Fluffy Sticky Lemon rolls; sweet and tart

Delicate soft rolls tangy enough to stand up against the sugar. Really very nice! Very important to not overbake, rather take them out a tad early to keep the fluff in the bread. 
It all starts with dough:
25 gr fresh yeast (or 2.1/2 tsp instant yeast)
3/4 cup milk
4 tbs soft butter
4 tbs vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
3.1/2 cups bread flour (475-500 gr)
1 cup ap flour (130-150 gr)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
zest of 1 lemon (juice will be used for glaze!)
2 medium eggs
Simple straight forward dough: knead all ingredients until you get a rather stiff but supple doughball and leave to rise until doubled (approx. 1 hour). Roll out into a rectangle of approx. 10”x15”.
(Or cover and place in the fridge for up to 24 hours).

Sticky lemon filling:
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 lemon; juice and zest
3 tbs soft butter
Mix sugar with spices and rub in the zest, then add lemon juice.

Spread the rectangle with butter and follow up with the lemon-sugar mixture. make sure to leave the borders bare. Roll up from the longer side and pinch the dough closed. Messy messy! Have to say that the filling will ooze out from everywhere really but try to keep most of it in. This is why it is important to keep your borders naked otherwise you’ll end up in deep citrus mess. ;-)
Slice in 1.1/5” or 2” rolls, it made me 15 rolls that fitted nicely in a 13x9” pan as you can see below. (Right pic is fully risen btw). Edit: for your pleasure and your pan's health it is a good idea to line your pan with parchment. Leave an overhang on the short sides for easy lifting.

Cover and leave to rise approx. 45 minutes or until they fill the pan. Preheat oven to 350F/180C  and bake for 30-35 minutes. Keep a close eye on them they near the end of baking time, I took them out when the rims were nicely browned but the dough inbetween almost looked not done and that turned out to be perfect. In my oven closer to 30 than to 35 minutes.
Adding a simple lemon glaze by using the reserved lemon juice and powdered sugar. Yum! Perfect Sunday brunch.

Bread Baking Babes in January: A Spelt bread !

Silence in the refter please! This month we have a real Abbess unofficially presiding our table in the Kitchen of the Month. Astrid at Paulchens Foodblog cordially invited Hildegard of Bingen to provide us with food for the soul and belly.

Saint Hildegard von Bingen lived from 1098 to 1179 in Germany. She joined a Benedictine convent in Disibodenberg and became the Abbess at the age of 35. She wrote down what God told and showed her through visions and published many volumes on science, medicine and theology. She was also very outspoken, going on missionary trips and preaching in other cloisters and in market places. In that day and age I’d think she’d qualify as a Babe avant la lettre no? Anyway, Miss H. was a fervent promoter of spelt as a healthy grain and so we bake a loaf using spelt flour and spelt flakes. Although spelt is similar to wheat in appearance, it has a tougher husk than wheat which may help protect the nutrients in spelt. Spelt flour has a somewhat nuttier and slightly sweeter flavor than whole wheat flour. It contains more protein than wheat, and the protein in spelt is easier to digest. Below you’ll find the full recipe which I more or less followed. In the presence of an Abbess I hesitate to say so but I innocently (yes I pledge innocence!) committed fraud; using something which I thought was spelt flour and spelt flakes…. but turned out to be a cleverly doctored mix. Doctored with dough enhancers and emulsifiers and thus providing me with giant proofing results. The first rise was huge, the second a bit slower and my final loaf and rolls turned out far less dark and more fluffy than those of my fellow Babes. Wow! We had a hearty breakfast this morning and I have to say my family loved it. But it is in now way similar to what it was supposed to be. Hildegard's Spelt Bread
400 grams spelt flakes
600 grams whole spelt flour
15 grams salt
40 grams fresh yeast
200 ml milk, lukewarm
500 ml water, lukewarm
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon sunflower oil

Sponge: Mix spelt flakes and spelt flour with the salt. Dissolve yeast in milk and combine everything to a sponge. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let rest for about 15-20 minutes. Add water and lemon juice to the sponge and knead for at least 15 minutes gradually adding the sunflower oil.

