bread

Wine, cheese and walnut whole wheat bread using the Almost No-Knead method

maki — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:18:57 +0200

More than a year ago, a method of making bread that required no kneading at all was published in the New York Times, and swept through the food blogging world like wildfire. Here is that original recipe (login required). I tried it too, and while it did produce a very nice loaf, I found it rather lacking in character. So I adapted the method for making desem bread, a natural-yeast (no yeast added) bread that has a wonderful flavor.

However, desem is a very labor-intensive bread, even if the loaves themselves are made the no-knead way. The desem starter itself has to be nurtured and fed continuously. I haven’t managed to keep one alive for more than a few months at a time - when I get too busy, or go away or something, the desem dies and I have to start over. (I’ve tried freezing it and things and the results have been rather mixed.)

Late last year, Cook’s Illustrated came out with a recipe they called Almost No-Knead Bread. Some people have taken to calling it No-Knead 2.0, but the original is called Almost No-Knead. Here’s a link to the recipe that doesn’t require registration, though if they close that loophole you can register there for 14 days for free. I haven’t seen Almost No-Knead rage through the food blogging world with quite the enthusiasm that the original No-Knead did, but it is an interesting development. There is some minimal kneading involved, but nothing too taxing.

Here are the key differences between the No-Knead and the Almost No-Knead methods:

Beer (lager) and a little vinegar are added to Almost No-Knead, to add some character and flavor. (One of the main criticisms of Original No-Knead was that the bread was a bit bland.)
Almost No-Knead is less hydrated. No-Knead calls for 1 5/8 cups of water per 3 cups of flour, and Almost calls for 1 1/4 cups of liquid in the form of 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons of water and 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of lager. This allows for easier handling of the dough.
Almost No-Knead requires a little kneading and shaping of the loaf before the second rise.
An innovation added by Almost No-Knead is a sort of sling made of kitchen parchment paper, which is put under the loaf with the ends hanging out of the cast iron pot the loaf is baked in. This allows for the load to be taken out of that red hot pot easily.

I find that the No-Knead method produces a slightly better, more crackly crust, probably due to the higher hydration. But the taste of Almost No-Knead is indeed better, more tangy and complex, though not as deeply complex as a true sourdough. Both have that sort of silky, slightly doughy, open and moist texture that is much desired in ‘artisanal’ type breads.

Everyday Almost No-Knead

I’ve tried the original Almost No-Knead as well as the variations (I did buy a 1-year subscription to Cook’s Illustrated by the way, it is worth while) such as Seeded Rye and Pecan and Cranberries. The latter one is really good.

The schedule for making the bread that fits our daily life goes like this: I mix up the bread late in the evening, around 10 or 11. It requires an 18 hour rise, but it’s not too picky in that regard - an hour less or more doesn’t seem to affect things too much. The next day, around 5 or 6 whenever someone gets home if we are out, it’s punched down and kneaded (I like to add the additives at this stage rather than at the start) and given a 2 hour rise, then baked. We have the bread for dinner or for breakfast, or both. If you only have time to bake on weekends, do the bread mixing on Saturday to have fresh baked bread on Sunday, counting back at least 22 hours (1/2 hour for mixing/kneading, 18 for the first rise, 2 for the second rise, and 1 1/2 hours for cooling and such) from when you want to eat the bread.

Taking it even further

After I’d made the lager and vinegar flavored loaves several times, I started to wonder if adding wine would work. I used to love a bread called baguette au vin et rosette, pictured here, a crusty and hearty baguette with bits of rosette sausage and wine actually in the dough. The baker who made it unfortunately sold up and moved on, so I can’t get that bread anymore. After several tries, I think I have hit upon a combination that really works. So after a long preamble, here’s the recipe. Note that the hydration (amount of water) is a bit different from the original Almost No-Knead.

