No-Knead Bread with Seasalt and Sesame Seeds

There cannot be an easier bread than this. You mix up the dough, let it rise, shape it into loaves and then bake.  Because you do not knead the dough, the consistency of this bread is chewy, with airy big holes like a ciabatta rather than evenly grained.  The yogurt, salt and honey make the bread more flavorful, without being overpowering. Unlike some homemade bread, it also tastes great the next day, perhaps in the French manner spread thickly with butter and a slice of ham.

2 loaves

25 grams fresh yeast

4 dl water

1 dl filmjölk, buttermilk or yogurt

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon honey

10 to 12 deciliters flour

Flaked sea-salt and Sesame seeds for sprinkling on top.

In a large bowl, pour in the water, which you have run from the tap

Crumbled yeast and water

to feel warm but not hot with your fingers.  If the water is too hot, it will kill your yeast.  Crumble in the yeast and stir until the yeast is dissolved.  Add in the filmjölk, salt, and honey. Stir to combine.

Add the flour, a bit at a time until the dough starts to form a

Adding the flour

ball. Give it a good stir to make sure that all the flour is well mixed in. The dough will still be quite loose and sticky, so don’t worry.  Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and let stand in a warm and draft-free place for 1 ½ to 2 hours.  The dough should more than

Finished dough

double.

Pre-heat an oven to 225 degrees C.  Pour the dough out onto a well floured board or smooth counter-top.  Divide the dough into two pieces.  Lay each piece onto a baking sheet covered with parchment

Let it rest with a cloth over

or baking paper.  Don’t worry if the pieces are knobbly and funny looking, they will look charming when baked.  Brush some water over the top of each loaf and sprinkle with sea-salt and sesame seeds.  You could also substitute chopped nuts, caraway seeds,

More than doubled in size

or poppy seeds for the sesame.  You do not need to let the bread rise a second time; it will rise further in the oven.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 to 20

Loaf ready for baking

minutes until nicely golden on top.  Take out and let cool.

The finished bread!

Summer Bread Adventures Part 1: Making the sourdough starter

This summer I have decided to try to learn to make really good bread.  I have vowed not to buy any bread and just bake what my family needs (I am hoping they go along with this as I haven't actually told them yet).  I am going to try out different types of bread, different methods, and different flour. For the beginning of my bread adventure, I am going to rely mainly on the instructions given by Sebastien Boudet in his book "Den Franske Bagaren" (the French Baker).  Those who live in Stockholm might have eaten at Broms on Karlavägen where he started the bakery.  The fine crusty breads they have are his work.

Mr. Boudet is passionate, as you might expect, about bread and
about the provenance of the flour, salt, and even water that he works with.  I am not as zealous as he, but he did make a good point which is that good flour gives good bread.  So instead of

buying the normal flour, I have invested in Wapnö wheat flour. Wapnö is a farm just 40 minutes away from us.  They are mainly a dairy farm with the happiest cows in the world (we always drink their milk when we are at our summer house) but they also do a little of this and that and we try to support their business by buying what products we can.  I have also bought rye flour from Salta Kvarn, which is a smaller mill, which we pass every time we drive to our summer house from Stockholm.  Mr. Boudet wishes that everyone would visit the mill that their flour comes from in order to ensure the quality. Later in the summer, I would like to do some taste testing to see how much a difference I can detect in the flour.

Mr. Boudet also firmly believes that while yeast has its place, a really good tasty bread needs time and a sourbread starter.  All of his breads take a minimum of two days, and most take three.  So, clearly patience is a key compenent of bread.  I doubt that I have ever been accused of being patient, but the slowness of this process is just what I am after for the summer. So, today I am beginning the 5 day process to make my starter.

What you need:
A glass jar with a lid that will hold about 5 dl (2 cups)
a fork to stir
water
rye flour
wheat flour

Day 1:
Put about 1 dl (a bit less than half a cup) of water in the jar.  Add

 1/2 dl each of wheat and rye flour.  Stir until all the flour is combined and you have a smooth consistency like a pancake batter.

Put a platic bowl over the jar and let it stand in a warm part of the kitchen. Presumably the bowl is to keep bugs and other icky things away.

For the next three days, I will be feeding it every day with more water and flour in the same proportions.  I will report back.

The reason that I use both white and rye flours is, well, because Mr. Boudet said so.  But I have read, and Mr. Boudet confirms, that you want to have as many little microrganisms in your starter as possible.  So ideally, you will use different kinds of flour.  Further, you want to definately use the kinds of flour that you will bake with.  As I intend to mainly use wheat and rye, then these are the ones I started with.  Later I want to try dinkle flour, which is an old fashioned wheat variety as well as some semolina.

Once the starter is ready, then I am going to make a levain which is a breaddough that takes 5 days to make.  Then from this levain dough, I will make bread and save some of the dough to use as a starter for the next bread.  You can also use the sourdough starter instead of the levain.  If you are not making bread at least every other day, Mr Boudet informs me, then it will be better just to use the starter as the levain will go bad.  Bread every other day sounds a bit much for our family, but I have lots of neighbors who I am sure wouldn't mind taking care of some of my loaves, assuming that they are any good.

