Yeast rolls

@Butrflynet,

Thanks Butrflynet!

I'd absolutely share with her if I ever come up with a similar recipe.

Somebody, somewhere has that recipe. I'm thinking it must have had cocaine in it or something and that's why the recipe is so secret (and why the rolls were so addictive).

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I'm trying to work up my courage to try a hand kneaded brioche (I don't have a stand mixer) today.

I decide to whip up a baguette using the autolyse method to get a feel for how that changes things. I'd never even heard of it before but it is definately recommended for brioche (and, it turns out, for other bread):

Quote:

Let me explain what exactly “autolyse” means. Etymologically speaking, it’s the French word for the biological term “autolysis”, which is from the Greek words meaning “self” and “splitting”. Huh? What’s that got to do with bread?

Well, autolysis refers to the destruction of a cell by its own enzymes, or “self-splitting”. In baking, this means that enzymes in flour (amylase and protease, if you really want to know) begin to break down the starch and protein in the flour. The starch gets converted to sugar, and the protein gets reformed as gluten.

Why would you want to do this? When you knead the dough, aren’t you just trying to do the same thing - form gluten? Well, yes, ultimately; but when you knead dough, you also oxidize it (expose it to oxygen). Over-oxidized (or, over-kneaded) dough results in color and flavor loss in a finished bread, which means it’s pale and tasteless. By giving the mixed flour and water time to go through autolysis on their own, you achieve the same result, but without any of the unpleasant effects of oxidation. Additionally, an autolyse period gives the flour time to soak up all the moisture, resulting in more orderly gluten formation (um, long story short).

What this all means for your bread is that your dough will be easier to handle before it’s baked, and the end product will taste better, have better texture, look better, and have better keeping qualities. What’s not to love?

I've already gone out and bought the extra eggs and butter so I might as well give it a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained......

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That doesn't explain what you are physically doing to the dough. Does this mean that you let it stand longer before kneading it? I'm not getting how this differs from my method. I partially mix the dough, but leave it more or less liquid for about 30 minutes while the yeast gets to work. Then add flour, and as soon as it will stand up enough, i knead in more flour. Then i let it rise. Then i knead it again, working more flour in, and let it rise. Finally, i form it into loaves, and let it rise in the loaf before baking.

Please advise.

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@Setanta,

I usually let the yeast sit in warm water for about 10 minutes and then mix it with the flour and begin kneading. The difference is that you mix the flour with water (no salt, no yeast) and let it stand for 20 minutes. Then you add the yeast and salt and knead.

I was looking at brioche recipes today and every one of them included standing mixers and dough hooks as a requirement. So I looked further trying to see if hand kneading brioche was even a possiblity and I came across this discussion: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20375/it-possible-handknead-brioche.

I couldn't find the video they discussed but found some others and it is really an intensive kneading process.

The baguette recipe I use calls for 6 cups of flour and 2 cups of water. I usually let the yeast sit in the water for 10 minutes then mix in 2 cups of flour before working in the final 4 cups.

Today I mixed 2 cups of flour with 1 1/2 cups of water and left that to sit for 20 minutes. I mixed the yeast (5.5 t) with the remaining 1/2 cup of water, added the salt and started working it in. Then started kneading in the remaining 4 cups of flour.

I ended up omitting about 1/2 cup of flour because the dough became very stiff, very quickly. I won't know for a few more hours how the bread will differ from my usual baguette but I'll let you know!

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I left the link out of my post discussing the autolyse method. Here it is: http://www.abreadaday.com/?p=1159

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@Setanta,

From the baking911 website:

Quote:

Autolyse: (pronounced ah-toh-leez) Yeasted recipes - A short rest called an autolyse comes right after mixing the flour, yeast, oil, and water. It cuts down on your kneading time and allow the dough to bake into a lighter bread with a more open crumb. Here's how an autolyse works.• It allows the flour time to fully absorb the water, so the dough is less sticky when you knead it; • It helps the gluten to both bond and break down, resulting in a dough that's quicker to knead and easier to shape; • It gives the yeast time to rehydrate fully so you don't end up with yeast bits in the dough. You'll notice in the recipe that the salt goes in after the autolyse. This is because salt causes gluten to contract and toughen, preventing the gluten from absorbing as much water and thus fully benefiting from the autolyse.

