Thomas & Sylvia Weber

Drei Koenigs Kuchen

Thomas Weber — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:12:45 +0000

It has been quite some time since I posted on our blog. But (un)fortunately the business and consulting world is holding me up from blogging and bread baking. But before I disappear again in the offices of the corporate world in upstate NY, I wanted to share this picture I found by accident in one of my old bread books today.

My in-laws from Switzerland have celebrated New Year with us here in the super cold Midwest and brought a crown for the 3 Kings Day (1/6/2010) with them. Of course it was their expectation that I bake the traditional “Drei Koenigs Kuchen”. I had to find a recipe for this to happen, but I guess I was successful.

And the King of the Day

I still have to work on the formula to fine tune it, but it is more or less an enhanced Zopf dough. If done I will post the formula. If some of the Swiss reading this blog have their own it would be great if they could share. During the search for this recipe I found the page shared above. Of course now my quest begins to find all this cantonal formulas, bake and adapt them to the US environment.

Happy New Year to all.

Thomas

Fall in the Drifless Area in Wisconsin

Thomas Weber — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:51:50 +0000

I was not very active on our blog lately, but I was up again North in the beautiful Driftless Area of Wisconsin. The fall colors where magnificent and the weather most of the time too and with my hunting buddy Mark we browsed our woods stalking our favorite pray, deer. And we were again lucky to be successful in our pursuit.

Everybody knowing the Driftless Area with its deep, romantic valleys, meandering streams and creeks, the Amish horse buggies and its setback in time understands there is no place for the internet, cell phones and computers here. The only way to stay in touch with the world is at Culver’s in Viroqua 20 miles away. It has a free wireless setup.

Thomas

Issues with my Bread Recipe Files

Thomas Weber — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:54:41 +0000

Several readers of our blog had difficulties to open/download the files of my bread recipes. Especially if you use an older version of Microsoft Excel it didn’t work.
I have added now a PDF version to print and hope that all or at least most readers are able to use this format. It is not as nice as the XPS file, but printed it should be ok.
I also have added to the ZIP file a version for Excel 97 users for downloading.

I hope this helps and solves the issue, otherwise leave me a note in what format you would like to have the file and I will try to convert my file to it and send it to you.

Thomas

Eastern Germany 1992

Thomas Weber — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:09:28 +0000

On November 9^th 1989 the traveling restrictions for East Germans were lifted and that evening the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, an unbelievable experience for many European who watched it, eyes glued to the TV. The next year on October 3^rd the two countries were officially reunited. Three years later when the traveling conditions were getting better we decided to rent a motor home, to see former East Germany with our own eyes and boy what an experience and a travel into past times….

Erzgebirge – Saxon Switzerland – Dresden – Harz – Thuringian Forest

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzgebirge)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Switzerland)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harz)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuringian_Forest)

Here the report:
After driving through former West Germany and one of our favorite spot the Bavarian Forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayerischer_Wald), where we spent a lot of time fly fishing in the Regen, we crossed the border at Hof. We felt like being transformed back in time for at least half a century: brown coal everywhere, old black factory stacks, cobbled streets, Trabis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabi) it is a depressing outdated industrial area.

Steam locomotives are still widely used.

We are driving through the idyllic scenery of the Saxon Switzerland, passed the Bastei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastei)

with its extraordinary view of the river Elbe and the climbing rocks. We enjoyed a visit to the famous local porcelain manufacture, Staatliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Meissen GmbH, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meissen_porcelain) although Stephan (age 6 month) would not agree with this statement, he got restless.

We stayed only for a short time in Dresden

and tried to stock up on groceries. This was challenging. We were even not able to get milk – a very new experience for ‘Westerners’!

In the ‘Harz’ we get to know local campers. They showed us the way to the ‘Hexentanzplatz’ on the Brocken Mountain. The night of April 30^th to May 1^st is a hell-raising night on the witches’ dancing grounds situated on the Brocken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocken) called the Walpurgis Night (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night). To go up there we even had the rather scary experience of an air tram from the Czech Republic!

We are very impressed by the former border to West Germany in the area of the Thuringian Forest. It is still full of landmines. We are getting a picture of the difficult situation for the local people living that close to the border under the threat of this huge armed fence, the Iron Curtain. Members of the same families live very close but separated for decades by it, in two very different countries.

This was the first vacation with Stephan. It was a great success. After returning home we decide to buy the motor home!! (and nearly went bankrupt………)

Our Travels

Thomas Weber — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:40:30 +0000

This new blog is more looking backwards and helps remember and enjoy again our past travel adventures, as new ones will be scarce for the next couple of years. Since Sylvia works at Tom’s (www.tomsfarmmarket.com) her summers are so busy, it is even difficult to sneak away for only two days in a row. Her time off is in January and February. Of course the kids are in school at that time and have no vacation. For Sylvia and me it is still too early to leave them alone for one or two weeks. Stephan and probably also Andreas would seize the golden opportunity and turn our house in the party place, no not of the neighborhood but of the area.

So we are both stuck for a couple more years before we can cultivate again our nomadic strand.

Our old travel log is succumbing to the wear and tear of the time, the writing faded so much it is difficult to read and also the pictures are fading fast away. So we decided to digitize this log to preserve it and support our also more and more fading memory.

Under the header TravelLog you will find the stories in the future watch out for it.

