Hoegaarden white beer, fennel seeds and rosemary sourdough bread

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Addendum: Connie kindly suggested that I took part in the 41st edition of Bread Baking day (BBD#41), the subject of which is "Bread with local herbs". Rosemary and fennel seeds, of course, are not originally from the region I live in. I made this bread before reading the brief, so I hope I'll be forgiven. I am, however, using a local beer. ;-) By the way, Hoegaarden beer uses coriander seeds in its fabrication: these have been available locally since the 15th century.

Living in Belgium means being spoiled for choice when it comes to beer: about 800 varieties can be found. I confess that I don't drink beer very often although I do appreciate the wide range of flavours. In summer however, I sometimes enjoy a glass of Hoegaarden white beer, which I find quite refreshing. Summer not having been quite here yet, I thought I would try to use white beer in my Sunday bread baking routine. The combination with fennel seeds and rosemary immediately seemed to pop into my mind and I decided to give it a go.

It's a strange feeling to open a bottle of beer at 7:30 in the morning. I hadn't prepared any pre-ferment the night before because my sourdough starter didn't seem to be very much awake yet (it had been in the fridge for a couple of weeks, and was only out and fed again since a little under three days). Also, I planned to go out mid-morning to meet other bloggers at an Indian cash and carry (I bought mango juice, coconut milk powder, cumin seeds, curry leaves, samosas, dried fenugreek leaves and refrained myself from buying more stuff) so I figured I could start the sponge early and see how it was around 1:30pm. I could then get started with it or, if it was flat, just use commercial yeast. Luckily the sponge was active and bubbly; one more hour wouldn't have hurt, but I was in a hurry.

So, how was the result? I think my starter would have benefited from a couple of days more feeding. The dough didn't rise terribly much during fermenting and proofing but there was a reasonable oven spring. The crumb was a little chewy, but nothing terrible. The crust ended up great, really good texture and taste. And happily the three main flavours (beer, fennel seeds and rosemary) were balanced, easy to pick up individually but also worked great together.

Hoegaarden white beer, fennel seeds and rosemary sourdough bread

Ingredients: (for one loaf)

For the sponge:

• 120 g 100% hydration sourdough starter
• 60 g white bread flour
• 45 ml Hoegaarden white beer

For the final dough:

• 235 g white bread flour
• 65 ml Hoegaarden white beer
• 40 ml lukewarm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped

Hoegaarden white beer, fennel seeds and rosemary sourdough bread

Preparation:

Place the sponge, flour, beer and water in a salad bowl. Mix for a few minutes until combined, then add the salt. Knead for about 10 minutes, adding a little flour or water if necessary. Add the fennel seeds and rosemary, then knead again for a couple of minutes until well incorporated.

Shape in a ball, transfer to a lightly oiled container, cover with a damp towel and leave to ferment for about 2 hours or until doubled in size.

Shape the dough. Place on an oven tray lined with parchment paper or a non-stick mat. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to proof at room temperature for 90 minutes to a couple of hours.

Preheat the oven to 250°C. When ready to bake, place an small oven-proof dish filled with boiling water on the sole of the oven. Dust the loaf with a little flour and slash its surface with a knife. Place the tray in the middle of the oven. Throw a small quantity of cold water on the sole of the oven to generate steam and immediately close the oven door.

Bake with steam for about 15 minutes then remove the small oven-proof dish. Lower the temperature to about 225-230°C and continue baking for a further 15 minutes or until the loaf is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a rack for 2 hours before serving.

Hoegaarden white beer, fennel seeds and rosemary sourdough bread

Submitted to YeastSpotting.

Banana bread

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Always delicious and could not be easier...

Banana bread

Ingredients: (for one standard loaf)

• 120 g walnuts and/or hazelnuts, toasted & chopped
• 230 g flour
• 150 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 115 g butter, melted and cooled
• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 generous tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, nuts, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a salad bowl.

In another salad bowl, combine the mashed bananas with the eggs, cooled melted butter, and vanilla.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you get a thick, chunky batter. Do not overmix. Pour into a baking tin.

Cook for about 55-60 minutes (or until the blade of an inserted knife comes out clean) at 180°C.

Leave to stand for a few minutes then take the bread out of the baking tin. Leave to cool on a rack.

