Recipe: Sourdough waffles

Usually on Mondays we eat sourdough waffles for breakfast. The kids love them. They are very tasty. I learned how to make these from the Gnowfglins sourdough e-course. And ever since I learned them I have been making them. It is a great way to use sourdough starter. My starter lives on my counter and I use my starter quite frequently, most days actually.
To the right you find a picture of one of my waffles this morning. This morning we had ripe bananas so I had banana and whipped cream as my toppings. Very tasty. 

Origin: Europe

Difficulty: easy
Time: half an hour
Serves: 6
Yield: 12 pieces 
Traditional, Vegetarian

Equipment:

• bowl
• waffle iron

Ingredients:

• 500 ml sourdough starter
• 4 tbsp melted butter, coconut or so
• 1/2 tsp sea salt (I use Le Guerandais sea salt)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp sweetener
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (I use home made - you can use other flavourings if you prefer)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp water

Toppings:

• maple syrup, sucanat or so
• fruit, such as raspberries, apples, black berries, cherries, strawberries or which ever you like.
• melted chocolate
• whipped cream
• yoghurt
• fried bacon bits
• cheese melted on top
• fried mushroom slices
• fried onion slices
• crispy nuts
• desiccated coconut
• you can use spices in your batter or top your waffles with them. I like using cinnamon on top, but really the sky is the limit.

Directions:

• First plug in your waffle iron. Because you want it to be hot and ready to go when you have mixed up your batter. Mixing up the batter goes really fast. Most of the time my waffle iron has not fully heated up yet when my batter is done, but it is close to being there.
• In your bowl mix the sourdough starter, the melted butter, the sea salt, eggs, sweetener and vanilla extract together with a whisk.
• Put the baking soda in a small bowl and add the water, mix it well together.
• Add the baking soda with water to the batter and mix fast and well through. This will very quickly poof up the batter and make it very fluffy. Baking soda also neutralises the flavour of the acid of the sourdough as it reacts with that. 
• Now you are ready to make your waffles with your hopefully hot waffle iron.
• Serve with which ever toppings take your fancy.
• The waffles freeze really well. I always put the left overs in the freezer. When someone takes a fancy for a waffle during the week they can just take one out and put it in the toaster and have a nice warm waffle.
• Do make sure you freeze them separately as they can be a real pain to take apart when frozen onto each other. I usually take a sandwich bag and add 1 at the bottom and the other next to it towards the top, fold the bag over so that it is closed and then fold the 2 waffles on top of each other with the bag in between, that way they are easy for all to take out of the freezer and pop in the toaster right away, no need to thaw.

Possible substitutions:
dairy - coconut
butter - coconut, tallow, lard, etc.
sugar - honey, sucanat, maple syrup
chocolate - carob

Recipe: bread rolls

As my kids love burgers and hotdogs, just like any other kid :-), I sometimes make some rolls for burgers or hotdogs for them to have with their burgers or hotdogs.
Now this is not really a very good traditional, full of nutrition, recipe, but for special days I find that it serves as a good compromise. It has taken me quite a bit of experimentation to get to this recipe. The worst ingredient is white flour, the rest is actually not bad at all.

As for the ingredients, the sucanat that I use can be substituted with maple syrup, that would really taste nice. The butter can be substituted with bacon fat, which would be really tasty, especially when the sucanat is  substituted with maple syrup, just imagine the taste. The suggestions for substitutions are below the recipes.

Origin: my home

Difficulty: easy
Time: a couple of hours
Serves: a crowd
Yield: 16 pieces 
Vegetarian

Equipment: I like doing this with my bread baking machine as it frees time up for me to do other stuff, but of course it is totally possible to do by hand. You'll need:

• oven
• bread baking machine or
• kitchen machine or
• bowl and hands

Ingredients:

• 6 grams / 2 heaped teaspoons instant yeast (I use Doves farm yeast)
• 2 tablespoons sucanat (I use Biona sucanat), maple syrup or such
• 690 grams / 5.5 cups / 1.5 pounds organic plain white flour (I use Doves farm plain white flour, bulk)
• 1.5 teaspoons celtic sea salt (I use Le Guerandais Coarse Sea Salt)
• 57 grams / 2 oz butter (I use Isigny Sainte-Mère butter, which I purchase at Costco), you can also use lard, beef drippings, ghee or such.
• 375 ml, 1.5 cups / 13 fl oz milk
• 1 egg

Directions:

• When using a bread baking machine, put it all in in the order that I used and turn it on on the dough cycle. The bread baking machine will do all the rising and such, so you can right away move onto shaping the buns once the machine is done.
• When using the kitchen machine, put it all in the bowl and turn the machine on, until you have a smooth dough
• When doing it by hand, put it all in the bowl and knead until you have a smooth dough.
• Let the dough stand for about 30 minutes to rise and relax.
• Divide the dough into 12 (for larger rolls) or 16 (for smaller rolls) bits of dough, as equal as possible
• Shape into either a rond (for burgers) or oval (for hotdogs) roll.
• Put them on your baking sheet, they can be somewhat close, it doesn't hurt when they rise onto each other and get baked while touching.
• If you like you can put some egg wash on them and top them with sesame seed or poppy seeds.
• Let them rise for 25 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat your oven to 200C / 400F.
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

