Baking Master Class - From Pizzadough to Sourdough Bread

Maritozzi Horsies My girlfriend likes horses, and pastry. So naturally, she sent me a short some day, where someone baked horses based on cream and sweet yeast buns. I blatantly stole the idea and reverse engineered the recipe for myself. If you also have a partner/child whoever that likes horses, I can only recommend 😊. The buns are basically maritozzi, which are Italian cream filled, sweet yeast buns with a touch of lemon. If you want a little less work, you can of course leave the horse stuff and enjoy easy-to-make, delicious maritozzi. But it’s the year of the horse so don’t be lazy and embarrass yourself 😊. The maritozzi recipe itself I had from this page: www.einfachbacken.de/rezepte/maritozzi-rezept-wie-italien Dough: 450 g flour 50 g sugar 1 packet active dry yeast 1 tsp lemon zest 1 egg (size M) 60 ml oil 1 pinch of salt 250 ml milk, warm Egg Wash: 1 egg 1 tbsp heavy cream Some sugar Whipped Cream Filling: 400 ml heavy whipping cream 1.5 packets vanilla sugar 1 packet whip stabilizer (“Sahnesteif”) some lemon juice Decoration: Almonds (for the ears) Mocha beans (for the nostrils) White chocolate glaze (for the muzzle) Sugar eyes Icing (Lots of powdered sugar mixed with hot water until pasty, as glue for the eyes; reheat in the microwave briefly if necessary) “Choco Crossies” or anything similar for the mane Instructions: 1. Dough: Mix the dry ingredients, add the remaining ingredients, and knead with dough hooks or by hand for 3 minutes. Let the dough rise for 45 minutes. Add a little more flour if necessary so that it is easy to work with (I placed the bowl into a bigger bowl acting as a warm water bath; the dough didn't quite double in size, but that’s fine). 2. After 45 minutes, shape 9–10 rolls and let them rest on a baking sheet for 15 minutes. 3. Brush with the egg wash for brown colour and bake in a convection oven at 160°C for about 18–20 minutes until golden brown (if necessary, move to the top rack toward the end for better browning). 4. Cut the rolls almost all the way through the middle and let them cool completely. If still warm, the whipped cream will melt when applied. Also it may be helpful to cut a v-shape, to help the cream stay in place 5. Brush the lower half of the cut with the white chocolate glaze and let it cool. 6. Pierce small slits for the nostrils and ears and attach the decorations. 7. Finally, pipe in the whipped cream filling using a piping bag.

Woiknorze (my fellow countrymen know what's up) are a savory/spiced rye-wheat roll from the German Palatinate region (Pfalz), often munched during the brakes in between the grape harvest...preferably topped with a thick layer of homemade sausage paste (Hausmacher) or cheese. There are several fundamentally different recipes online. This one is adapted from evchenkocht.de (evchenkocht.de/pfaelzer-woiknorze-mit-rettich-butter/). If there are any experienced rye flour bakers out there, I’d appreciate some feedback on my notes. Thanks in advance! Ingredients Pre-ferment / Poolish: 200 g Bread flour / Wheat flour (German type 550) 8 g Baking malt 30 g Yogurt 3 g Fresh yeast 280 g Water, lukewarm Main dough: 100 g High-protein wheat flour / Medium rye/wheat flour (German type 1050) 100 g Whole grain rye flour 10 g Salt ⅔ tbsp Roasted, crushed caraway seeds ⅔ tbsp Roasted, crushed fennel seeds Topping: Roasted caraway seeds Roasted fennel seeds Coarse salt 1. Dry-roast the caraway and fennel seeds without fat. Crudely crush ⅔ of the seeds using a mortar and pestle. Set the remaining whole seeds aside for the topping later. 2. Mix the pre-ferment and let it rise at room temperature for 3–4 hours until clear bubbles form. 3. Add the remaining main dough ingredients and knead for 5–10 minutes. 4. Let the dough rise in the refrigerator for another 3 hours until it has roughly doubled in size. 5. Preheat the oven to 230 °C and shape into oblong rolls (handle as gently/knead as little as possible); place shaped dough pieces onto parchment paper. Sprinkle with the reserved seeds and a bit of coarse salt. 6. Transfer the dough pieces onto a hot baking tray and bake at 230 °C convection. After about 10 minutes, add boiling water to a tray at the bottom to create steam. Bake until the rolls have risen well and turned golden brown on top. 7. Let the rolls cool down completely before eating. Notes (Feedback, explanations, and advice welcome!): Hydration: I went with 70% hydration, plus whatever moisture the 30 g of yogurt adds. This felt like a good compromise because the Woiknorze I remember aren't super open-crumbed/airy, but on the other hand, there's a lot of whole grain in here, which should bind a lot of water (did I get that right?). This was my first attempt at baking with rye flour. The original recipe uses buttermilk instead of water—I assumed to create an acidic environment to keep the amylase activity low? I tried to achieve this here by adding a bit of yogurt and using a pre-ferment. Texture: Still, the interior (crumb) of my rolls felt a bit heavy Proofing Speed: The cold proof in the fridge was actually meant to be overnight—I didn't expect the dough to rise so quickly with just 3 g of yeast. Final Proof: I originally intended to give the shaped rolls a second proof for about 30 minutes (as described in the original recipe), but I preheated the oven too early and thought "screw it :/" Maybe they would have turned out a bit fluffier if I hadn't skipped that step? Unfortunately, my oven delivers 230 °C at best. Maybe a bit more heat could solve a lot of problems too.

My latest try of Sfincione pizza (Sardinian pizza bread) Use pizza flour (00 type, high protein) - few yeast - 80% hydration - predough fermented 24h - almost no salt in predough - lots of olive oil - dough is pretty "fluid", similar to Focaccia, but should be less - add semolina and 1/4 of rest flour at last step of fermentation, let rest another 12 hours Sauce with a mixture of tomatoes, olives, diced onion, anchovies and/or capperi, little parmegiano or pecorino - only few mozzarella on top, if any. Paprika optional. Sardinia was poor, a d this this pizza variant is simple. It's more close to what many people do as a home-pizza than what is commonly understood as pizza. Bake on a form and at much lower temperature for longer. It should rise to about 4-5 cm. Stays fresh for 2-3 days and is more delicious cold (in my opinion)