Recipe: Almost No-Knead whole wheat wine bread with walnuts and cheese

2 cups (10 oz / 280g) all-purpose flour
1 cup (5 oz / 140g) whole wheat flour
1/4 to 1/3 tsp. dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cups (177ml) lukewarm water
1/4 cup dry red wine
3/4 cups of roughly chopped walnuts
1/2 cup finely diced aged Gruyère, or other aged hard cheese

In a bowl, mix together the flours, yeast and salt. (Note about the yeast: I really don’t know what rapid-rise yeast is in German, and there’s only one kind of dry yeast sold here commonly, so I add just a tad more of that, and it works fine.) Add the liquids and mix until it forms a shaggy ball. It looks like this - the red wine does make it a light purple in color, but after it’s baked it’s much less noticeable (as you can see in the top photo).

Cover the ball and let it rise in a warm place for about 18 hours. (The most reliably warm place in our house is on top of an old PC tower case, turned on of course.)

After 18 hours or so are up, the dough should be risen and puffy. Knead in the walnuts and cheese, and form a ball again. Make a sort of sling out of parchment paper, but cutting a length of it off and folding it into half or thirds. Set this under the ball, in a pot or skillet, and cover the whole thing with a large bowl turned upside down over it, or plastic film. You may want to consult the step by step illustrations on the Cook’s Illustrated site for this part, or the video.)

Set your timer to 90 minutes, and when it beeps put an enamelled cast-iron pot in the oven and set it to 500°F / 260°C, or a bit less than that if you have a convection oven. (I do, and I set it to 250°C.) Set your timer to 30 minutes.

Take out the red-hot pot carefully, take the dough by the sling, and drop it in the pot. Bake for about 30 minutes, and take off the lid; if it looks too pale for you at this point, bake for an additional 10 minutes or so.

When done, take the bread out using the sling, and let cool on a rack. (My cooling rack is my grill!)

The wine really makes this bread taste interesting. A slice of this plus a salad or soup makes for a very satisfying lunch, and it also makes a great sandwich.

Variations

You can leave out the cheese for a walnut bread, or use pecans instead. Chopped up black olives are nice too, instead of the cheese. Or leave all out for a plain wine bread which goes well with just about anything, but especially - you guessed it - cheese.

One addition that has not worked for me so far is adding ham or sausage, a la the baguette au vin et rosette. Whatever ham or sausage I’ve tried has made the bread turn overly sausage-y. The experimentation on that front continues.

Bread pudding made with leftover hot cross bunny buns

maki — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:39:19 +0100

I am still not up to much cooking, but I did want to share this in case anyone ends up making the hot cross bunny buns, or just regular hot cross buns, for Easter, and have leftovers. I did the trial run for the bunny buns a couple of days before I went to the hospital. Eight (!) of them were consumed almost right away, but the rest ended up getting hard and forlorn since (cough) someone forgot to put them in the freezer fast enough.

Never fear though, they made great bread pudding. It was so good that even I was able to eat a little, in my current uncomfortable-swallowing and lack of appetite state.

Sorry for the lack of photos…it got devoured before I had a chance to shoot. I’ll put some in next time I have leftover hot cross bunnies.

Recipe: Hot cross bunny bun bread pudding

4 stale hot cross bunny buns
1 litre or 1 quart of milk (whole is better)
About 2 Tbs. (or however much you want) of butter
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract or a vanilla pod
1/4 cup raw cane sugar (or light brown sugar) plus extra to sprinkle on top

Shred up the bunny buns. You will want to shred them up so that they no longer look anything like bunny faces. Otherwise, once you put them in the milk-egg batter, they will stare up at you balefully, spooking you out. (If you’re starting with ordinary hot cross buns, you will not have this problem.) Put the shredded up bunny bread in a square deep baking pan (I used a brownie pan).

If you’re using a vanilla pod, cut it open in half and scrape out the seeds, and add to the milk. If you’re using vanilla extract, add it to the milk.

Beat the eggs, and add the milk/vanilla and sugar and mix together thoroughly. Pour over the shredded up buns. If the sugar hasn’t melted, don’t worry - just add it to the pan, it will melt in there. The dried up bread will soak it up thirstily. If some pieces poke out, push them in. Cover and let it soak in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Heat up the oven to 150°C / 300°F. Take the pan out of the fridge, and dot with bits of butter, as much as you want.

Sprinkle the top with a little more sugar. Bake for about 35-40 minutes until the top is browned and it’s more or less set.

