Hotdog buns

 

More COVID baking. Normally I wouldn't bother making from scratch when I'm fine with the commercial product.

17.6 oz all-purpose flour (4 US cups, measured by spoon and level method*)
½ cup warm milk
¾ cup warm water
2 teaspoons dry active yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons softened butter or oil
Extra oil to lightly oil the bowl
1 egg for the egg wash

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.  In another small bowl, whisk together the water, milk, and egg and add to the flour mixture; knead to bring the dough together.  (It should be fairly wet and sticky.)  Knead for about 5 minutes, until you have a smooth ball.   Add the oil or butter and knead for a further 5-10 minutes, until the dough is shiny, smooth, and tacky to the touch.   Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, turning so the dough is lightly oiled on the surface.  For best results, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and store in the fridge overnight (8 hours) or up to 24 hours. (Alternatively, if you want to bake it on the same day, you can cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for 1 hour in a warm place, until it has doubled in size.)  On the day you bake the bread rolls, turn the chilled dough out on to a lightly floured surface and lightly dust the surface of the dough as well.  If the dough wasn't chilled, you may need extra flour on your hands and on your work surface to prevent the dough from sticking.    

FOR THE CUTTING METHOD FOR HOT DOG BUNS
Roll out the dough into a rectangle that's about 16 inches in length and 4-5 inches in width. Cut the dough into 10 sections and place them on a parchment paper lined baking tray, with about 1.5 inches of space between each.

FOR THE SHAPING METHOD FOR HOT DOG BUNS
Cut the dough into 12 (or 10) equal sections. I usually weigh the bread dough so that I know how much each section should weigh.  Knead each portion for just a few seconds to form a smooth ball. Roll out each portion into a flattened piece of dough that's about 5 inches long and 4 inches wide. Then TIGHTLY roll up the dough to form a cylinder. Tuck in the sides/edges and pinch these edges and seams to seal. Place each portion on a parchment paper lined baking tray, about 2 inches apart.

FOR BURGER BUNS
Cut the dough into 8 sections (for larger buns) or 10 sections (for smaller buns) and roll these portions in your hands to form smooth balls. Place them on the parchment paper lined baking tray, about 3 inches apart.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise for 45 min in a warm place, until it has just about doubled in size.  

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F about 30 minutes prior to baking.  Brush the hot dog rolls with the egg wash (lightly beaten egg) and bake in the preheated oven until they are golden brown on top and sounds hollow when tapped, about 15-20 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Best eaten on the same day, but will keep longer in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.  Makes 12.

These were more like the inside of a loaf of homemade white bread.  They were sort of chewy, more like soft pretzels.  Did I knead them too long?  I did what she recommended.  In her notes she states, "Using cup measurements can result in the addition of more flour than intended, causing the dough to be too dry. This results in a heavy, dense bread roll, instead of the soft, fluffy roll that this recipe guarantees." 

 

Conclusion:  These were okay.  I guess I was expecting store-bought buns but with more flavor.  They were good, but I'm not sure they're worth the trouble.

Recipe:  Easy Homemade Hot Dog Buns via The Flavor Blender

 

 

 

Soft Beer Pretzels

The office celebrated Diversity Day yesterday by having an international lunch.  My group was assigned Europe, so I decided it was a good time to try these soft pretzels I had bookmarked.  (Why do I always take on the most challenging tasks when they're for the public?)  This was my second attempt at soft pretzels.  The first one, a King Arthur Flour recipe, is posted here.

I have three pretzel recipes bookmarked, and the basic recipe for all three is exactly the same, except for the salt quantity.  (This one had the least amount.) The dough was nice, but I added a bit of extra water and it ended up sticky, which caused problems with handling.  The pretzels stuck to my fingers, ruining their shape.  Allowing them to dry a bit helped, but perhaps better to use oiled hands.

They did not rise much prior to boiling, nor was there much oven spring.  The bulk of the rise happened during the boiling, where they became VERY delicate (often breaking during turning), developed a rough texture, and sometimes cracked, but never achieved that lacquered finish one expects.  They baked 12 minutes, and that was perhaps a little long, although they didn't become very brown.  I used a greased baking sheet rather than parchment, and there was trouble with them sticking – the longer they sat on the sheet after boiling, the more they stuck.  (I've heard from others that parchment does not eliminate the sticking problem.)  The key is to boil them just prior to baking so they don't have a chance to slurry themselves to the baking sheet, which means finessing the timing. Another thought is that boiling isn't even necessary -- the King Arthur Flour recipe requires only soaking in the baking soda solution.

Here's what I used:

For the dough:
2 1/4 teaspoons (7g) yeast
1/4 teaspoon (2g) salt
2 teaspoons (9g) sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) warm water
3/4 cup (180ml) beer
3 2 cups (500 330g) flour
1 cup (170g) bread flour
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons (32g) butter, softened

For the bath:
1/4 cup (50 grams) baking soda
Flaky salt, for sprinkling

Combine the yeast, salt, sugar in a small bowl or liquid measuring cup. Add the warm water and let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and cayenne pepper. Cut the softened butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the beer to the yeast mixture (it will foam) and stir briefly to combine. Add the liquid to the flour and mix until the dough comes together. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, or until no longer sticky. Leave on the counter covered with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and lightly oil the paper. Divide the dough into 32 pieces, keeping the unrolled pieces covered with plastic while you work. Roll one ball into a 12-inch-long rope. Form a U shape and twist the ends together twice. Fold the twisted part backward onto the center of U shape to form a circle. Gently press the ends of the rope onto the dough to seal.  Transfer to the prepared baking sheet, and repeat with the remaining dough. Let rise for 20 minutes. While you wait, preheat the oven to 475 and fill your largest pot with at least 5 inches of water. Bring the water to a boil. (Ideally, this will take about 20 minutes as well.)

