Bake bake bake
Jul. 29th, 2008 17:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillNo, the weather is actually fairly cool here for a change. That means, however, I took the opportunity to fire up the oven.
Sunday, my mom told me that hamburgers would be for dinner. So I rolled up my sleeves and went hunting for a hamburger bun recipe. I discarded one that required fermenting a potato starter (what happened to simplicity?) and settled on a recipe for dinner rolls that looked good. I ran the ingredients through my recipe-adaptation calculator, and let fly.
The dough handled well and rose promptly. I shaped it into balls and buttered the tops, then placed English-muffin rings around them to help them keep their shape. Once they had risen a bit, I tossed them in the oven for a little over 15 minutes.
They popped beautifully, giving me stout little hamburger buns with soft tops and a fluffy interior. I rarely get perfect results on a first attempt, especially when playing with wild cards like potato flakes (subbed for mashed potato), but these were a hole in one. All I have to do is bake one more set to make sure I can do it again, and I have a recipe. Plus a bunch of buns in the freezer. :)
Emboldened by my success, I decided to try two bread recipes yesterday: Pain d'Ail and Pain Noir. The garlic loaf was pretty straightforward, with the only oddity being that its butter was blended with garlic first before going into the dough. It came out like white bread, carrying a ghost of garlic (it's in there somewhere). Not something I'll do again, I think, since I'm not one for subtlety when it comes to garlic, but I'll toy with the thought of baking substantial amounts of garlic into my garlic bread and see what I come up with.
Pain Noir was more challenging. It had rye flour, oat flour (subbed for whole wheat) and rice flour (subbed for unbleached), cornmeal, molasses, cocoa, more potato flakes, dry milk.... it was a challenge figuring out how to coordinate all that, and I wasn't sure at a few points whether it was really going to make a dough. I was encouraged when it formed a ball on the mixer hook, which says "dough" rather than "batter", but as I kneaded it I wasn't completely certain. I made the mistake of letting it rise before shaping, which gave it the consistency of frosting as what little structure it had relaxed. I had missed the part about letting the cornmeal and yeast ferment for an hour, which may be why the yeast struggled so much... I ended up with a dense, tender loaf that resembled cake more than bread.
It tasted distinctly of molasses, which may prompt me to cut back a bit in the future; I'd like more rye flavor. Black it definitely was, and sweet, and dark-flavored (the cocoa was detectable). Very moist from the cornmeal and potato, which makes a nice change from dense, dry, heavy rye breads... I'll be tweaking this one pretty hard in the future, but I think it's worth another round.
Oh, and just for the record: I had forgotten what it was like to have a home-grilled cheeseburger on a real, honest, proper bun. zomg.
(...and I have six buns still in the freezer... *drool*)
Sunday, my mom told me that hamburgers would be for dinner. So I rolled up my sleeves and went hunting for a hamburger bun recipe. I discarded one that required fermenting a potato starter (what happened to simplicity?) and settled on a recipe for dinner rolls that looked good. I ran the ingredients through my recipe-adaptation calculator, and let fly.
The dough handled well and rose promptly. I shaped it into balls and buttered the tops, then placed English-muffin rings around them to help them keep their shape. Once they had risen a bit, I tossed them in the oven for a little over 15 minutes.
They popped beautifully, giving me stout little hamburger buns with soft tops and a fluffy interior. I rarely get perfect results on a first attempt, especially when playing with wild cards like potato flakes (subbed for mashed potato), but these were a hole in one. All I have to do is bake one more set to make sure I can do it again, and I have a recipe. Plus a bunch of buns in the freezer. :)
Emboldened by my success, I decided to try two bread recipes yesterday: Pain d'Ail and Pain Noir. The garlic loaf was pretty straightforward, with the only oddity being that its butter was blended with garlic first before going into the dough. It came out like white bread, carrying a ghost of garlic (it's in there somewhere). Not something I'll do again, I think, since I'm not one for subtlety when it comes to garlic, but I'll toy with the thought of baking substantial amounts of garlic into my garlic bread and see what I come up with.
Pain Noir was more challenging. It had rye flour, oat flour (subbed for whole wheat) and rice flour (subbed for unbleached), cornmeal, molasses, cocoa, more potato flakes, dry milk.... it was a challenge figuring out how to coordinate all that, and I wasn't sure at a few points whether it was really going to make a dough. I was encouraged when it formed a ball on the mixer hook, which says "dough" rather than "batter", but as I kneaded it I wasn't completely certain. I made the mistake of letting it rise before shaping, which gave it the consistency of frosting as what little structure it had relaxed. I had missed the part about letting the cornmeal and yeast ferment for an hour, which may be why the yeast struggled so much... I ended up with a dense, tender loaf that resembled cake more than bread.
It tasted distinctly of molasses, which may prompt me to cut back a bit in the future; I'd like more rye flavor. Black it definitely was, and sweet, and dark-flavored (the cocoa was detectable). Very moist from the cornmeal and potato, which makes a nice change from dense, dry, heavy rye breads... I'll be tweaking this one pretty hard in the future, but I think it's worth another round.
Oh, and just for the record: I had forgotten what it was like to have a home-grilled cheeseburger on a real, honest, proper bun. zomg.
(...and I have six buns still in the freezer... *drool*)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 01:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 03:35 (UTC)