Many steps, but if you follow them, the recipe is extremely rewarding.
Recipe:
2 cups milk
2 tsp salt
2 pkgs dry yeast
1/2 cup water (105 - 110 degrees)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup soft butter
2 - 4 eggs
8 - 10 cups of sifted flour (depends on how many eggs you use)
Scald milk, pour over sugar and salt in mixing bowl. Cool to lukewarm. Soften yeast in 1/2 cup water. Add to milk and add 3 cups of flour. Beat thoroughly. Let stand until light and foamy (about 15 minutes). Add soft butter (must not be hot) and eggs. Beat well. Add enough flour to make a soft dough which can be handled easily. Sprinkle a little flour onto the board and turn dough onto the board. Knead dough until smooth and satiny. Put dough into a lightly greased bowl. Turn dough over to grease top as well. Cover. Let rise until double in bulk. Punch down, turn out onto board. Shape into loaves, rolls, rings or braids. Place in lightly greased pans. Bake rolls at 375 for 15-20 minutes. Bake bread at 375 for 10 minutes then finish baking at 350 for about 45 to 50 minutes.
Many years ago, after watching Baking With Julia, I thought it would be really fun (cause thats just the kind of kid I was) to make my own sour dough starter and make bread with it. I kept it going for almost a whole year too... since then I haven't done much bread baking though. It's too specific for my taste and the slightest problem can cause failure. But I thought I'd give it another chance with this recipe.
I followed every step, just as the recipe said I should. And I'm going to go through each one of these steps here (for anyone else intimidated by yeast dough).
I scalded the milk...
Softened the yeast...
Mixed the milk with the sugar and salt and waited for it to cool down. Then added the yeast with the first part of the flour.
..Let it sit til foamy...
Added the butter and I only used 2 eggs (next time I try this recipe I will try 4 to see what difference it makes)...
I added the second part of the flour (5 more cups added to the original 3) and mixed it all for about 5 minutes (I used my Kitchenaid with the dough hook attachment)...
As you can see, I let the machine do the work of the kneading... mostly because I don't have enough counter-space to be able to knead this much dough properly by hand.
So I greased it and put it in a bowl, then flipped it over so that the top was greased as well as the bottom. Then I covered it with a damp towel and forgot about it for about an hour.
<---notice the dough is slightly below the 2 Qt mark
I went back to check on the dough, and it looked pretty well inflated to me... though i probably could have let it go longer, as you can see it didn't quite double in volume...
This makes a LOT of dough, so 2 different things. I made a pan of dinner rolls...
And I used the rest to make a big loaf of bread. My original intention was to use this dough to make a King Cake for Mardi Gras, but we got slammed with a huge snow storm that day and I wasn't able to get out to get the rest of the supplies I would need to complete it. So, plain old bread it was. With the rolls, I coated them in melted butter, but the loaf got a nice little egg-wash (just 1 egg beat with a splash of milk and brushed all over the dough).
I baked each according to the instructions provided in the recipe. Though the rolls needed almost 30 minutes in the oven. But the bread (using the 2-step baking method outlined in the recipe) needed only about 35 minutes tot
al.
The rolls were definitely my favorite. The dough bakes up very smooth textured, sweet but not too sweet. It would make great cinnamon rolls, but I wouldn't make pizza dough with it. The loaf made very yummy french toast, but was a little too crumbly as regular toast. Also, the loaf tasted very spread with pesto, but NOT garlic butter. It's just a touch too sweet for certain applications.
All in all, it was a great way to kill time and take my mind off the snow storm, and the thought of my husband driving in it, and bonus... we didn't have to try to brave the weather to go to the store for bread!
No comments:
Post a Comment