When the pretzels have risen and the water is boiling, add the baking soda and gently transfer as many pretzels that will fit comfortably to the bath. Cook for a minute on each side, drain well, and return to the baking sheet.

               

Boiled on the left.  Unboiled on the right.

Ready for the oven.

     
Sprinkle with salt and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.  Serve warm with mustard.  Makes 32 3-4" pretzels.

Conclusion:  I'm going to need a lot of practice.  These were good, but did not turn out as expected.  This recipe has promise, but something in the technique went wrong.  The beer gave a slightly bitter taste that wasn't especially beer-like (I used Fosters) and the chili was undetectable. To make 32, I used 20 oz of dough for each; I think 25-30 oz would be better, as the thick spots in the pretzels were nicer.  (Compared to the photos of the originals, my ropes might have been too long as well.)  They did not keep well, becoming stale and tough within a day.  But in the end, they got eaten and even complimented, so they weren't a complete failure.

Recipe:  Pretz-ales via butter me up, Brooklyn!

Pretzel & Butterscotch Chocolate-chip Cookies

I sponsored a blood drive today at work, so I brought cookies for the donors.  Chocolate chip cookies are about as close to "American comfort food" as you'll find, but these have a fun difference -- they contain pretzels, browned butter, and bread flour!  (They are an alteration of Alton Brown's The Chewy.)

Blood donors are encouraged to eat salty snacks after donating.  Between the pretzels and the little bit of kosher salt sprinkled on top, I thought these would be a good snack choice.  In addition, the pretzels provide a nice crunch that you normally get from nuts, but since so many people have nut allergies I didn't want to bring anything with nuts.

Midway through smooshing the dough balls.

I missed the part of the recipe that called for a rounded tablespoon of dough for each cookie -- I used a cookie scoop that was about a level tablespoon.  That would explain why I ended up with 66 cookies!

Although to get the stated yield, you'd have to use 3 tablespoons of dough for each cookie.  That's a BIG cookie.

A light sprinkling of kosher salt adds a nice flavor contrast.

Also, they baked up hard and crunchy rather than chewy, probably due to the smaller size.  They were still delicious, though!  The browned butter gave them a flavor that reminded me of a toasted marshmallow.

Delicious!

Conclusion:  Sweet and salty -- a great combination.  For a chewy cookie, I guess they need to be much larger.  At a smaller size, they come out crunchy when cooked as directed, so an adjustment would have to be made to the time and/or temperature.   Overall, though, a very good cookie (and I prefer this smaller size.)

Recipe:  Pretzel-Scotch Cookies via une gamine dans la cuisine

December ABC challenge: Hot Buttered Soft Pretzels

Anything that starts with "hot buttered" in the description has got to be good, right?  I mean, you've got bread, you've got butter, and you've got salt.  It's hard to go wrong.

I've been a soft pretzel junkie since I can't remember when.  For years, whenever I was in Santa Barbara, I'd go out of my way to visit this little hole-in-the-wall bakery just to buy their soft pretzels.  These things were the best I've ever tasted!  Bavarian style, they were fat and soft in the middle, while the arms were thin and chewy.  I'd buy a half dozen, which lasted me only a couple days.  (It was the most I thought I could get away with before they'd lose their remarkable texture and flavor.  I limited myself to eating only two a day.)  Then one day I stopped by and found the shop gone.  I don't know what happened to them.  I didn't know the name, so I couldn't even look them up to see if they'd simply moved.  I've searched Santa Barbara bakeries since then but to no avail.  Those amazing pretzels are gone forever.

I never even thought about making my own at home. I thought there was a big, complicated process involved -- the shaping, the boiling vats of toxic fluid, the special salt...  Besides, I was getting to an age when I really couldn't afford to be eating large wads of white dough.

Consequently, I approached this month's challenge with a little trepidation.  The recipe sounded pretty easy, and it turned out to be just that.  I suppose the only question was exactly what texture the dough should be.  The recipe called for it to be "soft, smooth, and quite slack."  It was a very dry day here, and I'd used part whole wheat flour, so I found myself adding more and more water as I kneaded, the dough seeming to be drying out before my eyes.

Fun with bread ropes!

In the end, perhaps my dough was a little too slack, because the pretzels were very flat on the bottom.  But the dough was easy to work with and the pretzel knots came together nicely.  I made them Bavarian style like the ones I used to buy -- fat in the middle and skinny (well, I tried) on the arms.  (The arms on these aren't nearly as thin as I was aiming for.)  The baked pretzels were about 5" across.

With luck, the fat middles will break open a little during baking.

I wasn't happy with the whole wheat addition.   In most baked products I don't even notice a difference, but it was very detectable in these.  Soft pretzels need to be plain white flour.  There's no getting around it.  They also lacked the smooth, shiny exterior that a pretzel should have.  Still, the texture and flavor was good.

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.

Conclusion:  These were very easy and very good, but I'll have to keep up the search for the ultimate soft pretzel.  If I weren't on a quest, I would stick with this recipe, as there really is nothing bad about it.  But next time, regardless of the recipe, I'll make them larger around so I can get those arms thinner!

Recipe:  Hot Buttered Soft Pretzels via King Arthur Flour