Showing posts with label high-gluten flour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label high-gluten flour. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

My 38th experiment: Buttery swiss cheese bread

I get so fascinated by cheese breads, I purchased Bernard Clayton's complete book on bread and wanted to try out his recipes right away. As always, I am not great at following instructions. So here is my adaptation. Atta flour has some bran which shortens gluten. So I add gluten flour to compensate for that.
This loaf looks so much like the pacman!


Recipe: Buttery swiss cheese bread (make 1 medium loaf)

Ingredients:
- 1 cup atta flour
- 1+1/4 cup high-gluten flour
- 2 tps active dry yeast
- 3 large eggs
- 5 TB unsalted butter
- 3 once Kiwi swiss cheese
- 1 TB bacon bits
- 1+1/2 tp salt

Procedure:
1. Proof dry yeast in 2 TB water
2. Mix 1 cup of atta flour with 1 tp salt. Add the proofed yeast. Then beat in the eggs and start mixing the ingredients. While mixing the ingredients, add gluten flour in batches of 1/2 cups.
3. When the mixture has formed a dough, add butter in small bits. Rub the butter into the dough. Knead the dough thoroughly.
4. After plenty of kneading, taking about 5 minutes, allow the dough to rest for 5 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, chop the swiss cheese into very fine pieces. Mix with bacon bits and 1/2 salt. Then stretch the rested dough into a sheet. Spread the cheese mix on the dough and roll the mixture in.
6. Keep kneading the dough until all the cheese has distributed uniformly.
7. Allow the dough to rest in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for about 1 to 2 hours, until the dough's volume has doubled.
8. Punch dough down and reshape it into a ball. Allow it to rest on the baking sheet until its volume doubles again.
9. Preheat oven to 375F. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until top is golden brown. Cover with foil and bake for another 25-30 minutes until internal temperature reaches 190F.

Results;
Gluten flour:

12:27pm, adding butter to initial dough:

12:44pm, final dough with 5TB butter, observe how it cleans the hand:

12:46pm, texture of final dough:

12:59pm, final dough before adding cheese:

12:59pm, cheese added to final dough:

1:09pm, final dough after adding cheese:

1:09pm, final dough to rise:

1:55pm, final dough risen 45 minutes:

2:10pm, final dough punched down; observe texture:

2:20pm, final dough to rest the second time:

4:45pm, final dough rested 2 hours and just before baking:

5:06pm, loaf baked 10 minutes uncovered, it's then covered with foil to bake for the remaining time:

5:24pm, loaf baked 18 minutes, internal temperature not high enough:

5:40pm, loaf baked 34 minutes, internal temperature exceeded 190F:

5:41pm, loaf's bottom, amazingly not too brown:

5:41pm, loaf's height:

5:42pm, loaf's opening:

I slice the loaf the next day morning.
Center slice:

End of loaf slice:

Remarks:
1. This is a very greasy loaf.
2. Amazingly, even after baking for 35 minutes, the bottom of the loaf is only deep golden brown!
3. Bernard Clayton recommends this loaf to be frozen and reheated when served. I wrap it tight in aluminum foil and leave it at room temperature overnight to be serve the next morning.
4. This bread has a very strong thick but light golden crust. I think, that's the result of covering the loaf earlier (after the first 10 minutes) and baking for a comfortably long time (35 minutes).
5. The crumb is rather dense for this loaf. This is quite expected because of the shortening effect of the fat content. The long cooking produces a crunchy crust, which is a unique contrast to the softness of the dense crumb.
6. The bread is very pleasant to the mouth. It is the richness of butter. The high fat content keeps the bread from going stale even when left at room temperature overnight.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Okara quickbread

I bought some fresh okara when I saw it in the market. It's an interesting thing. It's the leftover from making the soy drink from the beans. We used to throw it away. But after doing some study on it, I realized that it has high protein and fiber, and has tenderizing effect on food, including meat balls and meat loafs! There are also recipes that add it to tuna salad. The dried okara can be added to baked goods to give a softer texture. So I decided to try it out.


Recipe: Okrara quickbread

Ingredients:
- 1 cup high gluten flour
- 1 cup fresh okara
- 2 eggs
- 2 tp baking powder
- 1/2 tp salt
- 2 stalks of spring onion, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup water

Procedure:
1. Mix flour with salt and baking powder. Add okara, egg and spring onion. Then add water until the mixture forms a thick paste. Pour the batter into a generously greased pan.
2. Bake at 350F for about 30-40 minutes, until top is light brown. The interior may still be moist. Slice it up. Return to oven, with the cut sides facing top and bottom. Bake to crisp.

Fresh okara:

Batter of okara, flour and egg:

Done first round of baking at 350F (about 30 minutes):

Done second round of baking at 350F:

Twice-baked okara scone:

Leftover okara dried and grounded to powder for future use in baking:

Observations:
1. With this quickbread, it's hard for me to know how long to bake and how the texture should be like when baked. That's why I bake it twice to make sure that it's done-done.
2. The taste is not bad. The salt and spring onion give it a strong savory flavor. My husband isn't a great fan of scones. But he comments that this is good for a scone.
3. I wonder if it would do batter if the batter is thinner. Maybe it just needs more liquid to start off with. The original recipe is on the package. It is a pancake recipe and calls for 1+1/3 cups of water. I reduce the  amount of water to 1/4 cup in order to make it into a pie for baking.