Thomas & Sylvia

St.Clair Process

Thomas Weber — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:14:31 +0000

My Multi Grain Rolls post of yesterday created a lot of interest and for those who are interested to bake this rolls, here are some details of the process, learned (and copied) during my internship at Mark’s Back Home Bakery in Kalispell, MT:

Timings

Starter/Soaker combination: 4 to 5 hours or till it doesn’t rise anymore and begins to fall in significantly

Kneading: 5min in my KitchenAid

Bulk Fermentation: 2 stretch&fold after 1 hour each, kitchen temp 65?F

Retardation: Over night in the fridge
Shape: next morning out of the fridge

Proofing of Cold Rolls in Trashbag

Proof: depending on kitchen tempreature for 1,5 to 2 hours

Bake: at 450°F with steam for 10min and finishing with 400°F for another 40 min or until they crackle and sing coming out of the oven (int. temp. at 210°F)

Multi Grain Rolls or Vollkornbrötli

Thomas Weber — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:32:31 +0000

Lady (most of the time) Oreo and I

are back home from our hunting trip. Looking in the freezer my return was needed (and hopefully appreciated) because that thing was empty, not a single piece of bread to be seen. Luckily I brought a frozen loaf of my simple cabin bread with me, so the next morning sandwiches for my older son and my wife for their lunches was possible. As I will be busy the next couple of days I decided to simulate a small bakery day and try to process 9kg or 20lb dough at once. On the plan I put Cabin Bread, Zopf or Swiss Sunday Bread, Farmers Bread (Ruchbrot) and Multi Grain Rolls (Vollkorn Brötli). I started in that order as my calculation indicated that this would work with available space, bulk fermentation, proof and oven times. This morning I finished the Multi Grain Rolls as I retarded fermentation of the dough in the fridge, this retardation ads to the tremendous flavor of this rolls.

These rolls are the favorite of my wife and developing the formula took some time. I’m very happy with the result and I have to make sure there is always a batch in the freezer for Sylvia’s lunch sandwich. I also believe that the rye sourdough starter (St.Clair) I got from Mark Sinclair at the Back Home Bakery in Montana gave the rolls the additional flavor and that “something special”.

Listen how they are “singing” when they come out of the oven

Thomas

And here you can find the formula, give it a try and leave some comment to let me know who it went.

Printable version as PDF file for your recipe folder: Multi Grain Rolls PDF

Printable version as XPS file for your recipe folder: Multi Grain Rolls XPS

Zip file to download spreadsheet: Multi Grain Rolls Zip

And here some tips on the process: The St.Clair Process

Bald Eagle, the King of the Skies

Thomas Weber — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:05:07 +0000

During my recent Wisconsin/Cabin/Hunting extravaganza Sylvia was visiting for two days. We both love the outdoors and try to spend as much time together up north as we can. It is a four hours drive one way but she can still recover a little bit from her rather demanding job at Tom’s (Here is the Website). The annual Fall Festival just started there and even though the economy is still not recovering as fast as we all would like and hope Tom’s business model seems to be recession proof, which is of course a very good thing.

As usual when she arrives we go first up to our ridge to check how well the crop of our new organic farmer Chris is doing but also enjoying the views and solitude, relishing the deep impression the landscape of the Driftless Area (Look it up) has on us. The fall colors just started, the leaves are turning from dark green over yellow to bright red or brown. Even with a cloudy day you marvel at the woods and just get an idea how bright and colorful it will be when the sun is shining again.

In one corner of our land we have an outstanding huge dead tree overseeing the scenic West Fork Kickapoo Valley. We always have a lot of large birds like crows or Turkey Vultures in this tree, but this time it was a beautiful, probably still young, Bald Eagle kinglike controlling the valley and on the outlook for prey. He gave us an opportunity to take a couple of pictures and a little video we would like to share here. Have fun and leave your comments.

Thomas

The Simple Things

Thomas Weber — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:13:39 +0000

I was ready to leave for our hideout in Wisconsin when I realized that I forgot to prepare bread to take with me. Now a week without my bread was not an option. I decided to (mis)use my rye sourdough starter St.Clair, just refreshed two days ago, and mix some dough together for my simple sourdough bread, take this dough with me and bake it in the cabin. To make the story short, I overestimated the strength of this Montana baby and the bread came out as a brick. Not too happy, I was still without bread, I looked at my options. What I found was a plastic bowl, 2 lb or 907 grams of Gold Medal AP flour, of course bleached etc., a package of active dry yeast and salt.

Well that should be enough to create a cabin bread. I mixed all the ingredients together in the bowl, measured the water with the empty root beer bottle (591ml) and stirred it together for a 65% hydrated dough. I took it out of the bowl and slapped and stretched it (Méthode Bertinet) till it was a nice and firm dough. After an hour I stretched and folded (s&f) it once like Mark Sinclair (Méthode St.Clair) and then left it alone for 3 hours (had to go hunting).

The cabin temperature was only 60°F so it worked out well and after this time the dough was ready for another s&f. In the meantime I heated the cabin to its normal 70ºF and after another hour, a s&f I shaped it into two loafs, let it proof for 30 min and put them in the 30 year old oven at 450ºF (more or less?). I added a little bit of water, I was afraid to much would kill

this oldie, for steam, and 35 min later, tadaaa I had my simple cabin bread.

A little bit under proofed but ………… and was it good.

Und die Moral der Geschichte: sometimes simple things taste as good as the complicated stuff and of course I will not take bread with me from home anymore when I go up north.

Thomas

Zopf the American Way

Thomas Weber — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:19:52 +0000

Zopf is the favorite bread of my younger son,

so he was very supportive of the idea to do some testing to adapt the recipe, make it better and easier to assemble the dough. He promised his friends in school to bring an entire loaf for lunch and that this bread would beat every other dad’s bread. I don’t know how many other dads of his friends are baking, but I like that it is embedded in him that not only moms are baking and cooking.

The page is here: Zopf Recipe go check it out and leave us a comment.

Thomas