To be extra indulgent, serve with vanilla ice cream.

Hot Cross Easter Bunny Buns

hungryelf — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:10:14 +0100

(This is the web elf. This is one of the articles Maki instructed to post while she’s on the disabled list.)

I love bunnies, and Easter is a great excuse to make something edible in a bunny shape. Last year, I made bunny bao. The year before that, I took a class in making chocolate bunnies. I’ve also made pastel colored Easter Bunny cupcakes, and given you a diagram for cutting usagi ringo (apple bunnies).

This year I have an urge for the traditional British Easter treat, hot cross buns. But, as bunnies.

Hot Cross buns are soft and light, spicy fruity buns with a sugar glaze. They are called Hot Cross buns because they usually sport a cross on top. I prefer the bunny as my Easter motif.

These bunnies are made using the Hot Cross bun recipe on the BBC Food site, which yields a realy nice, light bun with a wonderful spicy fragrance. I did change two things: I added some orange zest in addition to lemon zest to the dough, and simply pressed some dried fruit into the dough as I’ll show below instead of mixing it into the dough. This was done in order to produce bunnies with fairly smooth faces. The drawback is that you don’t get fruit in every bite, but I think the cuteness more than makes up for that.

How to make spicy bunny buns

As stated above, I used the Hot Cross bun recipe on the BBC Food site, which has worked great for me before. The things I did differently are:

I didn’t have any compressed yeast, so I just used a packet of dry yeast. That worked fine. Making the starter sponge (the fermented yeast starter) eliminates any yeasty flavor.
For the flour I used Zopfmehl (farine per tresse) which is a high gluten flour; in the U.S. use bread flour.
I added the grated zest of an orange as well as the zest of a lemon.
Instead of the mixed spice, I used a Lebkuchen spice mix, which has cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and star anise in it. You can use a combination of your favorite baking spices here, but cinnamon should be one of them. I think cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg should make a nice mix.
For the dried fruit, I just used some dried cranberries, which I’m rather into at the moment. They’d be just as good with raisins or currants.

So, once you’ve done the two dough risings, divide it into 12 pieces and round off the 12 pieces. Rest them on your working surface with a clean kitchen towel over them, for at least 10 minutes. This allows the dough to rest and recover, ready for the next step.

Take a piece, and roll it out into a little sausage, then flatten out the sausage. You could use a rolling pin, but I just use my hands. This dough is nice and buttery so you shouldn’t need any flour to stop the dough sticking.

Put a few dried cranberries or raisins etc. on 2/3rds of the dough, and press into the dough.

Fold the dough over to cover the fruit.

Cut the remaining dough in half, lengthwise, with a sharp knife. These will be the ears.

Fold the ears up and over the rest of the dough. Squeeze the dough (the face) so that it’s quite narrow.

Here’s another view of a single bunny.

Arrange them on a baking sheet that’s been greased or covered with kitchen parchment paper or a silicon baking sheet, far apart so they won’t touch after another rising. Cover with clean kitchen towels or plastic film and leave to rise for about 40 minutes. Don’t forget to turn your oven on to heat up (to 240°C / 475°F) 15-20 minutes before the rising time is up.

Poke eyes into each bunny face with a chopstick, and poke a piece of cranberry, raisin or currant into the hole. (You can just poke in a hole and omit the fruit if you want.)

Here’s a tray of bunnies with eyes. I have 6 bunny buns per sheet - 2 sheets total. Put both into the oven and set a timer for 5 minutes, then rotate the sheets (so the one on top goes below, and vice versa) and bake for another 10 minutes or so until the buns are a fairly dark golden brown.

Glaze the bunny buns with golden syrup or honey that’s been warmed through until very runny, while still hot. I used honey. Serve warm.

Notes

If you want to make these for Easter Sunday, they are best if you can bake them in the morning. In order to accomplish this without waking up at a ridiculously early hour, you can make the dough the night before, do the first 1 hour rising, and then leave it in the refrigerator in a tightly closed plastic bag. Take it out in the morning and form the cool dough, and do the final 40 minute rising.