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@boomerang,

Hand kneading is always a possibility. People have been making loaves of bread long before we had electric mixers.

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@Butrflynet,

I know but I wanted to see what I was getting myself into!

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@boomerang,

Another recipe you might want to try is that of the Jewish challah. It is very similar to brioche except it uses more eggs and uses oil rather than butter.

Here are a few sites to explore:

http://www.jewishrecipes.org/recipes/challah/index.html

http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/09/best-challah-egg-bread/

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@Butrflynet,

Interesting, listening.

Although I pronouce autolyse as Aw - toe - lies (as in fib). It's an old word.

This reminds me of one of my first bacti classes. The professor isso-lated the bacteria, not Eye so lated them. British chap.

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Ugh.

I'm going to start looking for a cheap stand mixer. Brioche is a bitch. Maybe it's just the recipe I'm using (the cloverleaf recipe I linked on the first page) but... ugh.

There are so few liquid ingredients and you can't really dissovle yeast in milk and there isn't enough water for an autolyse.

I finally got the butter kneaded in. Had to do it in the bowl since you don't want to add too much flour. Now I'm just letting it sit for a bit before I get to the serious kneading.

Ugh. I don't know if this recipe is worth it.

At least the baguettes are smelling lovely....

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Do you have a good food processor? That would do the job.

Also, if you have a sturdy hand mixer such as a Kitchen Aid hand mixer, the dough beaters do a satisfactory job.

If you have your heart set on a stand mixer, the Kitchen Aid is the best. You can get some good deals on used mixers. All the accessory parts work with any of the older models.

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@boomerang,

OK--that's what i do already. I don't use sugar in my starter, i use honey, and i add it after the yeast has already started on the flour. Thanks, Darlin'.

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Porn for bakers:

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@boomerang,

I'd love to have a smaller version of that mixer. I miss the one I used to use when I worked in food service.

That sheet roller would be wonderful too.

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@Butrflynet,

Me too <sigh>.

I went so far as to look for a used, countertop model on Craigslist while I was working on Mo's b-day cake but couldn't justify the price of even a used one.

Then I tried bumming one of several of my neighbors but it turns out none of them really like to cook so they didn't have one.

<sigh>

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@boomerang,

I like the way the beaters churn the dough on that professional model. It can develop some serious gluten strands. I have one of the Kitchen Aid mixers with the planetary motion, and they're good, but my ideal one would have a larger capacity and the similar beating motion as the commercial mixer in that video.

By the way, I ran across some barley malt syrup at Whole Earth Foods the other day and bought some. So, if you're still looking for some and have a WEF near you, that's a source. I found it in the baking aisle near the molasses and other liquid sweeteners.

I'm going to add some to my next batch of bread to see how it changes the flavor.

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@Butrflynet,

I found some at New Seasons! I tried adding a bit to one recipe but didn't notice much difference. I'll probably get back to baking some bread when things calm down around here so I'm sure I'll give it another shot. Let me know how yours turns out.

Watching that video I started thinking that when Mo gets a little older I should just go get a job in a bakery to get a chance to use that stuff!

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@boomerang,

You're killin' me. This is my favorite video ever. Well, there was one other, for making sfogliatelle; I'll have to dig up the link.

This video, wow. First of all, the music is personal. And then so are croissants.
I haven't tasted a good one since I used to go back to my old Venice, CA area, in the early 2000's, and meet with friends morning after morning at the Rose Cafe.
Crushingly sadly, last time I was there in the late fall of 2009, they not only didn't have wonderful croissants, but they had terrible ones. Heartbreak. With any luck, there may have been complaints and they might have reinstituted the great ones. Much as I loved their croissants for, what, decades, even their best weren't made at this level.

That baker is gold..

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@ossobuco,

This is the sfogliatelle video I'm remembering:

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