Tag Archives: Rarotonga
Bread and Roof over the head
My Darling,
things are going rather well at the moment. Your wonderful mum is giving you all the nutrition you need, both your parents love you very much (well that is a constant), you are growing and you are so very beutiful and well behaved.
If one day maybe things become a little tight at least daddy now knows how to make bread. Maybe you already got accustomed to the lovely nurturing smell of yeast and baking today. It will always remind me of my grandfather when he came back from the POW camp and told my granny, never mind us having lost everything material, at least i know how to make bread. And bread and cakes and sweets he made much to my and my fellow grandchildren’s delight!
Ingredients:
- 500 grams of flour, sifted. Can contain up to two thirds of sifted wholegrain wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 2 heaped teaspoons of dry yeast
- 340 ml luke warm water (below 40 degrees celsius)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- Sift the flour into a plastic bowl and fold in the salt, do not add whole meal husks or any grains yet!
- form a crater for the yest mixture in the middle of the flour and compact then run your finger around the rim to form a moat for the oil
- dissolve the sugar in the luke warm water then add the dry yeast and whisk a few times until fully dissolved and let stand for one minute
- pour the oil into the moat around the flour
- carefully pour the yeast mixture into the crater
- start mixing with a powerful mixer with kneading hooks starting from the crater and working more and more flour into the mix before reaching the oil
- keep kneading until all water and oil have been picked up and all is well mixed, then add your wholemeal husks and extra grains such as poppyseeds, oats, lintseeds, sesame seeds.
- keep kneading until you have a smooth but sticky mixture, make sure to pick up loose flour and flakes of oil/flour mixture and incorporate, take care not to get the mixer stuck as this may destroy anything but the most industrial grade appliances. Usual mixing time about 3 minutes
- When finished mixing, sift some flour over the batter and cover with towel and let rise for 45 minutes in a warm place. In the tropics it suffices to make sure there is no draft.
- after about 45 minutes rising fire up the oven (our oven is digital, it only knows ON and OFF) and place a tin with approx. half a liter of water in the bottom. This will prevent the bread from become dry and hard
- uncover batter which by know should have doubled in volume and will deflate upon touching with your well floured hands. Form two loaves on board covered with flour and keep covering hands and loaves with flour until finished shaping.
- sift some flour on tin and place loaves on it, approx. 2 inches apart as they will rise again
- leave tin with loaves on top of oven where it should now be nice and warm, let sit for another 10 minutes then cut a lengthwise slit into the loaves and brush the gash with oil.
- Put tin with loaves into oven which by now should have reached its maximum temperature
- bake for approx. 30 minutes or until it looks done and the stick test comes back negative. Feel free to brush with water 2 or three times during baking and at the end of the baking process.
- let cool on rack
- enjoy
—-GERMAN—–
500 g | Mehl |
1 Würfel | Hefe |
340 ml | Wasser, lauwarmes |
1 TL | Zucker |
2 TL | Salz |
3 EL | Olivenöl |
n. B. | Körner |
Zubereitung
Mehl und Salz in einer Schüssel verrühren. Die Hefe im lauwarmen Wasser auflösen und den Zucker unterrühren. Eine Vertiefung in das Mehl drücken und das Olivenöl auf den Rand geben. Die Hefe-Zucker-Wasser-Masse in die Mulde gießen und alles mit dem Rührgerät kneten, bis ein gleichmäßiger Teig entstanden ist. Der Teig kann ruhig etwas klebrig sein. Zur Weiterverarbeitung von außen mit Mehl bestäuben. Den Teig ca. 45 Minuten gehen lassen.
Den Teig noch einmal gut durchkneten und 8-10 Brötchen formen. Die Brötchen im Backofen bei 50 Grad ca. 10 Minuten gehen lassen. Eine feuerfeste Schüssel mit Wasser in den Backofen stellen, die Brötchen mit Wasser bestreichen und den Ofen auf 230 Grad heizen. Die Brötchen einschieben und backen, bis sie anfangen braun zu werden. Wer die Kruste gerne etwas weicher hat, kann die Brötchen während des Backens und vor dem Abkühlen erneut mit Wasser bestreichen.