Alternatively, you can bake them before and freeze them without the glaze. Warm them through in the oven (at around 160°C/325°F) wrapped in foil for about 15-20 minutes until warmed through, and then glaze.

Bunnies gone bad

It’s quite important to make the bunny faces quite narrow as shown. If you make fat faced bunnies, after rising and baking they turn into odd, unbunny-like things, sort of like mutant cousins of Hello Kitty. Here’s a batch that didn’t work out that well.

You might wonder, what happened to the Cross part of the Hot Cross Bunny Buns. Well, my initial idea was to apply an icing cross as the mouth of the bunny. But that turned the cute bunny face into something rather reminiscent of Silence Of the Lambs.

So I left out the cross. I guess you could apply a small cut-in cross with a knife, if you need to keep that religious symbolism in there.

(You could also make half cross buns, and half bunny buns, to satisfy both traditionalists and the disciples of cute.)

Leftovers?

Turn them into the best bread pudding ever.

Homemade whole wheat pita bread, no oven needed

maki — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:56:47 +0100

Even with more than 900 (and counting) posts and almost 200 recipes posted on Just Hungry, there are still lots of things that I make all the time, but haven’t got around to writing about yet. A lot of those things take more time to write up than cook, almost. This whole wheat pita bread recipe is one of them. You do have to account for the obligatory rising time for the dough, but otherwise it’s dead easy, and your kitchen working time in total is maybe 20 minutes, 30 tops. For fresh baked bread!

The key is that the pitas are not baked in the oven. No need for preheating baking stones or quarry tiles or all that stuff. They are baked, so to speak, in a plain old frying pan. You can make them any size you want as long as it fits in the bottom of the frying pan. I like to make small, palm-sized ones for easy snacking or bringing along for lunch.

This recipe also only requires 3 cups of flour in total. I sometimes get a bit frustrated by bread recipes that call for like 6 cups of flour, since we are a small household watching our collective waistlines and there’s no way we can eat that much bread in a reasonable amount of time. Sure you can freeze the excess, but then you can quickly accumulate massive amounts of frozen bread if you bake often. So anyway, this makes 12 smallish pitas, which are gone quite quickly, especially with a resident Bread Fiend in house.

I referred to many other pita bread recipes, especially this excellent one on About.com, before arriving at this version. The cooking in the frying pan concept came from watching naan bread and Chinese flat breads puff when cooked on griddles. A griddle is not necessary though - and I think most people have at least one frying pan.

The recipe is so simple, and I make it so often, that I’ve committed it to memory.

Whole wheat pita bread without an oven

1 packet (7g) instant dried yeast
250ml warm water (A U.S. cup plus a bit)
pinch of sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white bread flour (or strong flour; in Switzerland use Zopfmehl (farine de tresse)) (Using bread flour ensures there’s sufficient gluten in the dough.)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil

Equipment needed:

a non-stick frying pan or two
lids to fit the pans
mixing bowl
clean washed pillow case

Mix together the warm water (from the tap is fine), yeast, and pinch of sugar. Leave in a warm place until frothy.

Mix together the flours and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the liquid gradually, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. Add the oil, and as soon as it’s formed a ball start to knead. (If it’s a bit dry, add water drops at a time until it’s kneadable). Knead until smooth and pliable.

Put the dough ball in a plastic bag or in a clean bowl covered with plastic wrap and leave in a warm place until more than doubled in bulk. In the winter, I find the ideal warm place is on top of a Big Ass PC case with gimpy motherboard which gives out excessive heat despite two cooling fans. This is one instance where I consider a PC to be superior for a task than a Mac.

After the dough has risen, punch it down and knead again. Cut into 8 to 12 equal pieces. Round off each piece into a smooth ball, and leave, covered with a damp cloth or plastic, to rest for about 10 minutes, on a floured surface. (This resting time I find is critical for the successful formation of the pocket inside the pita.)

Flatten the balls with your hand or a rolling pin to your desired diameter (for 12 pieces, about 5-6 inches / 12-15 cm is good). Let rest again for a few minutes so that the dough balls ‘relax’. [Edit: this was omitted before. It’s not critical, but if you’re having trouble getting a ‘pocket’ to form inside the pita, give this step a try.]

