Germany on my mind today as I watch with grave concern the flooding and devastation. It’s not the region of Germany where I have a lot of family (though my father’s side is closer, mother’s side is from the south — and not to worry, all family and friends are accounted for and well). And, I had to feed the sourdough starter and was feeling particularly German, so I made this Mandel-Rosienenzopf. Roughly, it’s a Challah style bread, most commonly called a Hefezopf of Hefekranz, but seeing I wasn’t using Hefe (yeast), I couldn’t very well call it either of that, so I went with Raisin and Almond Challah. It’s light and got a bit of a chew on the inside and is very flavorful. It reminds me of my Oma, who used to dunk it in her milk coffee.
fruits-and-berries
Mandel-Rosinenzopf (Saurteig) /
So many people only associate rhubarb with strawberries. I am here to prove that differently. Because rhubarb is an early summer harvest, and the cherry crop becomes ripe, at least around here, not too long after, I decided to combine those two fruits/veg and made some lovely and simple rhubarb-cherry compote. Add it to my usual crumble bars and you have a lovely, juicy, sweet-and-a-little-tart, handheld dessert or snack.
Sometimes, I like to see just how much flavor that I can squeeze into a recipe and I think that I may have done the maximum with these Lemon Explosion Cookies. In these crispy chip drop cookies we have the world famous Kind Arthur Baking lemon chips, zest from a couple of lemons, lemon extract and just to top it all off, lemon sugar (also from King Arthur). There is lemon on lemon on lemon and boy, are they good. Cookies that define summer sun!
The weekly sourdough! Another “new-to-me” bread (though I had made it as a yeasted bread before): Sourdough Marathon Bread. Why is it called Marathon Bread? Well, other than it being chock full of good for you stuff, thus, likely a good way to carb-load for a marathon, I don’t have a good, specific answer. It does have grated carrots and finely chopped dried fruit (I used dried apricots but you can use anything that you like), plus sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Healthy, yummy, great as a breakfast bread and keeps you going all day with sustenance. I’ll definitely make it again (but with raisins or cranberries, I think)