Dough: Form dough ball and coat with warm water. Cover again with kitchen towel and let double in size. Knead for another 2-3 minutes.
Cut dough in 2 equal halves and place each in a baking pan. Cut the surface of both breads about 5 mm deep and let rise again until doubled in size.
Bake the first 15 minutes at 200 °C, then lower heat to 195 °C and bake for another 30 minutes.

Astrid’s Notes:
- The longer you knead the dough, the more air will be incorporated - but be careful not to overknead the dough!
- you can also soak the spelt flakes in the lukewarm milk a while before you assemble the sponge - if you prefer...
- Also: be careful that the dough will not overrise, especially at the last rising step. Spelt loves to overrise if you are not careful enough... at least it does that to me ;)
- It's recommended to place a bowl with water into the oven for the first 15 minutes of baking.
- You can also brush the finished bread with some milk and let dry for about 1 minute in the oven.

The Bread Baking Babes is a closed group of about a dozen of active members and we like it to keep it small and simple.  We love to bake bread and share our experiences while doing so.  Even tho the group is closed we are happy if you’d decide to be part of the whole fun and join us as a Bread Baking Buddy.

What’s this Buddy thing all about?
Every month one of us serves as the kitchen of the month, gathering all other Babes around her kitchen table and chooses the bread we will bake.
Every 16th of a month we all post about the month’s bread and the kitchen of the month invites everyone to join and bake the bread with us. If you decide so you will have until the 29th of every month to bake and post about it. Then simply tell the kitchen of the month that you did and send a link to your post.
The kitchen of the month Babe will then do a roundup with all the Buddies that baked with us and you will even earn a nice Buddy Badge to show on your blog as a little Thank You for baking with us!

So what’s keeping you? Come on and bake with us! See for all relevant info Astrid’s post at Paulchens Foodblog.

ABC Bake: Eve Lieb's Processor Challah

 

The first Avid Baker's Challenge recipe of the year is Eve Lieb's Processor Challah from Flo Braker's book, Baking for all Occasions. I happen to love Challah, especially paired with something savory like cheese or paté. (I have this crazy sweet and savory thing going on).

The recipe –in this baking group we encourage you to buy the book so we never give the recipes - calls for using a food processor to knead the dough… raised my eyebrows a little because it’s a sort of no-no thing in kneading bread dough. Often the processor runs your dough too hot due to the friction and the lovely yeasty beasties will likely suffer from it. So yes I was a bit worried. Turns out I didn’t need to, the dough came together very nicely but I took care to stop the machine quite early on because the ball of dough worked my knife up .

*ready for the boys; they prefer chocolate spread…*

By then I had a rough ball of dough that only needed 5 minutes of hands-on kneading to become supple and firm, ready for it’s first proof. My kitchen was a bit chilly so I let it be for quite a while and in the end used my microwave on 40C to speed things up. Bowl covered with a showercap, no problem.

Great dough to roll out in ropes, and easy to braid. By the time the dough was ready to braid I had only 10 minutes left to get to an appointment so I didn’t do any intricate braiding, just made two three strand braids and connected them to form a wreath. (Braiding with long ropes works best when you lay the ropes out cross wise connected in the middle and start braiding from that middle and you’ll end up with both ends nicely tapered).

Brushed with some of the reserved egg (added a tiny bit of salt) and sprinkled with sesame seeds, lots of them! I love the combination of crunchy sesame seeds and sweet challah!

A wonderful recipe that works and presents a great loaf of bread and a tight golden crumb .

See what the other ABC bakers thought of this month's recipe. You can find the ABC blog roll HERE.

 

Variations on a theme:
- challah
- pletzlach using challah dough
- Bread Baking Babes bake Challah (cacao flavor/4 strand braid and 6 strand braid) plus recipe in Dutch