Heat up one or more non-stick frying pans, over medium-high heat.

Take a flattened ball and put in a hot frying pan. Cover with lid. Leave for about 2-3 minutes, until it puffs up. Flip over and cook for another 2-3 minutes on the other side. Some will puff more than others - don’t worry if the puffing is minimal, you can still use it.

Take out of the pan and immediately put into the pillow case. Close up the pillow case. This allows the pita to cool in a somewhat closed environment, so the surface is sort of pliable rather than crispy and brittle. (You can, of course, use a large kitchen towel instead, but I thought you might have fun pointing out to your friends that there’s a crazy woman who wants you to use a pillow case for baking bread. And it works!)

Repeat for the rest of the dough. Once you get used to it, you can heat up 2, 3 or more frying pans at once and cook several at a time. I find that juggling two pans is my limit though, or the pitas get too black. A little charring is fine - it just adds to the flavor.

Now let’s see if there’s a pocket inside by cutting one open.

There sure is!

(Sometimes there isn’t a pocket - the ones that didn’t puff much may be solid inside - but you can easily make one with a knife, or just by wiggling around two fingers inside the bread.)

These come out a bit puffier than commercial pita bread, but are delicious - better! - nevertheless. Use as you would any pita.

Salty bread and salty tears

maki — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 21:24:21 +0200

The sign that is no more.

As we approached the tiny hilltop village of Montsegur-sur-Lauzon in northern Provence, my mouth was already watering in anticipation of the bread at the one and only boulangerie (bakery) there. I’d been looking forward to this for months, ever since last November, when we’d made one last stopover to load up on bread to sustain us for the long drive back home and a couple of days beyond.

I’ve written about my love for this boulangerie before. The bread there was the best I’ve ever had - bursting with flavor and character. Even when the loaves turned a bit stale after a couple of days, they were still so good. I was convinced that if the baker, Monsieur Metaud, was in Paris, he’d be world famous.

It was a Sunday, and there was a small queue of people waiting for their bread in the tiny store. Neither of the two people behind the counter, a young man and a middle aged woman, were Madame or Monsieur Metaud, but that didn’t concern us - they had other people selling bread there before, especially on weekends. But as we shuffled closer to the front of the line, something seemed a bit off. The collection of exotic teas that used to line the wall shelves were gone. The pretty display of confections was quite pared down.

Still, I spotted a sign stuck into a loaf that said baguettes au vin et à larosette, and breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh great, they haven’t run out yet”, I whispered. They often ran out of this, my favorite bread out of all of their excellent selection - a gutsy, salty, twisted loaf of goodness, faintly pink and grey from red wine, with chunks of rosette, a kind of Provençal salami, in it.

We ordered a baguette traditionelle, a baguette au levain and a couple of those baguettes au vin et à la rosette, and exited the store rapidly. As usual, I tore off the end of one of the baguettes and popped it into my mouth as soon as I as outside.

I stopped and stared into the bag. As we walked back to the car, I pulled out the whole loaf - smaller, as I’d already spotted, and darker than I remembered - and broke it in half.

“Something’s wrong” I frowned. Max, who was about to turn on the ignition, stopped and looked at me. “What do you mean, something’s wrong?”

“It’s not the same bread at all”, I held out a half of the loaf. “See, the rosette isn’t in chunks, it’s shredded. And the bread itself…” I took another bite, just to make sure. “It’s just…ordinary.”

With a skeptical look Max tore off a chunk and chewed. “Hmmm…” he said. “Hmmm…” We looked at each other in dismay. Wordlessly, he took a ripped into the baguette traditionelle too, and handed me a piece. There was no doubt about it: this was not bread from the same baker.

Leaving the loaves in the car we walked back to the bakery, still stunned. Now I noticed some more things. The window display was somehow different: instead of the imaginative and feminine arrangements I’d seen before (one I remember had lavender candies arranged like a lavender field with toy bees hovering over), there was a fairly standard basket of several loaves of bread. Outside the store, instead of the faded green on white sign proclaiming PAIN GAULOIS - PATISSERIE - PAIN DE COURGE, there was a metal Artisan Boulanger sign, that you see on the fronts of many bakeries (I’m not sure but I think it’s some sort of franchise sign).

