Sunday, March 30, 2014

Oh Happy Days


When I visited denthe's blog this morning I saw that she has joined the 100 Happy Days challenge. I hadn't heard about it before, so I was quite curious. After following her link and reading all about it, I decided to join as well. Surely, it can't be that difficult to find at least one thing a day that makes me happy? Take a picture of it and post it to my Facebook page?

I take this as a reminder that there always is something that puts a smile on my face. This challenge will be especially important on days I feel gloomy.

So I will post one photo each day to my Facebook page and Google+ and every now and then I plan to write about it here on my blog.


Today is the first day - and my happiness started early, with baking these Brötchen (German rolls). In Germany it is quite common to eat fresh rolls for breakfast every morning. You can get them in every bakery and they taste best the day they were made.

Since the three of us have breakfast together only on the weekends, I decided to bake some Brötchen for today's breakfast. I made the sponge yesterday afternoon and let it sit on the counter until this morning. I got up at 6:30 and started to make the dough, which again had to sit for a couple hours.

Shaping the dough into Brötchen was more challenging than I thought - out of 25 I managed just one almost perfectly shaped Brötchen:


I definitely need more practice! But who cares about the shape when these heavenly smells wind their way from the kitchen through the entire house and you're really hungry when you finally could sit down for a very late breakfast?

The Brötchen were delicious, although I can think of some way to further improve them. Of course we didn't eat 25 of them - I just threw the remaining Brötchen in the freezer for some weekend breakfast in the very near future.


You can find the recipe for the Brötchen here.

9 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Happy days indeed. After he retired my father, a German, made fresh bread rolls (and other bread too) every day. The house smelled divine and it was very hard to wake up grumpy after a start like that...

Magic Love Crow said...

I'm Happy ;o) I just wish I could bite into one of those German rolls! LOL! Hugs ;o)

KB said...

You made me smile. The brochten look delicious! I just read about the challenge, and it's a great idea. It certainly makes you more conscious of noticing what makes you happy.

Hindustanka said...

These German rolls stole my heart! I can almost smell them ... aww.. freshly baked bread! They are of a perfect shape to me!

P.S. do you make a yeast dough for them? I think I'd buy a microwave at least sooner than I think :)
Thanks for sharing your happy thing with us!

denthe said...

Oh, so nice that you joined too! Your bread rolls look so yummy, they even make me happy ;-) It's the same in Belgium, we always went to the bakery on Sunday morning to get the most delicious bread rolls and croissants. Since we moved to Australia we have been searching for some alternative but haven't really found one yet. Guess I'll have to start baking too ....

gina said...

Oh, I can smell those delicious rolls! I'll be right over to taste one! :) What a great practice to focus on what makes you happy every day. I'll look forward to seeing what you share.

GlorV1 said...

Hi Carola and happy day to you. Wow! I sure would have loved to have tasted these yummy looking rolls. My dad baked and he made Portuguese rolls and other. It filled the home with awesome scents. Thank you for sharing and now I want to bake.:) Have a great day and great idea to freeze the rest. Yay for homemade bread! Bread if life!

Lisabella Russo said...

The bread looks delicious! And I love your Carola painting below, it is wonderful! The composition is wonderful and it is such a great piece!

Maria Ontiveros said...

That first and last photograph are particularly striking!
Rinda