Interview with Poterie Beck

The Beck pottery has been existing since 1750 and has been being passed on from father to son for generations.Today, the pottery is successfully run by Richard Beck and his wife Michèle as well as their 3 daughters Marie (42), Hélène (41) and Caroline (38). The pottery has about 20 employees.Richard is the potter and the soul of the company, he develops and realizes new designs, and takes care of everything technical, repairs, etc. Marie and Hélène are responsible for the decorations, Caroline and Michèle for the administration and sales.In 1999 we expanded the workshop to 5000 m² and the sales area to 350 m². The workshop is open to the public from Monday to Friday, 9.00 to 12.00 and 13.30 to 16.00. We also do guided tours for groups by prior appointment. We have a large car park for cars and coaches.

The Beck family uses ceramic body from Goerg & Schneider for the production of dishes- and decorative ceramics. The body is casted and punched, and partly thrown on the potter’s wheel. The body is fireproof, as we produce dishes for cooking and baking.Especially our daughters have managed to use new colours and decorative elements in addition to the traditional Soufflenheim style of decoration, which show a cheerful, modern and very appealing handwriting. We also design special decors on customer request.We sell our goods mostly in France, we export smaller quantities in Europe and to Japan. There is a lot of competition from China.Each piece is hand-painted and is fired together with the transparent glaze at 1085°C.For this purpose, we have 2 top-hat kilns (10 m³ and 3 m³) and a conventional kiln (4 m³). The ceramics are placed on bogies and then fired.The new colours and decors decorate the vessels. In this way, traditional dishes from Alsace are also rediscovered in terms of taste.We have chosen 2 beautiful, typical pieces from the workshop and publish them together with a traditional recipe: the Gugelhupf and a terrine for Alsatian Bäckeoffe, Sauerkraut...If you have bought one of these ceramics from poterie-beck.fr in the online shop or directly from the factory, you can try out this deliciousness.

Bon appétit!

Alsatian “Bäckeoffe”

Cooking time: 3 hours                          

Ingredients:

500 g pork neck

500 g beef blade steak

500 g shoulder of lamb (acc. to taste)

1,5 kg potatoes

250 g onions

For the marinade: ½ l dry Alsace white wine, a bunch of herbs, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, cloves, 2 cloves of garlic, pepper.

Let the meat marinate in white wine with the above ingredients and a few slices of onion for 24 hours. Cover the bottom of the terrine with sliced potatoes, place all the meat on top, then place another layer of potatoes and sliced onions on top. Pour in the marinade, adding a little bouillon if necessary, up to half of the terrine. Cover the terrine with the lid and bake in the oven for 3 hours.

Serve in the same terrine.

Variation: Depending on taste, you can add a few slices of carrots to the potatoes. You can also brown the meat for a few minutes before placing it in the terrine, which makes the “Bäckeoffe” more tasteful.

Sweet Gugelhupf

Ingredients (for a 20 cm baking mould):

375 g flour

  60 g caster sugar

    7 g fine salt

    2 eggs

  15 g yeast

115 ml milk

  90 g butter

   2 cl rum

115 g raisins / sultanas

  80 g whole almonds

Preserve the raisins or sultanas in the rum overnight.
Mix the flour, eggs, milk, salt, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl or bowl.
Knead the dough by hand or with the dough hook of the mixer. When the dough becomes smooth and shiny, add the tempered and stirred butter.
Knead the dough again. When the mixture is homogeneous again, carefully fill in the preserved sultanas.
Cover the dough in a bowl with cling film or a clean cloth.
Leave the dough to rise in a warm place away from draughts until it has doubled in volume.
Take a 20 cm diameter cake mould and butter generously.
Dip the almonds in a bowl with cold water and place an almond in each deepening of the Gugelhupf-mould.
Place the dough for the Gugelhupf on a slightly floured work surface. Flatten the dough and fold the edges in towards the centre to form a ball. Turn the ball over and make a hole in the centre of the dough with your thumb.
Place the dough in the mould and leave to rise in a warm place away from draughts. As soon as the dough reaches the height of the mould, place the Gugelhupf in the preheated oven. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes, depending on the oven.

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