Possible substitutions:

• dairy - coconut milk
• butter - coconut oil, tallow, lard, bacon fat, etc.
• sugar - maple syrup, honey

St. Nicholas pepernoten, spiced little cookies

Pepernoten

This is an old recipe. It is from the time when people were still fasting before the christmas period. This means that there are no dairy or eggs used in this recipe. I personally do sometimes use milk or butter, simply because I like the flavour.
There is pepper in this recipe, as you can see in the name of the cookies. There are also other spices in there, which were shipped in from Asia by the Dutch trading ships and because of that fairly soon already common goods in The Netherlands, while they were still relatively unknown in other European countries.

Origin: The Netherlands

Difficulty: easy
Time: 30 minutes preparation, 1 night waiting, 20 minutes baking
Yield: about 50, depending on the size you make them

Equipment:

• Oven
• Kitchen machine

Ingredients:

• 125 grams sprouted flour
• 125 grams sprouted rye flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 100 ml honey
• 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1/8 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cardamom
• 1 teaspoon aniseed
• 100 ml water (I often use buttermilk as this prepares the flour better for digestion)
• a pinch of salt
• a bit of oil or ghee

Directions:

• Put all the spices in the kitchen machine and grind to a powder consistency. alternatively use all powder, though the flavour will be more rounded when using the whole spices and grinding them yourself.
• Make sure honey is fluid, if need be warm it up a bit au bain marie.
• Mix baking powder and flour, make sure there are no lumps in there.
• Mix in the spices.
• Mix in the honey and maple syrup
• Add the water (or buttermilk) bit by bit, maybe you will need a bit less or a bit more than the 100 ml. Try to achieve a nice soft dough.
• Put it in the fridge overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Rub a bit of oil or ghee on a baking tray, or use a silicon mat.
• Make balls the size of a marble, or cut squares the size of marbles from the dough. Make sure the balls lay relatively close to each other, so that they rise up in stead of sideways.
• Bake in a preheated oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, check after about 10 minutes how they are fairing. When you have made your balls small, they may need to go out after 10 minutes, when they are average it takes about 15 and big ones take about 20 minutes, use your nose and your eyes to check where they are.

Possible substitutions:

1. butter - coconut, tallow, etc. depending on which flavour you can handle. In this case I would go for deodorised coconut oil if at all possible.
2. sugar - honey, but then leave out the milk.
3. sprouted flour - plain flour

St. Nicholas Kruidnootjes, spiced small biscuit balls

As I am Dutch I really like making traditional Dutch treats during the St. Nicholas time. These are one of them.

Origin: Dutch

Difficulty: easy

Yield: about 80 to 100 kruidnootjes

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Traditional, Vegetarian

Equipment:

• kitchen machine or pastry cutter
• baking tray
• oven

Ingredients:

• 150 grams sprouted flour
• 100 grams cold butter
• 75 grams rapadura, sucanat, coconut sugar or maple sugar
• 5 grams baking powder
• 10 grams speculatius spice mix
• pinch of sea salt
• milk

Things to do ahead:

• several days ahead: sprout your grains and make the sprouted flour
• make speculation spice mix

Directions:

• Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
• Cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or do it in the kitchen machine
• Knead to a ball while adding little by little some milk to make it a nice and somewhat firm biscuit dough.
• Once you have a nice ball put it in a bowl, covered, in the refrigerator for at the minimum half an hour, but overnight is just fine as well. I prefer leaving it in overnight as it is easier to work with when it has stood around for a bit.
• Preheat your oven to 170C / 325F / Gas3.
• Put baking paper on your baking tray.
• Make small balls out of your dough and put those on your baking tray. If they want to roll away, push them onto the baking paper a bit, so they stick. My children love helping with this. But do make sure that the small balls have a similar size, else you may have the problem that some will be nearly black and others not done yet by the time you want to get them out of the oven. If you end up with the situation that they are all different, check regularly how they are fairing and taking out the ones that are done and leave the rest in until they are cooked. It can be done, it is just more hassle, but sometimes totally worth it when the children help out :-)
• Make sure you put the small balls a little away from each other as they still rise a bit.
• Baking takes anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes depending on the size of your balls. 

Variety ideas:

• Dip them partially or fully in some melted chocolate (chocolade kruidnootjes)
• Dip them in melted white chocolate or any other chocolate you like and dust them with cocoa powder (truffel kruidnootjes)

Possible substitutions:

1. butter - coconut, tallow, etc. depending on which flavour you can handle. In this case I would go for deodorised coconut oil if at all possible.
2. sugar - honey, but then leave out the milk.
3. sprouted flour - plain flour