Friday, August 24, 2012

Soft Rolls

So the recipe I have here is for Soft Rolls.  It's is a slightly enriched dough and makes very nice dinner rolls.  This is one of my template recipes, meaning that you can add all kinds of things to it or turn it into a variety of different shapes.

Ingredients:

- 425g All Purpose Flour ( 2.5 cups)
- 5g Salt (1/2 tsp)
- 6g Dry Bakers Yeast
- 200ml Warm Water (about 25-30C)
- 25g Sugar (1 tbsp)
- 1 egg
- 50ml Vegetable Oil

*Should you feel like it, you can substitute some of the water for milk.  This will make your bread have a bit of a nicer flavor.


Directions:

1. Put the water, a little bit of sugar, and yeast into your mixing bowl and let it ferment.  When it starts it should look like this:

As you can see, the yeast is starting to activate and reproduce.  Let it keep going until it looks like this:
Now it's ready! You can let it keep going more if you want, but at this point you're ready to get started.  Don't worry if it's going slow.  It may be that it's a little chilly out and it is just taking longer than normal.

2. Combine the flour, salt, and the rest of your sugar.  Add ALL (including the egg and oil)  remaining ingredients to the mixing bowl with the yeast water.

3. Mix it using a dough hook until it comes together.  Depending on how much moisture is in the air, you may need to add more flour or water to create the right consistency.  If you're worried about this part, I have created a youtube tutorial here that will show you exactly what I'm talking about.

4. Finish the dough by kneading by hand for a little bit, then forming the dough into a ball.  Your dough should look like this when you're done:





Nice smooth surface, and when you push lightly on it, it should bounce back at you.

5. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in size.

6. Once the dough has doubled, you are ready to shape it.  As I said before, you can cut them into individual pieces and make buns.  You can put the dough into a loaf pan and make a loaf of bread, or you can make cheesie bread sticks.

If you choose to make buns or a loaf, bake it at 350F until it is done.  To find if it's done, the bread should be a nice brown colour and it should sound hollow when you tap it.

Making Cheesie Bread Sticks

1. Cut the dough into 2 equal pieces.  If you have a digital kitchen scale this will be easy since you just have to weigh out the whole piece and then divide it by 2.

2. Once you have the two pieces, for them into balls and then let them rest on the counter until doubled in size.

3. One your dough is done resting, roll out each piece into a triangle that is about 0.5mm thick.

4. Spray water on the bottom piece, and then sprinkle with salt.

5. Spread out your cheese (I use cheddar, but you can use whatever you want) in the center, but leave a 1 inch border.  You are doing this because you need to put the second piece on top and the border gives you an area where they can stick.

6. Once you have put the second piece on top, it should look like a big sealed up sandwich.  Use a pizza cutter to the dough into 1 inch strips.

7. Take each strip and roll them so that they are twisted, then lay them on a lined cookie sheet.  Spray the tops with water and sprinkle on sesame seeds, or salt, or anything that you like!

8. Bake them at 350 F for about 20 minutes or until they are lightly brown on top.

** To see a full tutorial on the cheesie bread sticks check out the youtube video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIBmCitcgOg&feature=youtu.be



1 comment:

  1. Hi Marc
    I hope I have the right person! You were kind enough to host us last spring. When I saw this blog, I thought it maybe you! we still savour delish meals we had at your place. And I still have to send you some Safran. Mine have absorbed some humidity and are no longer crispy. With all going on in Iran, I haven't been able to put my hand on some good Safran in long time.
    I was wondering, if there is a possibility to contact you at some point, and get your point of you about couple of things, and in general about your experience in GR. Let me know if that is possible. I will call you at your convenience. With thanks
    tatiana Garakani
    tatiana.garakani@enap.ca

    ReplyDelete