Benito's blog

I thought I’d try something a bit different both in the dough as well as the shaping for these buns.  We are going to have fish burgers tonight so wanted buns for them.  The braiding was somewhat successful but could be better since this was my first time trying this.  A slightly lower hydration would have helped this immensely, but ensuring a bit more flour on the dough when making the knots.  The excess hydration was due to the egg being 11 g too heavy.  Next time I’d beat the egg and then add the correct amount.

I haven’t done this style of bread in sometime, I found a package of freeze dried strawberries in the back of a cupboard so it inspired me to use it.  Matcha and strawberries are great together.  Although I have made this style of bread before, I’d never done with with my mochi formula which uses sweet rice flour as the tangzhong.

I last made these around the holidays and wanted to make them again based on comments I received.  Essentially there wasn’t quite enough ginger in them, the cinnamon was dominant the first time.  I fix that I’ve increase the ginger by 50% and based on comments from people who ate them, I think I’ve got that right now.

My second go at this bread that uses sweet rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour) in the tangzhong.  Read my previous blog post for details as to why this type of rice flour is especially good as a tangzhong and prolonging the freshness of bread.  You’ll recall that this rice flour is also used to make mochi, which I have made before and it also delicious so it is a good thing to have around if you like Asian treats.

For my first bake back home in Toronto I wanted to experiment with my sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour which is gluten free of course).  I had read in Serious Eats the following which I found quite informative and interesting.

Last bake down here in Fort Lauderdale for the season for one last dinner party.  Fougasse really are fun to bake, the shaping especially is.  Trying a different flavor this time using sun dried tomatoes, pecorino cheese and oregano.  Once again this is a very delicious bread and perfect for those who want to maximize the crispy crust.  It is exceptionally difficult to keep bread crispy down here in humid Florida, but a few minutes in the oven just before serving does the trick.

I had a good handful of toasted sweetened shredded coconut leftover from a pie that I made a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to try adding it to a sandwich bread.  I didn’t want the bread to taste too much like dessert so other than the sugar I used for the stiff sweet levain, there were no other sweeteners added to the dough.  I did decide to add some olive oil to this dough to soften it up a bit and keep it fresh longer without having to make a tangzhong.

Still working on my sandwich bread (bake in a Pullman pan) that isn’t enriched with fat.  I decided to add a touch of honey to balance the sour notes since I didn’t use a stiff sweet levain for this bake.  I may switch to a stiff sweet levain next time to reduce the sour notes, we’ll see how I feel when that next time comes up.

I’m enjoying making Fougasse for dinner parties.  I wanted to try different flavours in the Fougasse than I have already made to chose to try pecorino cheese, oregano and black pepper.  Overall I was really pleased with this bake, but I let the baking get away from me and it got even darker than I usually like.  Fortunately brushing EVOO on the crust right before serving really helped avoid the crust being too crispy.

We had another dinner party last night so I wanted to bake another pie for dessert and wanted something different from those I had bake before.  Pineapples aren’t that common a filling flavour for pies so decided to try this one.  I have to say it was delicious, I reduced the sugar from the original recipe especially the meringue which I also prepared as a Swiss meringue instead of the French meringue in the original recipe since I find them a bit more stable.