5 bread recipes: pros/cons
Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #125 [vol6, 1.4]
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Last Saturday friends and I met in the church kitchen to play with dough. And practice with the convection oven.
The Five Recipes
Two were pretzel recipes, thinking this would be a relatively easy and fun snack to provide for youth group gatherings.
One was tried and true: overnight brioche.
One was made with mashed potatoes and the water in which they were cooked.
The last was a simple, high hydration peasant bread.
Pretzels
Both recipes used sourdough discard. One was from Farmhouse on Boone the other from Amy Bakes Bread.
Farmhouse on Boone - more of pretzel texture, boil in baking soda + sugar. She has a pretzel bite recipe, which is slightly different that the actual pretzel recipe.
Farmhouse on Boone is an excellent sourdough resource. She also has a YouTube channel. Her style isn’t fussy and attainable for the real food newbie.
Amy Bakes Bread - were best as “bites”, not shaped as a pretzel, which is more realistic for large batches. This recipes brushes on the baking soda wash instead of boiling them.
Neither recipe was difficult to work with. It was decided Farmhouse on Boone is best when shaping into actual pretzels but Amy Bakes Bread works best for pretzel bites — and is what we will use when making for a large group.
Overnight Brioche
This recipe we have used on Wednesdays at church. It is forgiving and easy for a beginner. They can be made the day of or the day before. I like the added nutrition of eggs, butter and milk. When I made them for 100+ as buns, we painted melted butter on the tops and folded the dough on itself, like a Parker House roll. This made them easy to pull apart without having to cut open each bun.
I wanted to compare the texture of this recipe to potato bread, described next.
Potato Bread
This recipe makes incredibly tender bread by using mashed potatoes as well as the water in which they were cooked. Other ingredients are butter and eggs. The dough is supple and a dream to work with. Would make amazing cinnamon rolls.
Part of my reason for trying this recipe was to try out the NEW gigantic dough hook for the industrial mixer, Hobart (the brand).
The recipe suggests making the dough the day before, and best with a high powered mixer for the initial kneading.
I also wanted to test shaping it into hot dog buns, since I bought local brats to make for Wednesday night suppers. Inspired by BenGingi on Instagram.
Tip: make sure this bread is throughly baked; it can be deceiving looking golden on the outside while a bit gummy inside.
A friend who regularly makes yeasted bread for her family tried the recipe this week. Her boys declared the loaf too soft, for what that’s worth.
Verdict: we all liked the taste and the softness. Works well for hot dog buns. The difficult part will be finding someone to shape and bake 100+ on Wednesdays. It takes a certain personality with attention to detail to make uniform buns (and that person is not me.) Wednesday daytime volunteers are in short supply.
Peasant Bread
If you follow on Instagram, this is the bread that bakes in glass bowls. It is very sticky from the high hydration. The ingredients are simply flour, water, yeast, sugar and salt. (read: cost effective for a crowd). No special tools needed.
I’ve made the most incredible hamburger buns from the dough, too. Soft yet stands up to burger juices. This is my favorite burger bun recipe. I wrote about it last week and how to make burgers in the oven.
I wanted to see if we could shape the dough into hotdog buns.
Conclusion: It was difficult / messy, they didn’t look uniform (pretty). We won’t use this dough for hot dog buns. It is delicious as sliced bread as well as circular hamburger buns.
Life is hard; food doesn’t have to be.
Julie
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