Raspberry Muesli Buns

This is a post that has been 'hanging around' into the depths of my drafts for a while. I don't know why - I loved the outcome of my own creation and the pictures that I took, especially because I could share a story with it. So that's what I am going to do with you now.

I love milk rolls - or sweet buns. It's a sweet childhood memory, eating them (still warm) fresh from the bakery around the corner with some butter (and jam) and with a cup of hot chocolate. Or just plain as they were as a sweet treat in between. While I was studying in the north of Germany, this was the first thing I always got when coming home, because I missed them so much. The bakeries in the north always baked them with raisins - and I hate raisins. Unfortunately I never managed to bake them on my own, they always would get a hard tasteless mess - I have to mention that during that time I still suffered from my fear of making dough with yeast. Years later I did overcome that fear thanks to the challenges of The Daring Kitchen. But trying those sweet buns again never came to my mind again because they were easily availiable here and I didn't have that craving for them anymore...

... until I read the 2012 March/April Issue of the Jamie Oliver Magazine. It contained a feature about sweet buns (British bun recipes, of course) and this feature ignited my love for sweet buns again. Was I willing to try to bake some again, after failing so many times before? I definitively was! And as I had an obsession with raspberries and muesli at the same time (it was raspberry season), I decided to combine everything together. I took the recipe of the Chelsea buns and adapted it to my needs. I loved the outcome - I wonder why I didn't bake them again ever since ...

Richard Bertinet: Brot für Genießer/Contemporary Bread

Well, bread baking is easy as pie. Just buy this book and try. Some of the recipes are more complicated thatn others, but every information you need to be successfull you find in here. It's divided into a general part (all about bread baking, techniques, ingredients and equipment needed) and several chapters with different bread recipes originating from a specific dough, for example white bread dough, sweet dough, olive oil dough. The first recipe of the chapter is the basic dough, and the following recipes are variations of it (and they are definitively not boring). There are also some fancy ones like edible soup bowl.

The pictures are great - I usually get in the mood for bread baking just when I'm looking at them.

Recipes I've made so far and can recommend:

• lemon rols
• bread shots
• baguette
• tomato, garlic & basil bread
• sesame plats
• walnut bread
• Somerset Cider Bread
• Pain Viennos

Brot backen fand ich immer etwas schwierig, und anfangs wollte mir keins so richtig gelingen. Aber Backmischungen in den Brotbackautomaten werfen wollte ich auch nicht mehr, das schmeckte mir dann doch zu chemisch. Dann entdeckte ich dieses Buch - zuerst bei einem Freund im Bücherregal - und beschloß es mir dann selbst zuzulegen. Die Rezepte sind simpel aber dennoch raffiniert, so dass keine Ängste bezüglich ausprobieren aufkommen. Ich habe zum Beispiel noch "The Bread Bakers Apprentice", welches ich aber dann schon nur für Fortgeschrittene empfehlen würde, da manche Rezeptanweisungen in Länge und Komplexität abschreckend wirken. 

Ganz anders ist es mit diesem Buch. Nach einem allgemeinen Teil über Aussstattung, Grundlagen und Technik folgen die einzelnen Kapitel mit den jeweiligen Teigsorten. Am Anfang wird immer der Grundteig vorgestellt, dann folgen dessen Variationen. Einige originelle Ideen wie zB essbare Suppenschalen sind auch dabei. Alles in allem ein schönes Buch für Brotback-Anfänger mit vielseitigen Rezepten, ich kann es nur empfehlen!

Rezepte die ich schon ausprobiert habe und empfehlen kann:

• Zitronenbrötchen
• gefüllte Brotkugeln
• Baguette
• gefüllte Brottaschen mit Tomaten, Knoblauch und Basilikum
• Sesamzöpfchen
• Walnuß-Brotring
• Roggenbrot mit Cider
• Wiener Brot

Fridays with Beatrice: Banana, Chocolate and Hazelnut Muffins

I confess: It's not friday. It's the last day of the year, and I feel obliged to post one more time this year. To be honest - those muffins were baked over a week ago; and I took several pictures of our christmas dinner or the cookies I baked. But when it comes to posting I just stare at the display and feel empty - it's not just my blog, all my other internet activities have decreased. I am kind of hibernating I would say.

