My daughter was so pleased with her packed lunch today and so were her teachers at nursery, they both asked for a piggy roll as well!
I got shown how to make this shaped bread on the bread course and I knew straight away that my daughters would love it (the boy is still too young but will happily shove it in his face). They didn't all turn out perfect, some were painfully disfigured uttering the words "eat me..." as they came out the oven but the rest look like a pig so I'll take that as a win!
What other shaped rolls could I make for my children (and me!).
Do you mess around with the shape you make your bread?
On Thursday we were confined to the house really. The weather was rubbish and my eldest was poorly.
So I decided to keep my middle one entertained we'd make some rolls. After a trip to an amazing burger joint a few weeks ago I'd got a hankering for some brioche buns to make some epic burgers and I'd been given a recipe I wanted to try.
I did make one fairly large mistake at the beginning. I didn't pay attention to the amount I was making. I made the flying sponge (the bit that gets the yeast working early on) and thought, wow that's quite a bit to make.
Turns out when I started to look at the other ingredients I was looking at bakery quantities. Turns out I made enough for 4 dozen rolls!
Never mind.
My biggest problem was not having a mixing bowl big enough! In the end we used my big preserving pan. You can see in the video above how near to the top that was. It makes me laugh when parents set out "messy activities" for their kids, just make them work for their food, they'll get messy in the process!
So after an hour we added the flying sponge to all the other ingredients and luckily for me I had a really good little helper who was keen to mix the mixture and then knead the dough.
I gave her about 1/5 of the dough and she kneaded right through to where it needed to be, I didn't help her at all but you could tell she'd done it enough because the dough started to look smooth and just felt right.
I was impressed with her because she's only three and she stuck at it for well over half an hour and didn't moan once .
I split the dough into two big bits and worked it at the same time. Sometimes I'd slap it down on her hands and she's laugh her head off!
I rolled these out and set them on baking trays. Most went into the freezer like this and were then put into freezer bags to be enjoyed at a BBQ in the near future (hopefully!).
I kept eight back for tea, covered them with an egg glaze and sesame seeds before leaving them to prove and cooking them.
They looked amazing when cooked!
So we couldn't have homemade buns with out homemade burgers so we got some beef I minced last year out of the freezer and made up 1/4 lb patties with a burger mould I've got. My little girls didn't mind this at all and was straight in there making them all for us! Just beef in the patties and seasoned before I cooked them in a hot pan.
I cooked them medium so they were still juicy and I have to blow my own trumpet and say they were amazing. I'm not normally a fan of something sweet with savoury but these buns are only ever so slightly sweet and really work with the meat.
Can't wait to have a BBQ now - we've got a few rolls to get through, only another 40 in the freezer - good job we liked them (I also made 8 other rolls from another batch of dough that day so 56 made in total!)
Anyone else make burger buns like these?
Anyone ever started a recipe and realised that the quantities were huge and made far too many?
I was saying to my mum today that my house might be messy, but I get a lot done, we're all very happy and we eat really well!
I've been making a lot more "free formed" bread lately.
I was getting fed up of making a loaf in the bread maker and only eating 3/4 of it, instead if I make a batch of rolls I can pop what ever isn't eaten into the freezer for another time. Much better use of flour and electric.
I've also messed about with other types of loaves, my friend was talking about fougasses and I thought they sounded like a great idea to add to the freezer as a lunch that my wife could just grab on her way to work. Each loaf has cheese, salami and sun dried tomatoes in and is then topped with finely chopped rosemary and see salt with an egg glaze.
I also mixed up a batch of dough the other day and took it on a play date with me, a great way to get kids interested in what they're eating (although mine don't normally need much encouragement!)
My little baker making a loaf
Next year I'm going to make a real effort to grow some more poppies, they are simply my favourite thing to add to bread, as a topping or in the dough, they add such a great, subtle, flavour.
I have some great plans in the extension to make a "prooving cupboard" above the new fireplace (but accessed behind it) so I have somewhere warm to keep my bread while it increases in size. Has anyone else done this?
