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Laminated bread is made by making a normal bun dough and then folding it in layers with butter in between. There are different ways to do this. Using croissants and other types of bread as examples I show here what results the different methods will yield. This should enable you to "understand" laminated bread instead of just following a recipe.
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Video recipe - Danish pastry is well known and well loved all over the world. And it is very good. But you can actually make your own danish that has an even higher quality that the one you can get from danish bakers. My father in law who is a skilled baker gave me this recipe. I have changed a few things in it though. His version used a special "folding margarine" I have replaced that with real butter, and that does wonder for the taste. But no matter what, it is difficult get a better cake than danish pastry. Which we incidently call "viennese bread" in Denmark :-S
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It's all bread that can be made from the same basic recipe. So here they are, all merged into one. it is based on my "classic french bread recipe". Not the best bread in the world, but very close to what you buy at most bakeries.
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Slowly fermented bread. The best bread I have ever encountered is amusingly enough also one of the simplest to bake. It doesn't require kneading and only very little handling. Usually less than 10 minutes. The only drawback is that it has to ferment for a long time, so the process can be difficult to get into a working day.
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When making varied and/or large quantities of bread the easiest way to write your recipes are as "bakers percentage". Where ingredients are measured in percents as compared to the total amount of flour. Understanding the bakers percentage also makes you a better baker because they help you understand the structure of different breads recipes instead of just memorising numbers.
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In general, home ovens have a lot of problems. Most of them can be addressed with a few tricks though. One of the best tricks is using a baking stone. You can buy baking stone in many places, but they are rarely optimal. So I made up some tricks myself and now I can bake bread with the best.
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This is undoubtedly the recipe I am most often pressured to make by my family. But that's easy to understand. Who does not like the classical cinnamon buns? This is a basic recipe, along with a few popular variations.
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Video Recipe - My favorite cake when it comes to danish pastry is the "Spandauer", or as they are known abroad "A Danish". This is how you can make them at home.
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The best pizza base with the large air holes in the crust and lots of flavor is undoubtedly the wet long-risen dough. It is also easy to make. Do not knead anything. But you need to start your day in advance if you need to reach it.
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Video recipe - Some of the most difficult types of bread to bake are those made of laminated dough. Also called a viennese dough here in Denmark. Amusingly it is called "Danish pastry" in most of the rest of the world. The ultimate challenge is the croissant. It is very honest and has no filling, no remonce, no glaze or other things that can hide one's flaws. There are many ways of doing it, with different amounts of "rolling-butter", number of butter layers etc. This recipe is the one I think is the best version for beginners and experienced bakers alike.
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Video Recipe - We knead bread for three reasons. The first is very simply to mix the ingredients together. The second is that the mixing promotes the formation of the gluten in the flour. It makes the dough more elastic. The third is to bootstrap the fermentation.
In this video I show a basic principle that can be used for any type of dough, and how to implement it for dough with different amounts of hydration.
I also demonstrate what gluten is, and what it does in a bread.
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The fermentation stage of the dough is the most important stage when making a good bread. But here are many different ways to do it right. Depending on what you want to achieve. There are also some tricks that can make you a better baker in general, when you know them.
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Bread can be divided into several categories. As soon as you know them, it's easy to see a new recipe and say "ah that's this kind of bread." Which makes it easier to adapt any recipe for your own taste.
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Some times the fermentation times in your recipe just doesn't fit with the schedule you have for the day. Wouldn't it be nice to know how to change the times then? As a rule, I would also like to use as little yeast as possible when I bake, but it must also fit into everyday life. So it'd be nice to be able to change fermentation times by adding more or less yeast. I have had some difficulty finding the exact info on what influence the yeast have on the fermentation times, also in relation to how much fluid there is in the dough. So here's a little biology report with my own experiments. And with lots of videos of dough that rises:-S I'm sure this article is the most geeky I have ever made ... but I was curious.
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When we bake any bread it goes through 12 stages every time. All right. it's not all twelve stages that are equally important in all kinds of bread. But once you know the 12 stages, and the classification of bread, you will find it less confusing to read the directions in bread recipes. If you will need to read the directions at all.
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In Denmark, like many places in the world, pizza has become one of the most common dishes to eat. There are a myriad of ways to make them, and they are actually all correct. My favorite however is absolutely a thin crust Margherita with homemade tomato sauce, basil and buffalo mozzarella ... and then maybe just a little meat ... and then just a little onion ... and perhaps ...
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In many recipes the measurements are volumetric. Such as Liters, milliliters, cups, quarts etc. Rather than in weight measurements such as kg, gram, lbs and oz. If you know the recipe, or is somebody who does not have a weight, it's a fine shortcut to do it this way. But it is not without problems using volumetric measurements of flour instead of weight. Here I show why.
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Video recipe - it is well known that we danes have a hampering for danish pastry. Even our breakfast bread is often made from this. There is the classic "poppy" (birkes) that is a non sweet danish pastry with a load of poppy seed on top. Hence the name. And there is the "copenhagen poppy / tea poppy" where the pastry is a bit sweeter and there is almond remonce for filling. It is not quite a cake and not quite a breakfast roll. But very good none the less.
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