So I am glad Lena is kind to adhere herself to my (pregnancy related) dietary restriction too - she chose something sweet again, banana, chocolate and hazelnut muffins. Normally I am not a friend of baked goods containing mashed bananas because I think they start to smell kind musty of after a day. But this recipe was different, and the muffins didn't survive to that smelly point. We ate some right from the oven - couldn't resist the soft inside and kind of crispy outside. So if I ever want to make banana muffins again, this is the recipe - forget the rest!

Roundup: THE banana muffin recipe.

Fridays with Beatrice: Millet, oat and apple muffins

This time it was my turn to choose a recipe again, and because I'm limited right now concerning ingredients, I picked a plain & simple muffins recipe. Unfortunately nearly all the recipes I'd like to cook in this book contain ingredients I should'nt eat at the moment, like peas, lentils or cabbage-like vegetables ...

 

Like Lena said in her post, the muffins didn't taste anything special. I liked the idea of using tahini instead of just oil or just butter; and I think I could taste a hint of that when eating the muffins. Because of the tahini and the millet flour they had a very nutty taste. My muffins were moist (just how I like them), but just because I may have used a little bit more apples than recommended. Unfortunately you couldn't taste the apples (which were handplucked from a tree in the garden of my hubby's grandparents). At least the muffins were really satiably, so if I would have children in school age and wanted to provide them with a healthy snack, this muffin would definitively be my choice.

Roundup: Healthy satiable snack for in between, but no fancy or extraordinary treat I would serve at the coffee table.

Fridays with Beatrice - Chocolate and plum almond cake

This time Lena chose this fabulous cake. I love plums, especially in combination with cinnamon, so I was eager to bake it. I wasn't sure about the chocolate flavour together with the plums, especially because the recipe suggests chocolate with 60% cocoa but it turned out to be fine. 

This time I sticked 100% percent to the recipe for a very simple reason - I had all ingredients availiable. The cake is baked with almond and amaranth flour instead of wheat flour. The texture feels therefore softer and lighter (for my taste). The plums are cooked with butter, sugar and cinnamon before added to the cake and to be honest - I could have eaten them right away from the pan and just a few would have made it into the cake. Bea suggests you can use other fruits for example nectarines too, but trust me, the one with plums will blow you away. Unfortunately the cake was mostly gone before I could eat it because someone else in this household though it was delicious ...

Roundup: Light and soft cake with a delicious flavour combination. A recipe which has to be added to the basic repertoire of baking recipes.

Daring Bakers August Challenge: Filled Pate au Choux Swans

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

Today I'm just leaving a small note: I haven't been in the mood lately for some kind of baking or cooking, that's the reason I skipped the last month's challenges. My thoughts got distracted lately by something (or better someone) else ...

The swans were easy (as promised) and it was a quick challenge - so you should really give it a try (like Kat says).

Fridays with Beatrice: Basil-flavoured zucchini and Comté muffins

This time, it was my turn again. I have been waiting long to propose this recipe, but now there is zucchini season, it was just right. I love savoury muffins - long time ago I made pizza-style ones which were great, but after that I didn't find recipes that seemed healthy enough (containing just loads of cheese or bacon). This recipe is a gluten-free one, but as I had no amaranth flour, I hat to use wheat flour. For grating the zucchini I used my microplane grate which gave a great result. Unfortunately I couldn't find Comté, so I used Emmentaler.

 

 

My brother promised me some fresh zucchini from his garden - and I was given four huge 'things' (two yellow and two green zucchinis), each weighing about 800 to 1000 g. As I only need 300g for this recipe, I guess there will bei made a lot more batches of those muffins during the next days.
The muffins were really moist (as they are supposed to be) and had a nutty taste (thanks to the hazelnuts and the millet flour). As Lena states in her post, there is some salt missing - I used about a teaspoon but that wasn't enough. I think that is the reason the intensity of the basil and cheese flavour was low. Maybe a more aromatic (and saltier) ham like Pancetta could solve that problem - I will try that with the next batch. The nuts were a nice addition, but are not really necessary for my taste.
As the muffins came out of the oven, I was quite hungry. So I ate three of them before they were cooled. Afterwards I was stuffed - in a good way ;-)

 

Roundup: Savoury muffin with potential, especially for a regular brunch snack.

Foodie Month: June 2012

This month, I have been busier again. I recognised I like to cook things from the current Jamie Magazine Issues and 'reinvent' older recipes I cooked before. 