Bei Vollkornbrötchen kann man z.B. 340 g Weizenmehl (Typ 1050) und 160 g Roggenmehl verwenden und die Brötchen nach der ersten Ruhezeit mit Körnern mischen und nach Belieben auch bestreuen.
before
it’s the last week my little one. I haven’t written anything for quite a while. i have problems writing. So much was hapening and then, just one thing made it impossible for me to write anything. writers’ block? Perhaps?
i meant to write about your family a bit. you have now gorgeous little garments, your family, mainly grandma and aunty I think, spoiled you so much, you lucky girl. Now you better be a girl because as a boy you will not look just as handsome in little pink French pantaloons and dresses:) the girls got carried away once they heard the second confirmation that you are a girl. /all sort of girly frills and soft pink clothes arrived recently from Berlin.
Marcus still has a fair amount of work and when he doesn’t we spend every single moment together. Every moment is a joy and fulfillment. We talked about some creative project and I enjoyed it and found his input really great. I am learning from him about local politics, the way society functions, benefit from his deep knowledge of Cook Islands last 10 years history. It’s a pitty that this country, so small and with every possibility to govern itself in an, honest, transparent, effective way, possibly capable of initiating something really grand like new emerging system ,an alternative to overprised democracy, does not take full advantage of this almost perfect conditions. Maybe one day… Me and Marcus can only see things but we do not have enough cultural background to know the best solutions even if some changes required seem so obvious the change has to be born here not introduced from elsewhere. Maybe you or someone like you, local but with a view from outside would be this change…
I hope you will be a curious little girl. Never stop asking questions and trying to find out. Easy to say for the parents of today who can always tell their children google knows all the answers. When I was growing up and adults could not answer all my questions, the only way to find out was to make a journey to the library and spend hours searching the books.
We talked a lot also about our childhood and upbringing. Looks like your dad was far more lucky in so many ways. What prompted this conversation was his concern about his Nana. She is 93 now and caught pneumonia which is serious especially in this age. It’s so difficult for a woman to see her man upset and worried. He said it would be difficult to talk to her on the phone so I suggested he writes a letter to her, the older people are used to receiving letters. I thought she should know how much she means to Marcus and how much he would like me and you little one to meet his grandma. nana is lucky to reach such a beautiful age but she has still some things in there she should wait for. I understand Marcus is really close to her heart and so to know him a man, a man fulfilled and in love, with his wife on his side and their daughter in his arms, to know the biggest change in his life, the strongest feelings in his heart… perhaps would add to her will to fight on, will be motivation to wait. to join in his happiness…
I once tried to find this motivation for my grandmother. She was dying an aweful death.. I knew she was still worried though that she was leaving me alone, in her world the girls married in their early twenties, she looked differently at those things. So I thought I would give her a reason, a reason to survive, to wait. I got engaged with my then boyfriend thinking she would want to see me in a white dress walking the aisle, that her dream, now that I was giving it to her she would not leave me..
The problem was my Little one, that I did not think about one issue. That was not real. It was not the real happiness she would be sharing with me, it was like connecting someone to the life supporting machine instead of giving them an excitment of real life. I did not think of my own happiness then, did not question if that decision was right or wring. Frank was a nice sweet guy but not the love of my life. If only I was in ;love then like I am now, if only I knew Marcus, this would have been the real thing worth waiting for…
So Marcus got it right and we can only hope that maybe his Nana will find a strength in her to share in his happiness and love, in any case though she now knows, she knows both how much she meant in his life and how much of her he will carry in him and that he now finally met someone he wants to spend his life with, not to save her, not to please her, but because he is now sure for the first time in his life he loves someone. And soon there will be someone else to love and care for, someone who will bring him joy and pride, hopefully little one. Your dad deserves to be proud of you and just always do your best and he always will.
So hurry up now, there is many people out there excited about your arrival, impatient to see you, waiting to have you in their arms. There is so many people we want you to know Baby girl.
And really you are getting to big in there, even though everyone is surprised or even shocked you are due in this week, not believing you just sit there in what they consider to be a little bump or even “the smallest cutest bump they’ve ever seen” for mam it is extra 12.5 kg and I have no idea you stick out so much, last night i burned my tummy leaning to reach for the pot in the back and bumping into the hot pot in front. I seriously did not realise or did not get used to yet having so much in front of me. Dad kissed it better but you know, since i did not get used to it by now then no chance i will so …we are ready, ready and excited. Are you?