The Daring Bakers’ December, 2014 Challenge: Dutch sweet bread (Ontbijtkoek)

For the month of December, Andrea from 4pure took us on a trip to the Netherlands. She challenged us to take our taste buds on a joyride through the land of sugar and spice by baking three different types of Dutch sweet bread.

So far, I have only participated in two challenges, none of them turned out great. So when I saw this month challenge, I was determined to do it.

I have decided to use a recipe with a rye flour in it (I was inspired by a recipe from this lovely blogger), and I think it was a good choice as my Ontbijtkoek turned out to be beautifully moist and it tastes even better after one day. Further, I have used my "muffin" technique when making the batter, which I think also helped to keep the bread moist.  The bread is deliciously sweet, and spicey (in a good sweet way), and "dark" :)  As the original recipe calls for a dark molasses which I didn't have, I have decided to experiment a little bit and use soaked and "pureed" raisins but please feel free to just add more honey or sugar if you don't have molasses. OK, I am stopping with praising myself, let's bake!

We will need:

1 cup of rye flour

1 cup of all purpose flour

4 teaspoons of gingerbread spice mix (if you do not have this, the original recipe contains detailed list of particular spices)

3 teaspoons of baking powder

1 cup of milk

pinch of salt

1/2 cup of honey

1/2 of brown sugar

1/4 cup of molasses (I didn't have this, and I also didn't have dark packed sugar, so instead I used more sugar (3/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup) and I took 1/4 of raisins and put them into boiling water for 10 minutes. Then  I pureed them using my food processor)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Recept v slovenčine

METHOD:

1. We prepare all ingredients in advance in order to have them all at a room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Prepare your cake pan.

2. If you want to try this trick with the raisins: let a small amount of water - only as much as you need to have all raisins covered, then put the raisins into the boiling water and lower the heat. Let the raisins boil, be careful - if all water evaporates, you will end up with the nasty burned pan. When the raisins are soft, use your food processor to make the puree.

2. Mix together sugar, honey (honey should be warm and thus runny so that it dissolves nicely in he milk), milk, and vanilla and raisin puree or molasses (depending on what you use).

3. In another bowl, combine flour, salt, spices, and baking powder.

4. Gently combine wet and dry ingredients - no hand mixer. Mix only until the dry ingredients are moistened, the final batter should be a little bit lumpy and not smooth. When you lift your spatula, the batter should fall down in pieces, it should not pour down in one stream.

5. Pour the batter into the pan cups and bake at 200°C/400°F for 10 minutes, then bring the temperature down to 170°C/325°F and bake for another 1 hour and 10 minutes. I recommend checking whether the cake is baked (simply poke the fork/toothpick in the middle of the cake, wait for 10 seconds and take it out - if it is clean, the cake is done).

As already written, the sweet bread is very moist, sweet, and really just "full of taste".