Diesen Monat war ich wieder etwas fleißiger - im Moment koche ich am liebsten Rezepte ause den aktuellen Jamie Magazinen oder 'erfinde' alte Rezepte neu.

Magazine Mondays

Pasta Rodeo - recipe from 'LECKER Trattoria' (original by Vapiano)

Pappardelle with Oxtail sauce - inspired by a recipe from the German Jamie Magazine  (Issue 3, May/June 2012)

Baking Tuesdays

Raspberry Muesli Buns - Baking Tuesdays - recipe adapted from the Jamie Magazine (Issue 27 March/April 2012) - post about my version will follow

Daring Bakers June Challenge: Battenberg Cake

Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

"This cake has far grander beginnings than tea with teddy. It was actually created as a wedding cake for royalty. The first Battenberg cake was made to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria, to husband Prince Louis of Battenberg. It’s traditionally flavoured with almond and has the signature Battenberg markings, that is, the yellow and pink squares (said to represent the four princes of Battenberg). The strips of sponge are glued together using jam (normally apricot) and the whole cake is covered in marzipan. Sometimes the edges are crimped and the top is patterned with a knife."

I chose a recipe given in the challenge PDF - the Coffee and Walnut Battenberg. The principle how you do this is easy - bake the sponge, 'glue' it together with the coffee buttercream and cover with marzipan. Mandy provides lots of pictures how to do it right (just have a look at her blog) and even recipes for modelling chocolate if you don't like marzipan. I was in a hurry to get done with this, and marzipan was the fastest thing of all (otherwise I would have tried to use white modelling chocolate). 

As I didn't have a special Battenberg tin, I baked two flat rectangle cake sponges, cut them into eight cubic stripes each and assembled 'four in one'. It looked really nice but boy - there were loads of sugar and calories on that plate in the end ...

 

Daring Bakers May Challenge: Honey & Apple Challah

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

You won't get anything special this month, because I used a already-exsisting recipe. I made exactly the same recipe some time ago when we visited my mother-in-law, and I remembered it instantly when I read the challenge. Despite of some minor changes, I kept to the recipe; and the tutorial which comes with it is really good, so I don't want to post it again (because I coulnd't have done better). It's from one of my favourite food blogs Smitten kitchen written by the ingenious Deb Perelman. She has got  a cooking book in the line (coming out soon) which I will definitively buy.

This time, I got a really soft and tasty dough (thanks to my changes I guess) compared to the last one I made. 

Honey & Apple Challah

My changes:

• added 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin spice mix (cinnamon and apples go really well together)
• used apple compote instead of the fresh apples and mixed it into the dough prior to rising

Foodie Month: May 2012

As I predicted, I got lazy really soon ... I nearly missed my goal for this month because all my weekends were crowded with work or events like a baptism, a congress or family matters; and the days in between were blurred by more work. So this are the results:

Magazine Mondays

Guiness & raspberry brownies (from the Jamie Magazine Issue March/April 2012)

Baking Tuesdays

Chocolaty Chocolate Mufins (from 'From my home to yours' by Dorie Greenspan)

Wednesdays with Jamie

Lentils with sausages & brokkoli (from the Jamie Magazine Issue March/April 2012)

Scandinavian Thursdays

Salad with thinnly sliced raw red beet, apple, horseradish; pickled herring, dill & sourcream

Fridays with Beatrice

Verrine nordique & Arugula risotto with basil and lemon

WWW-Weekends

Boeuf Bourgingnon (DCC) & Honey and Apple Challah (DBC)

Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte alias saftiger Brownie-Kirsch-Kuchen

Heute gibt es mal wieder einen Post auf Deutsch, und das aus gutem Grund - nämlich um die amerikanische Backkunst zu huldigen. Ich gebe zu, dass das Meiste einfach nur süß ist und unverschämt kalorienhaltig, aber die besten Backbücher finden sich immer noch in englischer Sprache. Seien es kunstvolle Desserts oder raffinierte Kuchenkreationen, meine Lieblingsrezept muss ich mir immer aus dem Englischen übersetzten und (leider auch die Zutatenmengen umrechnen). Bisher bin ich nicht enttäuscht worden, wenn ich eines dieser Rezepte ausprobiert habe, wobei ich in weiser Vorausicht immer die angegebene Zuckermenge reduziere (entweder nur 2/3 oder die Hälfte). Eines meiner Lieblingsbücher ist von Dorie Greenspan. Die Rezepte sind einfach und lassen sich (je nach vorhandenen Zutaten) leicht abwandeln; und ich möchte gerne wie hier alle einmal ausprobieren. Na ja, fast alle ...

