bagels!

Then we needed ginger syrup. Monique showed us a photo of an oriental jar of ginger balls in syrup. I went to two of our smaller Asian markets and three of our mega Asian markets, they’ve always had everything and I always get lost wondering and finding things I’ve never seen before. I must have gone up and down aisles with 30 different people “Oh yes we have that.” Nope, no go. The closest anybody had to ginger in a jar was in brine - no, not for syrup.

So, no ginger syrup for me. No bread for me. Wait, wait! In steps Super Hero Babe CookieBakerLynn! She made her own! Yes, she made her own! Fancy that. She made her own, it’s so easy and WOW is it Super Hero Good! Everybody who made it said it’s way much better than store bought - I don’t know about that because I’ve never had store bought and never will now.

The added bonus is you get great, incredibly great candied ginger!

Your’re still reading here. Yes, there really is bread and we’re finally there now because the rest of the ingredients are the regular bread - yeast, flour things with some cinnamon.

A first for me was using fresh yeast! That was fun. I rarely proof yeast in liquid any more because I use instant dried yeast but you have to break up the fresh cake of yeast and proof it. Lovely.

You get a beautiful soft silky dough. It rises and does it’s dough thing.

And then you wave your magic wand.

And you say the magic words.

And put it in the pans.

And take it out of the oven.

And you know you can’t have any of this because sugar from a 400° oven will blister you up good! So you wait and you sit on your hands until the drool is puddling in your lap and you have to clean yourself up and FINALLY you can cut into it.

People use double the cinnamon. I used a scant 2 tablespoons in the dough AND another tablespoon in the sugar. Yes, I love cinnamon.

And yes you know me . . . I made it again. Click on the above photo for the photo gallery of the second baking. It is so good, Enjoy!

BBB Sûkerbôlle

Monday, September 29, 2008

"As milk is to cheese, are English and Fries."

"Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries", which in English reads: "Butter, bread, and green cheese, whoever can't say that is no upright Fries" (According to legend, the 16th century Frisian freedom fighter Pier Gerlofs Donia forced his captives to repeat this shibboleth to distinguish Frisians from Dutch and Low Germans). The saying plays on the sound differences between the Dutch and Frisian words for "butter, bread, and green cheese", which in Frisian are pronounced almost identically to their English counterparts (showing the original closeness between the two languages), while in Dutch ("Boter, brood, en groene kaas"), these words sound quite different.

From a great article on Wikipedia here.

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There are twelve of us, a happy little group with a passion for bread baking. What we share is a love for fun, baking bread and doing so together. Across country, across boundaries, across the internet. We are about the new coffee klatch in our virtual kitchens, the new over the fence talk taking place on the Internet, sharing knowledge, helping each other out.

The modern kitchen table may look just like grandma’s except for that laptop sitting next to the coffee cup. Through the magic of Instant Messaging all of us are chatting over coffee at the kitchen table, baking bread. All our different houses, all our different kitchen tables, same group. You know; a bit like these communities in Eastern Europe where all the women of the village bake their bread on one day, share the communal oven, meet at the hearth, gossip and teach each other, sharing their knowledge. Some of us have known each other for different times; some of us have even met in person. Our experience with bread baking may vary but we all share a great passion and fascination for bread at the moment. And so once a month you can find us together in one of our kitchens: yakking, baking and laughing.

Same recipe, different kitchens, using local flour and sharing what we found. You can read all about our monthly recipe at the Kitchen of the Month, our individual posts to be found at our respective personal blogs.

If you would like to join us being a Bread Baking Buddy here’s how:

* You have one week from our posting date to bake the bread and post about it on your blog with a link to the Kitchen of the Month’s post about the bread.
** This month you have until Wednesday October 8 to
*E-mail the Kitchen of the Month with your name and a link to your post OR leave a comment on the Kitchen of the Month’s blog that you have baked the bread and a link back to your post.
*Kitchen of the Month will do a round-up of our Bread Baking Buddies at the end of the week and send you a BBB badge for that month’s bread.
*No blog, No problem - just e-mail the Kitchen of the Month with a photo of the bread you baked and you’ll be included in the round-up.