I haven’t been showing a lot of my sourdough bread baking lately, but here is a (green!) bread that I made this week: Green Olive and Rosemary Focaccia. I think that Alice (Alice in Wondoughland) was a little tired, because it didn’t rise nearly as much as I had hoped, but it still tasted delicious. I am a huge fan of olives though generally prefer black over green. These were bright and briney and with a little extra olive oil, the bread was great.
It wouldn’t be Easter if I didn’t make some variation on the Hot Cross Bun. Everyone has their own, there are literally thousands of styles, combinations and variations. This year, I went for the somewhat rustic Cranberry Walnut Whole Wheat Sourdough Hot Cross Buns version. It’s an enriched sweet (but not too sweet) sourdough brioche dough, fruit and nuts added. Eat with sweet jam or honey or make into a bacon sandwich. nom nom nom.
These are Maple Bacon Cheddar Biscuits… a little sweet, a little savory, cheesy, bacon-y… which is to say that they are perfect for a breakfast sandwich or as an accompaniment to savory things like soups and chowders too. I like that neither the bacon nor the maple syrup are too overwhelming. The sharp cheddar is just right too.
Just seems like a week ago when I drove from Munich to Innsbruck to have “homeland” Apple Strudel. Oh wait, that was just last week!
If you follow me on social media, you know that almost every time I am in Munich, a friend of mine and I do this crazy drive just for a piece of strudel, aka The Strudel Run. Sometimes in addition to Austria, we end up in Italy or Lichtenstein or Switzerland, but it’s always an adventure. Often, you’ll see that I hashtag my posts with #bergblicksteuer, and I suppose I should actually explain that so here goes: “Berg Blick Steuer” translates to “Mountain View Tax”. A number of years ago, on a Christmas Strudel Run with some additional adventurers, the topic of conversation was “Taxes that Germans Pay, that others don’t” — examples are Kirchensteuer (Church Tax), Luftsteuer (literally, “Air Tax”; a commercial tax if a sign extends into public space off your property), Hundesteuer or even Pferdesteuer (Dog or Horse Tax — we would call those permits or registration fees, but not taxes). Anyway, when the view of the mountains came into sight, someone made the off-handed comment like “Well, I see that we paid the Mountain View Tax”, and #bergblicksteuer became a thing.
Train of thought: Strudel > Strudel Run > View of the Alps > Berg Blick Steuer!
This is a pretty straight forward recipe, easy to make because I used store bought puff pastry. The recipe is actually for two strudels, but you can either halve the filling recipe, or make both and freeze one of the strudels (they freeze really well; reheat from frozen loosely wrapped in foil for 25 minutes at 350F). Or just eat both. They are delicious with vanilla custard sauce (my favorite), ice cream or whipped cream.