Wer also des Englischen nicht so mächtig ist, dieses Buch leider nicht besitzt oder einfach zu faul, umzurechenen, dem möchte ich heute meine Variante der Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte ans Herz legen. Die Inspiration zu diesem Kuchen stammt laut Dorie von der (ur)deutschen Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, die ich nun überhaupt nicht mag. Dories Variante mit einem Brownie-Boden, darin Kirschen und der Mascarponecreme ist dagegen sehr gelungen, und als ich die Seite mit dem Rezept aufschlug, konnte ich mich sofort dafür begeistern (obwohl es auch kein Bild zu sehen gab). Der einzige Nachteil bestand darin, dass das Ganze Alkohol enthält. Da ich den Kuchen auf Arbeit mitnehmen wollte und einer meiner Kollegen keinen Alkohol trinkt, musste ich mir eine alkoholfreie Variante einfallen lassen. Das hieß auch auf den Vanilleextrakt verzichten, was dem Geschmack aber kein Nachteil war. Besagter Kollege hat dann ganz fleißig mindestens vier Stück verputzt, ein voller Erfolg also!

Foodie Month: April 2012

I started a new project in my cooking & baking life because I recognised some things lately:

First - I posted only Daring Bakers/Cooks Challenges the last months, but that is not the only thing I do in my kitchen. Of course I cannot share every recipe I make because there are people out there who make a living on saling recipes/cooking books, and I respect that. Therefor I want to share mouth-watering pictures of food for the ones who are interested. I do not cook or bake fancy stuff, so if I can do it, you can too. So I'll grab my camera whenever there is some light (left) and good looking & tasting food onto our plates and share. Maybe this will help you with decision in wether to buy a book or make a certain meal - I hope so!

Second - I confess I am addicted to cooking and baking books. Whenever there is a new one avialiable (preverably in English) I have to buy it. There are lying books and magazine all over our place - in the sleeping room, the bathroom, the living room and (of course) the kitchen. I like to read them, enjoy the pictures and the ideas which they give me to create own recipes. I pin them onto my refridgerator, my virtual pinboard and store them as pictures or pdfs on my smartphone (just in case I visit someone and need to bake or cook there - I am a little bit obsessed ...). Unfortunately some of the books are living a dire existence on their shelves,so I looked for a possibility to cook more often from them, a possibility to use all my resources and to get varied meals throuout the week. Our 'schedule' has been a little bit boring the last time, and I often sighed while thinking about "what to buy" and "what to cook".

I gave every day of the week a topic, considering what kind of chefs (or food bloggers) I like most and what things I want to try or practice more. The goal is to complete one recipe per day/topic which means share 5 recipes/pictures. So here is the first month's roundup. I was really busy what happens often when I start something, so I hope I won't run out of steam when time passes.

Magazine Mondays

- recipes from all my magazines (no matter if baking or cooking) -

Cinnamon braised lamb shanks (Jamie Oliver Magazine Issue 27 March/April 2012)

Steak with Cajun rub ('Lust auf Genuss' April 2012 Issue)

Baking Tuesdays

- baked goods (cake, bread, muffins, cookies and so on) - 

Christopsomos (Greek Celebration Bread from "The Bread Baker's Apprentice, BBA Challenge)

• Cherry-fudge Brownie Torte  ("From my home to yours" by Dorie Greenspan, my adapted non-alcoholic version)

Povitica with raspberry curd and raspberries (recipe from the Daring Bakers October 2011 Challenge)

Wednesdays with Jamie

- recipes from my favourite chef (magazine recipes included) - 

• Dan Dan Noodles (my vegetarian version)

Scandinavian Thursdays

- Scandinavian recipes (preferably Norwegian dishes, savoury and sweet allowed) -

• Jansons fristelse (no picture/kein Bild)

Fridays with Beatrice

- recipes from my favourite food blogger (blog & book recipes) -

squash and potato crumble (recipe from the Boston Globe Food section)

• fennel and green pea soup

WWW-weekend

- recipes from the world wide web (favourites from epicurious, food blogs or The Daring Kitchen) -

• Mango curd mousse and strawberry cake (adapted recipe from Epicurious)
• Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Tsatsiki (recipe from Epicurious, original by Gourmet Magazine March 2009)

Mango curd mousse and strawberry cake

You know I love lemons - and I love lemon curd even more. Since I have discovered how to make this  goodie, I've made especially cake recipes containing it maybe a dozen times. For my birthday brunch I made an incredible lemon curd mousse cake (found at epicurious) I really fell in love with. I remembered you could make curd from other fruits too, for example mangos. So why don't make a mango curd mousse cake and pimp it with some strawberry flavour? For a nice look I placed the berries around the edge and slices on top and covered the whole thing with a mango jelly for more mango flavour. I didn't like the looks of the finished cake because some of the jelly was leaking out the springform pan, so make sure to seal everything tight with clingfilm. Next time I'll do better.

