Swedish breads and pastries PDF
Preview Swedish breads and pastries
JAN HEDH SWEDISH BREADS AND PASTRIES Copyright © 2010 by Jan Hedh All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018. Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 555 Eighth Avenue, Suite 903, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected]. www.skyhorsepublishing.com 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. 9781616080518 Printed in China TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page Copyright Page Foreword bread a human right dough preparation bread pastries appetizers entrees desserts INDEX FOREWORD Freshly baked bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner ought to be a basic human right, but today we don’t have bakeries on every corner like I did growing up in Malmö. Now most people buy their bread in supermarkets, where they heat up par-baked doughs for loaves, buns, and pastries. This is all done by staff with no training in the subject or knowledge of how the bread should taste, nor whether it should be baked dark or light. Their Danish pastries (Wienerbröd/Viennoiserie) are usually fermented in baking cabinets so hot that half of the margarine runs out of the pastries instead of staying inside of them. French rolls are simply thrown in boxes, inflated by various baking products and always lack the crispy crust, beautiful crackle on the surface, and airy middle that they should have. When I was an apprentice, we used to compete to see who could make rolls and buns that would crackle the most. The buns were so round at the bottom that they would almost spin when you pulled them out of the oven with a baking rod. At Olof Viktor’s Bakery in Glemminge, the bakers are praised for their Danish pastries, which are made with real butter and vanilla cream from actual vanilla beans, not the cold-stirred muck full of modified starch, vanilla-flavored sugars, and other hocus-pocus ingredients that have nothing to do with properly cooked custard. However, one naturally cannot spend too much time only making French rolls when also trying to keep the cost down to a nickel apiece. When something is that cheap, there is almost always something wrong with it. Back in the day, we used to have several good pastry shops and bakeries in Sweden. In Gothenburg there was Bräutigam’s Pastry Shop on Kungsportsavenyn, famous for its nice pralines and marzipan. Bråst was also an excellent pastry shop, I remember. Oscar Berg’s Hovkonditori and Filips Hovkonditori in Regeringsgatan were the finest pastry shops in Stockholm, and OGO on Kungsgatan was known across the country as well. There were many famous pastry shops outside of the big cities, too. Fahlman’s in Helsingborg is still there, to my great delight. Back then, they also had a branch in Lund. Lennart’s in Eksjö, Spencer’s in Borås, Holmgren’s in Kalmar, Juhlin’s in Skövde, Zander Kellerman’s in Ystad, Berg’s in Värnamo, Börje’s in Växjö, Lundagård’s Hovkonditori and Tage Håkansson’s in Lund, Danielsson’s in Örebro, Dackås in Hudiksvall and Palm’s in Sundsvall—there are countless classic pastry shops, but I couldn’t very well list them all here. In Malmö, Swedberg’s Bakery and Sundets Bröd were the best bread bakers in town, at least according to my parents. Swedberg’s was famous for its six-part braided French bread and its Laputa bread. We would buy crumpets and water rolls (water-based French rolls) from one of the home bakeries, which were often run by women. We would get the dark rye bread, kavring, at Mellbybagaren’s, a master at making hårdkavring—a dark, dense rye bread from Skåne—who also held a diploma from the Gastronomic Academy. When I was in school, we used to have coffee at Kronprinsen and sometimes at Prinsen and Gondolen. Each had their specialties: almond cookies, cream buns, pastries and cakes, ice cream, frozen pudding, meringue sundaes . . . My mother used to get pralines and chocolate-dipped preserved orange peels at Gunnar’s Konditori. At Fridhemskonditoriet we would get Parisian waffles and Kirschbollar (brandy truffles), wreath-shaped pastries for special occasions and toffee rolls filled with chocolate butter cream. At Hollandia there were always Napoleon pastries, Zola pastries, crispy freshly baked Danishes (Wienerbröd), and apple pastries made with butter dough in their café. We would also have coffee at Residens Schweizerei, where Kurt Andersson was head pastry chef, and their pastries were always of the finest quality. Kurt was a specialist at presenting, and his Christmas decorations, including beautiful cocoa paintings and marzipan figures, were greatly admired when I was a boy. At Blekingsborg’s Konditori, where I was an apprentice, we primarily made French bread, Brioche buns, Berliner doughnuts, wheat dough, Karlsbader dough, Danish dough, butter dough, scalded Skåne bread (skånska skållade bröd), and hålkakor (hole-cakes—a round loaf with a hole in the middle). This pastry shop’s specialty was cream puffs (skumbullar ), which we made several times a week. We would always dip them in tempered dark chocolate and then roll them in grated coconut. When I started as an apprentice, 45 years ago, the bakeries made bread, whereas a pastry chef (aside from making pastries) rarely baked any bread in his shop other than French rolls. These days, the trades of bread baking and pastry making have bled into one another: the pastry shops are now baking bread, while most bakeries have disappeared altogether and been replaced by generic stores selling bread full of preservatives and additives. It has now been 7 years since we started Olof Viktor’s Bakery in Glemminge, and there is a neverending stream of customers who wish to buy real brick-oven baked bread that tastes like it did in the old days. Save us from bread in plastic bags! Bread tastes proper when it’s fresh. It is not supposed to be soggy and soft, but have a thick, flavorful crust and be somewhat tough and elastic inside. At Olof Viktor’s, everything revolves around the firewood brick oven. No electric oven could ever yield the same flavor and aroma. The clever baker Erik Olofson was the first in Sweden to use a firewood brick oven, at Rosendal in Djurgården in Stockholm. Today he runs a fine bakery in an old mill in Gotland, and he was the one who taught us to light the fire in the oven. When I got my baker’s and pastry chef certificate, brick-oven baking was not mandatory, but rather a lost art in our country. Nowadays, more and more brick- oven bakeries are opening, and interest has increased tremendously among home bakers. At Olof Viktor’s, we retain old baking traditions and knowledge of the trade, and the only machines we use are kneading machines for heavy doughs. We use only butter; for us, margarine does not exist. We almost always start with pre- doughs, sourdoughs, and scaldings before we begin baking. We knead the dough the next day and let it rest, after which we shape the loaves and let them rise slowly overnight. Early the following morning, we bake the bread directly on a baking stone in the firewood brick oven, our pride. At 6 a.m., most of the breads are ready for sale in the store and on their way to customers in Malmö, Höllviken, and Helsingborg. This profession is for early risers . . . In this second book of mine about bread, I have included many more whole wheat breads than in the previous, and a few more original flours like Emmer, Kamut, and spelt wholemeal. It also contains pastries and some savory dishes that come with the territory. Follow the recipes carefully and use scales for weight indications whenever possible—using deciliters or cups will yield less accurate results! Use a thermometer to ensure the temperatures’ precision. Keep in mind that flour is perishable and does not improve with storage. Old and dry flour absorbs more water than fresh flour. Also, put a baking stone in the oven and you will discover what lovely breads you are able to make yourself. I wish you the best of luck with the breads and pastries in this book, which I dedicate to the memory of my dear mother Kerstin, who taught me what bread and food should really taste like. Jan Hedh Malmö, August 2009
The list of books you might like
