Weekend Cooking - Bread experiments

Continuing with the series of the weekend cooking What did you do this weekend. One week has gone past and I barely managed to check my blog since I was extremely busy. Got some time today, so decided to share with you the bread experiments conducted in my kitchen. I think my bread making skills keep improving every weekend. Last weekend, I baked a brown and white ladi pav (soft small white breads available in bakeries all across Mumbai). This does not taste like pav you get in Mumbai but it looks almost similar hence this name.

I also baked a bread which had a biga for the first time. I came across the recipe of Rustic Italian bread on cookography.com. I followed most of instructions except for the elaborate instructions on proofing since I had difficulty following them. On Saturday I made the biga with whole wheat flour and kept it for more than the expected time. On Sunday, I removed the biga from the refrigerator as instructed and left it standing on the kitchen counter for a very long time since I was busy with another dish. Fearing that the bread would not turn out right, I still continued, prepared the bread dough and left it to rise. It rose beautifully. Even the second rise was perfect. I used silver foil to force the bread to expand in a narrow space. The bread baked in the time given by the recipe. We got a nice chewy bread with soft insides.

A row of italian bread freshly baked from the oven

Check out the holes in the bread

The brown and white ladi pav was simpler. I prepared equal quantities of milk white dough and whole wheat dough and placed the balls alternately in a springform pan. As part of my experiments, I added a tsp of lemon juice and a pinch of dried ginger (soonth) to the dough to aid the proofing of the dough. I think it helped and used this approach this weekend too when I baked a herbed bread.

The recipe has been adapted from my favourite book "Bread and Bread Machines" by Christine Ingram. Here is the recipe for it

Ingredients

For the milk rolls
3/4 cup milk
2 cups white flour
1 tsp caster sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp easy blend (rapid rise) yeast

For the wholemeal rolls
3/4 cup water + some extra
1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
3/4 cups white flour
1 tsp caster sugar
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp easy blend (rapid rise) yeast

Make 19 rolls

Method

Prepare both the doughs separately. I have not described the method since it is not different from what is done for any previous breads I posted om my blog.

What is important is how the rolls are placed in the springform pan to get an alternate white and brown rolls.



Divide the white bread rolls into nine pieces and the whole wheat rolls into ten pieces.Shape each piece of dough into a round ball.
Place 12 balls around the outer edge of the spring form tin, alternating the milk rolls with the wholemeal rolls. Line the inner circle with six more balls and place the remaining wholemeal roll in the centre.
Cover with lightly oiled clear film and leave the rolls to rise in a warm place for 30-45 minutes.


Brush the top with egg. Sprinkle sesame or poppy seeds and bake till golden at 200 C for 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool in tinf for 5 minutes and leave it to cool on a wire rack.

We also had both the breads with some pav bhaji. That was fun....