While I wait for ten days, I will be making some other things, among them a baguette which uses regular yeast only takes two days and from which Mr. Boudet makes other things like pizza.

I think the biggest test of this will be whether or not I have enough endurance to bake bread every other day, when I could be lying in the garden or on the beach sleeping.

Stay tuned!

Lemon Bundt Cake for Swedish Midsummer

The Swedes love their strawberries.  And with good reason; Swedish strawberries are delicious.  They are only available in the summer and are sweet with strawberry flavor, totally unlike the industrial grown strawberries that you can get in every grocery store.  At our summer house in the countryside, we have a strawberry grower five minutes up the road.  You can go to his little stand and grab freshly picked berries, or you can even pick them yourself.  They have to be eaten the same day, or maybe you could hold out until the next day.  But after that, they will go bad because they are picked at the perfect ripeness. This is not usually a problem, as my kids attack them as soon as I get home with them.

Swedes especially love stawberries at midsummer.  Because it is early in the season, the strawberries are double the cost that they would be later in the summer, but that does not deter the Swedes as they line up at strawberry stands by the road.  Lack of sun does not deter the Swedes either, as they indulge in their traditional ritual of decorating the midsummer pole with flowers, and it is a good thing too, since a rainy midsummer celebration is par for the course.

The traditional summer cake is a light airy thing made of layers of sponge cake, whipped cream and strawberries.  It is a fine cake but this year, I felt like something a little bit different.  So, I have made a classic American lemon Bundt cake.  Drizzled with lemon syrup and served with strawberries and whipped cream, you can almost taste the sunshine that the weather is failing to bring!

Serves 10 to 12
(using 12 to 15 cup Bundt pan)

For the cake

226 grams (1 cup) butter
300 grams (2 1/2 cups) sugar
6 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
384 grams ( 3 cups) flour
1  teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest and juice from 2 lemons
a handful of dried coconut to dust the pan

For the syrup
zest and juice from 1 lemon
50 grams (1/2 cup) sugar

Turn on the oven to 180C (350F).  Prepare your Bundt pan by buttering it very carefully, making sure to get butter in all the creases.  Throw in a handful of dried coconut and shake it around the bank, getting an even layer. Shake out any excess. The coating helps the cake from sticking to the pan and I like to use something that will help the flavor of the cake. If you do not like coconut, you can use dried breadcrumbs, finely chopped almonds or other nuts, or just plain flour.

In a large bowl, cream the butter until it is light and fluffy.  This is easier to do if your butter is at room temperature, but if it isn't, just keep beating it and it will warm up as you are working.  Add the sugar and beat thoroughly.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating very well until incorporated.  The eggs should make the mixture become light and airy.

Add half the flour, the baking soda and salt, vanilla, and the lemon juice and zest.  Beat until just incorporated.  Then add the rest of the flour and the sour cream.  Again, beat until just incorporated but no more.  You don't want to beat out the air and lightness that you incorporated when beating the eggs.

Pour into your prepared cake pan.  Put in the oven and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup.  Put the lemon juice, zest and sugar into a little pan.  Heat on the stove until the sugar is melted.  Set aside.

When the cake is finished, take a fork or wooden skewer and poke holes in the top.  Spoon 3/4 of the syrup over the cake, trying to avoid getting it down the sides of the pan.  Wait about 15 minutes and let the cake cool down a bit.  Then put your serving plate over the cake pan and flip over the cake and the plate together.  Spoon the rest of the syrup over the top of the cake and let it cool.

Serve with whipped cream and strawberries if it is midsummer!

Brown Sugar Shortbread

Homemade shortbread is something different from the dry, crumbly stuff that you can buy in the store.  Eaten warm out of the oven, the shortbread is dense but slightly sticky to the bite.  Here I have replaced the regular sugar with brown sugar, which gives the cookie a caramel flavor. A dusting of cinnamon on the top adds intrigue without taking away from the main event.  

16 tablespoons (225 grams) butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar or demarra sugar

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 325F (160C) degrees.  Butter a 9-inch spring-form pan.

In a bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until light, fluffy and pale yellow, about 1 to 2 minutes.  Add the brown sugar and mix on a medium speed until combined and fluffy, about a minute.  Add the flour and salt and mix on a low speed until incorporated.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared springform pan and smooth the mixture with the back of a spoon into the bottom of the ban, making sure that it is tucked neatly on the edges of the pan and that it is smooth and even.  You can use the bottom of a glass or ramekin to press the dough down and smooth it out.

Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and then sprinkle evenly over the top of the shortbread.  Using a knife, score the shortbread into 12 wedges.

Place the pan onto a baking sheet, to contain any excess butter that may drip while the shortbread is cooking, and bake until the shortbread is golden brown and firm at the edges, but slightly soft in the center, about 55 to 60 minutes.  Take out of the oven and remove the sides of the spring-form pan.  Let the shortbread cool for 10 minutes and then slide onto a cutting board and cut into wedges based on the existing lines.  Let cool.