“Do you think that it’s really a different baker?” I whispered in dismay, as we peered into the store again. Now, the two people selling bread looked more like proprietors than hired help, somehow. Max scratched his head.

We decided to get another loaf, any loaf, so that we could test it some more. We got an ordinary baguette. In the car, we munched thoughtfully, looked at the crust, examined the crumb.

Don’t get me wrong - it was a perfectly acceptable baguette. But it was not special anymore. The crumb was too even, lacking the interesting, gutsy holes. The crust, crusty yes, but not sharp and crackling and full of vigor. Occasionally Monsieur Metaud’s baguettes were a bit on the too-salty side, which made them even more interesting in a way, but I felt that this new baguette was almost too bland.

That day we drove away, rather stunned. Later on, we decided that questions needed to be asked. Maybe the baker just had an off day. We hoped, really hoped, that was the case.

But somehow I already sensed it wasn’t so.

A few days later we drove back to the village, and went to the boucherie (butcher shop) on the other side of the village square - we felt rather awkward about trying to talk to the new people behind the counter in the boulangerie. There, we learned that Monsieur Metaud had indeed sold the boulangerie. He was living in a nearby town, but no longer baking. That magical bread that I had spent months dreaming about was no more.

I can’t deny that for a few minutes, I did feel some tears welling up. Crying over bread, or any kind of food that is no longer available, may seem silly to a lot of people. It seems a bit silly to me even. Still, there is a corner of my heart where I mourn those foods that I can no longer have, including that wonderful bread. The terrific hamburger that I used to have at a coffee shop that went out of business a decade ago. My first cassoulet, at a tiny restaurant in Toulouse that I can’t remember the location of. The bright blue ice lollies I loved when I was seven. The turtle soup I had, at age eight, at a long gone country house restaurant in England. The delicate cuttlefish sushi with sea salt and yuzu prepared by an itamae-san who passed away. My grandmother’s pickles. And lots, lots more.

I may try to recreate some of those breads, especially the baguettes au vin et à la rosette, for myself. And there are other, terrific bakers out there of course - and we already discovered a couple, once we were left without the magic of M. Metaud’s bread (I’ll write about these shortly). But it isn’t, and never will be, the same. It’s never the same.

This is why great food is such an elusive art form, that we can only experience in the now. We can listen to music that has been recorded, watch a great movie over and over again, or gaze at a wonderful painting. That astonishingly delicious mouthful can never be experienced like that again - and once the creator stops making it, it’s gone forever. So when we are lucky enough to encounter great food, we need to savor it for all its worth, to imprint it as much as possible on our taste buds and in our memories.

This is one of the reasons why I write about food, to keep a record of those precious, fleeting moments of pleasure.

Hausbrot 3

maki — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:36:05 +0200

Hausbrot 2

maki — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 13:34:59 +0200

Easter brunch bunny bao (steamed buns)

maki — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:16:59 +0200

For a planned Easter lunch, I wanted to do something in the brunch realm, but with an Easter theme. Brunch purists may insist on eggs and pancakes and croissants and champagne for brunch, but for me ‘brunch’ means an early lunch feast after little or no breakfast, and so dim sum is my favorite kind of brunch.

Putting Easter and dim sum together, I devised these bunny shaped bao, or steamed buns. (The inspiration for the shape came from a pair of fluffy white bunny slippers I saw at a flea market last summer.) They are quite simple really: tender steamed bun dough is filled and formed into an oval, and the ears are cut with scissors. The faces are optional - for a minimalist bunny, you could just leave them blank and unadorned. Or, you could go all-out and add whiskers with slivered green onion, or whatever strikes your fancy.

The bunny bao could be stuffed with any kind of steamed bun filling (see my roast pork filled steamed buns), but keeping with the brunch theme, I’ve filled these with an egg, bacon and chive mixture. It all makes sense - eggs, and ham, and bunnies, plus spring chives. So very Easter.

You could of course omit the bunny-shaping part if you want to avoid the cuteness.

