I'm in a large urban area so I can get pretty much everything. I am from North Dakota so I actually know some of the tricks but I don't cook and bake like I used to when I was up north. I also work way too much.
Depends on what it is and whether I feel the need to make it right now.
Totally fair.
Maybe at the end of the meeting I'll take a quick poll of what kinds of things everybody keeps in their cupboards, and practice making recipes up that don't force you to leave the house.
Because potatoes boiling is the longest part of getting the dough started, fill a pot with water and let them start to get soft.
While your potatoes are boiling, fill a heavy-bottomed pot with the
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Because potatoes boiling is the longest part of getting the dough started, fill a pot with water and let them start to get soft.
While your potatoes are boiling, fill a heavy-bottomed pot with the sugar, milk, and butter. Using liquid butter to make your dough adds some fat, which makes the dough softer and more elastic, and also improves the flavor. Using milk instead of water to moisten the dough, also, adds a bit of fat... and it also adds a lot of flavor. I like to heat my milk up just to the point of scalding so the proteins shift and you get the nice (to me) leaning-toward-caramel flavor.
Heat the milk and sugar and butter just until you smell a change (this is about 140 Fahrenheit), then pull them from the heat. I put them in a Pyrex cup so they can cool more quickly than if I left them in the pan.
Maybe at the end of the meeting I'll take a quick poll of what kinds of things everybody keeps in their cupboards, and practice making recipes up that don't force you to leave the house.
I usually have a lot of things on hand... but I typically have to go pick up mix-ins like almonds or pecans or other things that would get stale on me if I just kept them in the pantry and forgot about them.
Once you add your yeast to your milk and have mixed it in, you have all the components of your dough. Add the milk/butter/sugar/yeas t and the potato and the egg to the flour.
Mix everything in with your hands until it is smooth and elastic.
I don't have a potato masher so I had to pull out a few stray bigger potato chunks.
When your dough is nicely silky, rinse out your bowl, dry it, and add a bit of oil so that the dough can rise without sticking to anything. Return the dough to the bowl, cover it up with a damp cloth or saran wrap, and let it rise until it doubles.
This took about an hour in my November-temperatured house.
Because I'm poor and I keep my house pretty cold, I sometimes use an electric heating pad so my dough is rising at more like "room temperature," but I had to leave the house during this first rise so I just let it go its own slow pace.
Melt the butter a little bit. You can either plan to spread the butter on your dough rectangle and then combine the sugar and cinnamon then---or you can mix the butter and sugar and cinnamon all at once, and just apply the "muck."
Well, once it has risen, just make a fist and literally punch it, straight downward, two or three times so that you release some of the gas that was trapped while the dough was rising. (Yeast generates CO2. If you don't release some, once you bake your dough, it will be all insubstantial and not as good as it would be.)
Well, once it has risen, just make a fist and literally punch it, straight downward, two or three times so that you release some of the gas that was trapped while the dough was rising. (Yeast generates CO2. If you don't release some, once you
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Well, once it has risen, just make a fist and literally punch it, straight downward, two or three times so that you release some of the gas that was trapped while the dough was rising. (Yeast generates CO2. If you don't release some, once you bake your dough, it will be all insubstantial and not as good as it would be.)
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Ah ok I understand, but wouldn't rolling it out do the same thing?
Well, once it has risen, just make a fist and literally punch it, straight downward, two or three times so that you release some of the gas that was trapped while the dough was rising. (Yeast generates CO2. If you don't release some, once you
...
more
Well, once it has risen, just make a fist and literally punch it, straight downward, two or three times so that you release some of the gas that was trapped while the dough was rising. (Yeast generates CO2. If you don't release some, once you bake your dough, it will be all insubstantial and not as good as it would be.)
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I read somewhere once that if you have trouble getting a dough to rise properly, you can gently press it down instead of punching, so you would retain some of the air. It became a habit.
Ah ok I understand, but wouldn't rolling it out do the same thing?
Yes I guess so, and you are definitely going to roll it soon anyway---it might feel uneven while you were doing it, though. To be honest, I have never tried not punching it down. So give it a shot in the name of Science, and report your findings!
I read somewhere once that if you have trouble getting a dough to rise properly, you can gently press it down instead of punching, so you would retain some of the air. It became a habit.
That makes sense. Ever since I realized I could set things to rise on an electric heating pad, though, everything's always risen! (Even that ever-so-finnicky rye!)
Yes I guess so, and you are definitely going to roll it soon anyway---it might feel uneven while you were doing it, though. To be honest, I have never tried not punching it down. So give it a shot in the name of Science, and report your findings!
That makes sense. Ever since I realized I could set things to rise on an electric heating pad, though, everything's always risen! (Even that ever-so-finnicky rye!)
When we do bread, we turn the oven on as soon as the second rise starts, and just set the loaves near the stove for the second rise. Works pretty well, since we don't have a heating pad.
When we do bread, we turn the oven on as soon as the second rise starts, and just set the loaves near the stove for the second rise. Works pretty well, since we don't have a heating pad.
When we do bread, we turn the oven on as soon as the second rise starts, and just set the loaves near the stove for the second rise. Works pretty well, since we don't have a heating pad.
I used to do this too, but apparently my oven-to-stovetop vent was a little too intense because sometimes the back side of my dough would bake while it was supposed to be rising But if that works with your oven, awesome!
I know in old wood stoves there was always a "rising shelf" up above... makes me wish I had one.