Strawberry season is approaching, so I may try a strawberry curd mousse cake soon ...

The Daring Bakers March Challenge - Dutch Crunch Bread Sandwiches

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

Sara grew up in the Bay Area, but was dismayed when she moved away for college that Dutch Crunch bread is not usually available outside of Northern California. For many folks from the Bay Area, a sandwich just isn’t complete without Dutch Crunch bread. Technically, Dutch Crunch doesn’t refer to the type of bread, but rather the topping that is spread over the bread before baking. In Dutch it’s called Tijgerbrood or “tiger bread” after the tiger-like shell on the bread when it comes out of the oven. The final product has a delightful sweet crunch to it that makes it perfect for a sandwich roll. It’s a common option at sandwich shops all over the Bay Area and is often one of the first breads to run out.

As I am in my 'bread-baking-mode' the last weeks, this was a great challenge for me. I used the opportunity and made a braided loaf with the dough - which you can't unfortunately see because of the topping (but it was a good exercise nevertheless). The bread was very versatile - I used it for sweet and savoury dishes and it stayed fresh for a very long time - even after 5 days it tasted like day one with the little help from a toaster. Just keep an eye on the topping when it's resting - because of the large amount of yeast it rises really quick and much, so you should use a large bowl to prevent dough disasters - just catched mine in time before it could ran over ...

The bigger slices were used to make the sanwiches and the smaller ones were used in a bread and butter pudding with raspberries like this one, I served it with vanilla sauce. Yummy! For the sandwich 'construction' I decided for warm ingredients. I love warm stuff for breakfast, especially fried eggs and goat cream cheese wrapped in bacon or ham. So why don't put that onto this crunchy bread? A fabulous treat I took to work for lunch (and which saved the day).

Sandwich of Dutch Crunch Bread with goat cream cheese in smoked ham, lamb's lettuce and blueberry-dressing

Sandwich of Dutch Crunch Bread with fried egg & shrimps, tomatoes and iceberg lettuce

Daring Bakers February Challenge: Quick Breads - Lemon Loaf with blueberries

The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lis stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

I was glad it was a quick and easy challenge this time. Because I am preparing for my birthday brunch there was not much time left for additional elaborate baking. At first I was a little bit confused - quick breads without yeast - sounded not tasty at all. But then I discovered the leaf recipes and was glad, especilly about the Meyer Lemon loaf one. I would love to use them, but they are not availiable in Germany, what a pity! I love lemon recipes and decided to add some fresh fruits to moisten it instead of brushing it with syrup (the recipes are often very sweet, so I already reduce the sugar content). The combination with blueberries is great as tested before. To get a similar taste to Meyer lemons, I used a mixture of lemon and orange zests and orange and lemon juice. The cake is my birthday cake for work, so I hope my colleagues will like it as I do.

Daring Bakers January Challenge - Scones

Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host.. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

The challenge scone (biscuit) recipe has been especially formulated by Audax Artifex after a large amount of research and experimentation. So if you want to make perfect scones, you should follow the link to his blog and read all the hints & tips he has been coming up with. I myself should have read them more accurately  because my scones were more flat discs than puffy and muffin-like. I guessed I patted them too flat and kneaded them a little bit too long. Resting into the fridge helped the raising process, thats the reason the walnut-gorgonzola ones are higher (they rested longer).

Nevertheless, the taste was great and the baked dough soft. I put them onto my to-do list for my next birthday lunch - a few batches more before should make a perfect result at the end ;)

My modifications were gorgonzola and walnuts for a more savoury and buttermild and passion fruit puree for a more sweet version.

