Soft Garlic Knots

In my last post I mentioned I caught a cold. While writing that post I was positive it was over.... It was not. The day after that post it came back with a vengeance. These last two weeks I have been completely floored by a very nasty sinus infection. It took a while for the antibiotics to kick in, but fortunately they did.

I'm still not feeling up to par, but I've been so bored I just had to do something...anything.... and so I ended up with something that looks complicated but was actually extremely simple to whip up. Soft Garlic Knots.These are great with a big bowl of soup or a nice stew, which is what I'm currently craving at the start of fall!

The dough is a bit sticky, but it helps to have a free hand with flour when tying these up. Don't be scared, it was really easy to make the knots.

Recipe

Soft Garlic Knots

Yield: 10 rolls

Ingredients:

For the dough:
3 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup milk
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm water

For the glaze:
2 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Instructions:

In a standmixer with the paddle attachment combine the flour, sugar, yeast and salt.

Add the olive oil, milk and water and mix until the ingredients form a dough.

Switch to the dough hook and knead on low speed for about 8 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. It will be a little sticky, but shouldn't be too sticky. If necessary add one tablespoon of flour a time and knead for a short time.

Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, turn once to coat and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for 1 hour until the dough has doubled in bulk.

Divide the dough in 10 pieces. Roll each piece into a 10-inch long roll and tie the dough in a knot.

Take the end lying underneath the knot and tuck it in the center on top. Take the other end and tuck it in the center on the bottom.

Transfer the rolls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Cover the rolls with a clean kitchen towel let rise for 45 minutes.

Make the glaze by chopping the garlic very finely or putting it through a garlic press.

Mix the garlic with the melted butter and the seasoning.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C (350˚F).

Brush the glaze on the rolls. Bake until slightly browned, about 15-18 minutes.

Serve warm.

Source: Annie's Eats

Buttermilk Chive Biscuits

In my quest for finding a great bun/roll/anything I stumbled upon a recipe for Buttermilk Chive Biscuits. Now I know that it is not very bready, but it sounded great, so I thought I'd give it a try! I had al the ingredients on hand and set to work.

Now one thing you should now is that where I come from, there are no such things as biscuits.... well we have biscuits, but those are sweet cookies, something completely different. So I had no idea what the dough should look like, how it's consistency should feel, no prior experience, etc. etc., you get the picture.

I started making the dough and it al went fine, but when I turned it out an a floured surface I discovered that it was actually more a batter than a dough. So I was unable to cut rounds out of it. I have no idea what went wrong and as I have no idea how the dough is supposed to be I can't fix it. I decided to just use really big spoons and sort of shape the biscuits on the baking sheet. This worked fine for me, because once they were baked, they were amazing! The taste and structure were great. The buttermilk really adds a depth to these things.

I'm not saying that my quest is already over, but I am saying that I'll definitely be making these more often. Even if they didn't turn out perfectly!

Recipe

Buttermilk Chive Biscuits

Yield: about 12

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
110 gram (8 tablespoons) cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg
1 egg yolk (optional)
1 scant cup buttermilk
¼ cup snipped fresh chives

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 200˚C (400˚ F).

Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Whisk together to blend.

Add the cold butter to the dry ingredients and cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal and the largest butter pieces are the size of peas.  I used my stand mixer, but this can also be done in a food processor.

Place the egg and egg yolk in a liquid measuring cup.  Add enough buttermilk to measure a full cup.  Whisk in the chives.

Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and mix together gently just until the dough comes together and all the dry ingredients are absorbed.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and pat into a disc that is ½-inch thick.  Use a well-floured 3-inch round biscuit cutter and cut out dough rounds.  Place finished rounds on the prepared baking sheets.  Gently re-roll the excess dough and cut out additional biscuits.  Or just scoop the dough onto the baking sheets if your dough is more a batter.

Bake until golden brown and fluffy, about 12-15 minutes.  Remove from the oven and serve warm.

Pull-apart Dinner Rolls

 

I have set myself on a quest for finding something great to accompany dinners, albeit rolls, buns or biscuits I want to find that one great recipe you can always turn to. So to start things of I made Pull-apart dinner rolls, for which I found a recipe on The Pioneer Woman. Now, the pioneer woman says that these rolls are no-knead, but I couldn't make the dough without kneading, so I'm not gonna say they are no-knead.

The dough, however was quite easy to make, I had to knead quite a bit in the end, so if you have a stand mixer, you might as well make it with that, makes life a little easier. I only encountered some problems when rolling little balls out of the dough... it was a little sticky, so I kept washing my hands to be able to actually roll balls.

These rolls taste great when they are just out of the oven and warm. When they started to cool, I became less enthusiastic... They became very tough and chewy very quickly. It might be a side-effect from using only all-purpose flour, but it could just be my "fantastic" baking skills... I don't know.

So, all in all I was slightly positive but for me this recipe was not a winner. You might like it though, so I'm still going to give you the recipe. Oh, and the amount is massive, so I used half the recipe and it was still to much for just the four of us!

Recipe

Pull-apart Dinner Rolls

Yield: 24 Rolls

Ingredients:

4 cups milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
9 cups flour
2 packages active dry yeast
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 scant teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons salt

Instructions:

Pour 4 cups of milk into a stock pot or Dutch oven. Add the sugar and vegetable oil. Stir to combine. Let the mixture become scalding hot.

Turn of the heat and let the mixture cool to warm/lukewarm, between 90ºF and 110ºF.

When the mixture is the right temperature add in 4 cups of flour and the yeast.

After the yeast and flour are mixed well, add another 4 cups of flour and stir together.

Cover the mixture with a teatowel and let rise for 1 hour or until almost doubled in size.

When it has risen sufficiently add the last cup of flour, the baking powder, the baking soda and the salt. Stir (or knead) until combined.

Butter 1 or 2 muffin pans. Form the rolls by pinching off a walnut sized piece of dough and rolling it into a little ball. Repeat and tuck three balls of dough into each buttered muffin cup. Continue until pan is full.

Cover and allow to rise for 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC (400ºF) and bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

Serve warm with lots of butter!