Banana bread

Belgian culinary blogs fair (Brussels, June 18–19, 2011)

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The first Belgian culinary blogs fair took place on June 18–19 at the Autoworld museum in the Cinquantenaire Park, Brussels. The French version of this fair has already taken place 3 years running in Soissons and quickly became an unmissable event for food bloggers. This event is organised by Chef Damien of 750 grammes and his team. For the Belgian edition, they were helped by locals Philou and Apolina.

  

During the weekend, numerous cooking demonstrations by bloggers and chefs alike took place. Bloggers could then, of course, taste the food. Every hour, at least three different recipes were demonstrated. On Saturday we all attended a huge picnic, every blogger having brought a dish and something to drink, to be shared with everybody. Actually choosing what to eat was a very difficult task, seeing the extent and quality of what was on offer! In the evening, a gala dinner was organised, with (you guessed it) more food to indulge in... After the doors closed for the night on Saturday, some of us stayed outside chatting, late into the night, accompanied by a few bottles of wine. On Sunday, more demonstrations took place and yet more food was on offer...

  

For many bloggers, including myself, the most important thing about the fair is that it allows to meet a vast number of people who are all passionate about food and cooking and come from various parts of Belgium and France, in a relaxed, cheerful atmosphere. Being quite new to the blogosphere, this was my first participation. I was very happy indeed to be able to spend a couple of days with a few bloggers I had met before, and to get to know many people I only knew through their respective blogs but not yet in person. Amongst these were: Carole, Marion, Françoise, Françoise, Sophie, Sophie, Marie, Emmanuelle, Isabelle, Isabelle, Domi, Salima, Alexia, Sylvain, Barbara, Latifa, Muriel, Hilde, Mamina, Apolina, Philou, Stéphanie, Sylvie, Finla and many more!

  

The next fair will take place in Soissons next November, but (and this is great news) Damien announced that there will definitely be a second, even bigger edition of the Belgian edition in 2012. And rightly so: the event was a tremendous success, and I am sure many of us already cannot wait for next year!

  

Mango and ginger cakes with lime icing

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After coming back from work I fancied a little something sweet. When in a rush I usually go for cookies, muffins or cupcakes, preferably with lots of chocolate in them. Today however I went for a mango and ginger combination.

Mango and ginger cakes with lime icing

Ingredients: (for about 10 small cakes)

• 75 g butter, at room temperature
• 90 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 115 g flour
• 30 g dry grated coconut
• a mango (ripe but not too much so), cut in cubes or pureed
• about 2 1/2 cm ginger, peeled and grated
• 1 1/4 tsp baking power
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• a pinch of salt
• 4-5 tbsp icing sugar
• a little lime juice

Preparation:

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, ginger and mango. Mix, then add the grated coconut, flour, salt and baking powder. Do not over-mix.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake paper and spoon in the mixture.

Bake at 180°C for about 20 minutes. Take out of the oven, leave to stand for a few minutes then remove the cupcakes from the tin.

Mix the powdered sugar with a little lime juice, just enough to make a thick paste. Brush the icing on top of the cakes.

Leave to cool on a rack.

VIP evening at Mmmmh!'s and a meeting of food bloggers

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Mmmmh! is a well-known place in Brussels where cooking classes can be followed; there are numerous formulas (for instance, one-night or afternoon only) and topics. This last Thursday, they organised an inauguration evening for the Estate Italiana, a few weeks devoted to Italy and its food. I was lucky enough to be invited to this event, where I met many other bloggers such as Vanessa, Isabelle, Isabelle, Emmanuelle, Apolina, Françoise, Marie-Pierre, Sylvie, Barbara and Latifa.

The atmosphere was quite relaxed and the staff cheerful and friendly. A short presentation of what is in store during the Estate Italiana was followed by drinks (Prosecco, Spritz, Italian lemonades) and nibbles (toasts with olive tapenade or tomatoes, cold cuts, etc.). House chefs then prepared a couple of dishes. First, a risotto with prawns. Then tagliatelle in butter and parmesan sauce, the originality of which consisted in mixing the sauce directly within a huge wheel of parmigiano reggiano.

All in all, a very pleasant evening and lots of nice people met. The next event will be the hugely anticipated first Belgian culinary blog fair, which will take place in Brussels on June 18-19.

A huge thank you to Mmmmh! for the invitation and for organising this evening!

Sourdough bread

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Now that I have a working sourdough starter, it's time to bake a first sourdough bread.