Bunny shaped bao (steamed buns) with egg and bacon filling

Makes about 12 bunnies

For the dough:

400g / 14 oz. all-purpose white flour
1 packet (7g) dry yeast
2 Tbs. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
220ml / a bit less than 1 U.S. cup warm water
2 Tbs. vegetable oil (such as canola, safflower)
extra flour for rolling out

For the filling:

150g / about 5 oz (a few slices) bacon, speck or pancetta, cut into small dice
3 large eggs
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. mirin
3 Tbs. chives, finely chopped

Equipment: a pair of sharp scissors, a multi-tiered bamboo steamer, kitchen parchment paper

Make the dough. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together well. Add the warm water a little at a time, mixing all the time, until it forms a shaggy ball. Add the oil and knead in the bowl until the dough cleans the sides. Place on a board (lightly floured if necessary) and knead until smooth. Form into a ball, place back in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave until risen to about 2 1/2 times its original size, about 1 hour.

In the meantime, make the filling. In a dry non-stick frying pan, fry the the bacon bits until crispy but not too black. Drain well on a paper towel.

Mix together the egg, soy sauce, sugar and mirin. In the same non-stick frying pan, mix the egg around to make scrambled eggs that are firm but not hard (take of the heat while still soft, and they’ll continue to cook to the ideal firmness). Add the chives and the bacon at the end and mix well. Let cool to room temperature.

Punch down the risen dough, roll into a snake and cut into 12 equal pieces. Make each piece into a small, smooth ball. Cover with a dampened kitchen towel and let rest for about 15 minutes.

Cut the parchment paper into 12 10cm / 4 inches or so sized squares.

Make ready the steaming equipment.

Flatten a dough ball to about 12 cm / 5 inches in diameter, making the edges thinner than the middle part.

Place about 1 teaspoon of the filling in the middle of the dough circle. Don’t try to overfill or you will have trouble closing up the dough.

Gather up the dough around the filling, pinching to seal well. The dough should be moist enough to form a good seal, but if not brush the edges with the tiny bit of water and pinch closed again.

Flip the bun over, and form into a longish oval shape, rounding out any bumps if needed. Look at the bun and decide which end looks best as the ‘face’ of the bunny.

Lay a pair of clean, sharp scissors almost flat against the top of the bun lenghwise. The points should aim for about 1/3 from the ‘face’ end of the bun. Snip two ‘ears’, taking care not to cut through the dough so the filling is exposes.

Here’s how the bunny should look after the ears are snipped. If the ears are too round, flatten them carefully with your fingers.

To make the eyes, poke small holes with a chopstick end and poke in a piece of chive in each hole. Don’t go too deep! (If you are in a hurry, just poke the holes and skip the chives.)

Place each bun on a piece of parchment paper, and place in a steamer well apart (they will puff up to about twice the size, and any touching parts will not be smooth). Steam for about 20 minutes. Eat while piping hot.

Notes

The dough here is a bit more delicate than the basic one I gave for steamed buns previously. The trick to making the bunnies smooth and cute is to not overhandle the dough, and to keep the surface moist when letting them rest. Don’t use bread flour - use all-purpose, or even cake flour. (The dough recipe comes from a fantastic book in Japanese called Peking (Beijing) Style Flour Cooking by Wu Wuen.)

To make ahead, steam them, let them cool a bit and put into plastic bags and freeze. You can steam them from frozen for about 20-25 minutes until hot.

You can also make plain unstuffed bunnies. Plain bao make a great accompaniment to Chinese meals, instead of the usual rice or noodles.

Cute yet modern Swiss Easter bunny bread

maki — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:18:15 +0100

Swiss people love cutely formed bread, just as much if not more than Japanese people. Behold, this masterpiece of adorable yet modern design, in the form of an Easter Bunny bread. (click on the image from the web page to see it larger).

The almond slices scattered on top were a bit misleading. I was rather anticipating some kind of sugar-almondy filling, but it was just slightly sweetened white bread all the way through. Perhaps the cuteness is enough sugariness for one small bread.

For more Swiss Easter Bunny goodness, read about the chocolate Easter Bunny making class I took last year.

Swiss Easter Bunny Bread

maki — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:08:22 +0100