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Published: August 22nd 2006
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Dough Machine
You can see the balls of dough in front. The machine is behind. The dough is placed on the red platter, which has little grooves in it, and then the machine forms it into perfect balls every time! Well hello there! It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to update, and I have much to catch you up on, so sit back and enjoy yourself. :-)
Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to try my hand at making a food that is a significant part of the German culture: pretzels! And I don’t mean the tiny, hard pretzels you buy in bags at the store; I’m talking about the big, soft ones sprinkled with sea salt. They’re so good! At any rate, Wednesday afternoon my class and our teacher met at a local bakery called KronMüller. The bakery is literally across the street from my housing and I have frequented it several times since arriving in Schwäbisch Hall. Their food is delicious and I was very excited to be able to go “behind the scenes” where all these delicacies are made.
Upon arrival, we were told a little bit about the history of the bakery and pretzels, in general. Afterwards we were brought to the back where all of the action happens. I was expecting to make it all by hand from start to finish. I found out otherwise. Most of the process is actually done
Baked Breads
These are the final products. Don't they look wonderful? They were absolutely delicious! by machine. The only part done by hand is the formation of the bread at the very end. The dough is mixed by machine, and then formed into little balls (see photo). The balls are then dropped through another machine, which can either roll them into rope-like pieces or flatten them, depending upon what you are planning to make.
We were shown how to make pretzels, croissants, rolls (brotchen), and braided bread (Zopf). The rolls were the easiest, as you could use a pre-made hand press to make the X on top. I didn’t think the pretzels were too terribly difficult, but mine weren’t worthy of being in the display cabinet, either. :-) I learned, as well, that different regions form their pretzels differently. Some leave the rope the same width all the way across, while others make it thicker in middle, and so on.
In order to make croissants, one had to use the flattened piece of dough, and then you roll the dough and stretch it at the same time to create the layered effect that croissants have. If you have ever made croissants, you know that this is a very simplified version. To me, this
Look at all those bakers!
These are students from my class, including my teachers' kids. It was a fun afternoon. is not a true croissant, while it used the same dough as the pretzels used. The croissants that we made couldn’t hold a candle to home-made ones I’ve had. For those of you who have never made croissants, I’ll give you a crash course. The reason that croissants are so flaky is because the dough is actually made into multiple layers with butter in between before it is formed and then baked. The dough is flattened out and a butter mixture is placed over half of it, and then the dough is folded over to make a butter-sandwich. This sandwich is then flattened, folded into thirds, and then flattened again. In the bakery, we were told that this process is repeated until there are 81 layers total of dough-butter-dough. Amazing! I can only imagine how flaky those must be!
After forming the dough into its various forms, we then put toppings on our bread. We used cheese, sesame seeds, and salt. The bread was then baked and we got to eat them warm out of the oven, which is the best way, if you ask me. It was a wonderful experience and I am so glad that the bakery
Teddy Bear
Me and my Teddy... welcomed us into their shop.
On Saturday I made a day-trip to Rothenberg with a group from the Institute. Rothenberg is not a city often visited by locals, I’m told, as there are many tourists. There were, indeed, numerous tourist groups taking tours and photos, so I can understand where the locals are coming from. It is, however, a city I would visit again.
The city is filled with tiny shops, including one specifically for teddy bears. In the doorway was a teddy bear, quite literally taller than me. You can see that in the photo here. The city is also known for its Criminal Museum and its Christmas Museum. I found the Criminal Museum to be very interesting and slightly disturbing at the same time. It was four stories of nothing but torture instruments and judicial documents from the 17th & 18th centuries. I have numerous photos, but I won’t be posting any as this is a family blog. :-) If you’re interested in seeing some torturing devices, please email me and I would be happy to send them to you.
I didn’t have time to tour the Christmas Museum, but I did take a peek
Rothenberg
From this view you can see the towers in the city. They were all connected by a wall, of which I walked almost the entire length. into its entrance, where there was a tiny village composed of small, stuffed animals. It was quite endearing. The Christmas museum & shop are open year round, and just outside on the street is a car with packages on top. It’s a fun display. I spent about 15 minutes in the Weihnacht (Christmas) store across the street. It was so beautiful and has made me very anxious to experience Christmas here in Germany! The store had numerous candle-fan displays…I don’t know the proper name for them, I apologize. I have included a picture, though, so that you can see what I am talking about. Grandma Helen has one that she puts up every year at Christmas time, and I absolutely love it. The store also has hundreds of nutcrackers and the incense burners that look like little people. It was all so wonderful!
In Rothenberg I also had my first Currywurst. Since it has “curry” in the name, I was expecting something a bit spicy. But on the contrary, it was rather sweet. I thought it tasted good and would recommend it to anyone who comes to Germany. Another specialty in Rothenberg are Schneeballen (snowballs). They’re a dessert/snack (depends
on when you eat them) that I would describe as being made of strips of pie crust dough, baked or fried, and then dusted with powdered sugar, or coated with chocolate, and so on. They’re a sweet treat, but can be rather difficult to eat.
Now that I have covered the past, let me give you a little update on things to come. Today is Tuesday and tomorrow will be my last day of classes for this month. This means that I have a 10 day break starting on Thursday before classes pick up again. Numerous students will be heading home at this time and then not coming back next month. However, since I will be staying in Schwäbsich Hall for one more month, I have planned a mini-vacation for myself. I have purchased a Eurail pass which allows me to travel in Germany and Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg). I will be traveling to Köln, Amsterdam, Brüssel, Brugge, Luxembourg, and Trier. It will be a whirlwind of a trip, but I am really looking forward to it. I don’t plan to spend much time on the internet during this trip, so there may be a break in my
postings for a while. I will have numerous stories for you when I get back, though. :-)
Annie
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Karen Bartholomew
non-member comment
Drool....
Yummmmmm!!! Loved the pictures of all the goodies. Your trip sounds like fun. A good way to spend your break. XO, Karen