Sourdough bread

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

• 120 g sourdough starter
• 60 g white bread flour
• 30 g water, at room temperature

For the final dough:

• all of the sponge
• 225 g white bread flour
• 115 g lukewarm water
• 1 tsp salt

Preparation:

Place the sponge, flour and water in a salad bowl. Mix for a few minutes until combined, then add the salt. Knead for about 10 minutes, adding a little flour or water if necessary.

Shape in a ball, transfer to a lightly oiled container, cover with a damp towel and leave to ferment for about 2 hours or until doubled in size.

Shape the dough. I've gone for the bâtard shape here. Place on an oven tray lined with parchment paper or a non-stick mat. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to proof at room temperature for 90 minutes to a couple of hours.

Preheat the oven to 250°C. When ready to bake, place an small oven-proof dish filled with boiling water on the sole of the oven. Dust the loaf with a little flour and slash its surface with a knife. Place the tray in the middle of the oven. Throw a small quantity of cold water on the sole of the oven to generate steam and immediately close the oven door.

Bake with steam for about 15 minutes then remove the small oven-proof dish. Lower the temperature to about 225-230°C and continue baking for a further 20 minutes or until the loaf is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a rack for 2 hours before serving.

Sourdough bread

Submitted to YeastSpotting.

Building a sourdough starter

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I have been baking bread now for about a year. I don’t bake very often: on Sundays mostly but I have had to skip baking at numerous occasions. Still, baking bread has become something that I really enjoy and I have been debating whether to try going down the sourdough route for a while. I have always been a little worried that it would require too much time and attention or simply that it was complicated and just would not work, should I try.

But curiosity finally got the better of me and I decided to try a simple method I had come across on Serious Eats, in a piece written by Donna Currie. If you are interested in building a starter, I highly recommend reading this detailed, step-by-step article. All credit for the method goes to Donna so I will only summarise it here, in a way I am hoping will be useful as well.

How does it work?

In a nutshell, building a starter is as simple as mixing flour and water, adding both ingredients to the mix on a regular basis. With time, yeast and (good) bacteria will develop and you’ll end up with something lively and flavourful which you can use to bake delicious breads. Some methods will give you a working starter in 4-5 days, others (like Donna’s) will take a bit longer. The time element is not written in stone, and will depend on the type of flour, the temperature at which the starter is kept, etc. My starter took a while to develop, for instance. And it never rose much even though it was bubbly.

What do you need?

A jar, a spoon, flour and water. That’s it. A scale is handy, too.

What’s the process?

Every day (except one) you’ll be adding white bread flour (I used rye flour on day 0, though) and water to the jar (see table) and making sure everything is well mixed. You can mix as often as you like but you can get by (as I did) with just mixing two or three times a day. Keep the culture at room temperature and do not keep the lid of the jar hermetically shut: air must be able to flow. After a few days, you should see bubbles appearing. These are early signs of life, but do not mean that your starter is ready yet. With time, the right kinds of yeast and bacteria will take over and stabilise it. You’ll see bubble activity increasing and the starter will feel frothy. After 8 to 10 days, it should be ready to use. I fed my starter during 10 days.

Day	Flour [g]	Water [g]
0	15 (rye)	30
1	0	0
2	30	30
3	30	15
4	30	30
5	30	30
6	30	30
7	30	30
8	30	30
...	30	30

Sourdough starter from day 1 to day 10. Click image to enlarge. Disregard the dark blurry dots: my camera has problems.

How to harvest and use your starter?

When the starter is nicely bubbly, it’s time to harvest it and bake! The evening before baking, take out 120 grams of the starter. Place it in a large bowl, add 60 grams flour and 30 grams water. Mix well, cover with cling film and leave to ferment overnight. In the morning, you’ll end up with a ready to use sponge. For an example of how to use it and what to bake, see my first sourdough bread recipe.

What to do with the remaining starter?

If you bake often, you can leave the starter on the kitchen counter, keep feeding it and harvest when you need it. If – like me – you bake less often, you can now refrigerate the starter, to keep it alive but sleepy. Feed it before refrigerating, and revive it by taking it out of the fridge a couple of days before baking. When out of the fridge, you’ll need to feed it to make it spring back to life. The time needed to revive your starter will vary, but that is quite normal.

→ sourdough bread recipe