Walnut-Gorgonzola Scones (front) and buttermilk-passion fruit Scones (back)

Halloween Special: "Gruselaugen" - Cupcakes

Es ist mal wieder soweit, Halloween steht vor der Tür. Nur mache ich mir überhaupt nichts aus Halloween, denn ich bin der Meinung man muss nicht jeden Feiertag eines anderes Landes übernehmen, nur weil man nicht genug eigene hat ... Kulinarisch sehe ich es natürlich etwas anders, und mir ist jede Gelegenheit recht, neue Rezept auszuprobieren. Als ich nun die Gelegenheit hatte, an gleich zwei Cupcake-Backwettbewerben teilzunehmen, konnte ich nicht widerstehen. Ob ich Lust habe? Aber sicher - nur Zeit ... eher weniger. Gerade weil ich wieder einmal arbeiten musste und erst wieder in letzter Minute darauf stieß. Einmal hatte mich Maria von Ich bin dann mal kurz in der Küche. eingeladen, und auch der nächste BackAthon stand vor der Tür. Also blieb mir nichts anderes übrig, als meinen Lieblingscupcake (Schoki mit Chai) mit einer grusligen Halloween-Dekoration zu kombinieren. Als Frosting musste es unbedingt etwas mir Kürbis sein, denn das passte sowohl zum Motto als auch zur Jahreszeit. Das Karamel konnte ich leider aus Dekorationsgründen nicht so üppig benutzen, aber wer es besonders süß mag, kann seine Cupcakes auch gerne damit füllen.

"Gruselaugen"-Cupcakes

Daring Bakers October Challenge: Povitica

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

Povitica (pronounced po-va-teet-sa) is traditional Eastern European dessert bread that is traditionally served during the holiday season. It is also known as Nutroll, Potica, Kalachi, Strudia, just to name a few. Family recipes, and the secrets on how to roll the bread so thin, was passed down through generations of families.The traditional filling for this bread is an English walnut filling, but other typical fillings also include apple/cinnamon, apricot preserves, and a sweet cheese (like cream cheese).

Spontaneously I remembered a bread I baked long time ago, during my study time, for a 'Polish evening' with some Polish students. It was a recipe from a Polish cookbook and called "poppy seeds strudel". I guess it was one of the traditional recipes mentioned above - and I liked it a lot. So I started this challenge enthusiasticly - and I went nuts (a little bit). 

I used the half batch recipe and made the first two small loaves for a birthday brunch we had, and filled one with butter, sugar and sinnamon and the other with my favourite selfmade strawberry & lime jam (with a whole glas of the asset of my last ressorts). The second batch I made for a family get-together with coffee and cake, and the fillings were the traditional nut filling (which was prefered by ma sister-in-law) and a poppy seed & curd cheese filling (which was prefered by my brother and my parents). 

I found out that the leftovers were the right thing for my sweet tooth. Slice for slice was wandering into my lunchbox every day ... I think I got addicted and have to make a bunch every week, so thanks for this great recipe!

Buchteln (alias Dampfnudeln) mit Pflaumenmusfüllung

Die Tage werden kürzer, das Wetter stürmischer und kälter, also genau richtig, um drinnen zu bleiben, die dicken Socken hervorzukramen und sich mit warmen Speisen zu verwöhnen. Das folgende Gericht ist einfach perfekt dazu - zwar habe ich es im heißesten Sommer gekocht und fotografiert (bei 28°C mache auch nur ich den Herd an ...), aber beim Anblick läuft mir schon wieder das Wasser im Mund zusammen. Hier in der Region sind Buchteln zwar als Dampfnudeln bekannt - zumindest wies es so immer der Essensplan der Schulspeisung aus - aber es ist die selbe Bezeichnung für eine ursprünglich aus dem Böhmischen stammende Mehlspeise. Mein Rezept ist aus einer Ausgabe der A la Carte "Das süße Wien" - einem Magazin welches ich bei meinem Besuch in Wien unbedingt kaufen musste. Wer sonst, wenn nicht die Wiener, verstehen sich auf solchen Süßkram am besten ... Ich habe noch eine Pflaumenmusfüllung 'ergänzt', aber es geht sicherlich auch jede andere Marmelade, wer möchte kann sie aber auch ganz 'pur' herstellen. Mit dem gemeinen Germknödel, der hier zu Lande in den Supermärkten feilgeboten wird, hat die Buchtel aber nichts zu tun, den der reichhaltige buttrige Teiggeschmack lässt sich gar nicht mit den geschmacklosen Luftschwämmen vergleichen ...