The Noob Bread Maker - Hotdog Buns

There is one thing I am good at which I am not at all proud of; I procrastinate. As much as I have the urge to bake bread sometimes, the idea is often shelved. As a result, my progress in bread making is far lagging behind as compared to other aspects of baking. One possible accomplice to my procrastination could be the undesirable outcome in my experience with sweet buns so far; they tend to become a little dense when left for sometime, which I deduced was either due to the direct bread method employed or the nature of the recipe itself. 

Finally, the day came when I tasted sweet victory in my battle with bread. I could not contain my excitement when I witnessed my hotdog buns coming out fresh from the oven. Despite the less-than-perfect appearance, the buns were amazingly fluffy, thanks to the water roux method. Even after leaving the buns overnight, they maintained their softness and fluffiness. Now that I have discovered the goodness of the water roux method, I am going to use it faithfully for most of my breads in future. 

hotdog bun with dijonaise mustard

Handling the dough was a tricky process. The resulting dough was very sticky and using my instincts, I turned to flouring my hands to resolve the situation, which helped a great deal. I have to admit that I am quite a noob when it comes to bread making. I tried rolling a portion of the dough into a long strip, after which I wrapped it round a hotdog, hoping to achieve a spiral-shaped bun. I reckon I do need more practice to get the hang of shaping bread dough. For the remaining dough, I shaped them into ovals, which I later sliced lengthwise to place the hotdog topped with dijonaise mustard.

As one can see from the picture above, the cross section is airy instead of being densely knitted together like some of the bread that can be obtained from neighbourhood bakeries.

Hotdog Buns

Serving size: 7 buns

Taste and texture: Soft and fluffy buns.

Ingredients:

water roux dough - recipe from Kitchen Corner

7 hotdogs, boiled.

Making the buns:

Prepare water roux buns -  Make water roux dough according to the directions stated in link above and allow dough to proof for the first time. Punched the dough when it is fully proofed. Test proofing of dough by gently pressing a finger into dough. Dough should spring back slowly.   

Shaping the dough - Flour hands lightly when handling dough to prevent dough from sticking. Portion out dough weighing about 65g each. Roll pieces of dough into long strips before winding them around a piece of boiled hotdog to get spiral shaped buns. Alternatively, shaped the portions into ovals.

Second proofing - Place shaped dough on baking trays lined with baking paper, allow some space between doughs. Proof shaped doughs for about 30 to 40 mins.

Baking the buns - Brush eggwash evenly over each proofed dough. Dough may be slightly depressed. Allow dough to rest for 10-15 minutes before baking at 180 degrees C for 12-15 minutes.

Breadmaking - Not a Success Story

A book titled - Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft caught my attention recently. After reading reviews on it from Amazon, I decided to place a reservation for this book from the National Library. Having done some research on the price, I knew that I have to make that the book is worth its heavy price tag before getting it. This book easily costs above a 100 bucks in local bookstores and being an observant bakebook shopper myself, I know cookbooks and bakebooks hardly ever cross this mark.

I could not contain my excitement and eagerly flipped through the book the day I loaned it from the library. 'Wow' was the first thing that came to mind. The book spans over 900 pages and covers almost everything a baker needs to know, including bread, cakes, cookies, tarts, pastries, icings, chocolates even plated desserts, frozen desserts and savoury bakes. At the forefront of the book was an introduction to career opportunites for baking and pastry professionals, followed by introduction to ingredients and equipment, baking principles and food safety.

There are, however, some minor drawbacks. The section of  baking principles could be explained in further details and the recipes need to be scaled down when intended for home use. Overall, the book would make a very comprehensive textbook or homebaking reference for inspiring bakers. So far, I have been impressed by the content  and hopefully it will make its way into my library of bakebooks soon.  

Back to the main intention of this post, I tried my hands at bread-making a second time today: raisins plaited ring bread from I Can Bake by Agnes Chang. The entire kneading process took me like 40 minutes, both using my hands and the dough hook. Compared to baking cakes and cookies, this is certainly a chore for me. I have always been less inclined towards bread making and this provided a good reason as to why I should stay away.

I managed to get the dough to the window pane stage by stretching the dough gently and slowly to reveal a transulent membrane like appearance. The plaiting, however, turned out to be nightmarish. For the first half of the dough, I separated it into two equal portions instead of three as indicated and rolled the portions out to about 35cm long and plaited them.When the plaited ring was proofed a second time, it went out of shape. To make matters worst, I overbaked the dough and ended with a hideous stiff-crust dark brown ring bread. 

The second plaited dough turned out slightly better after baking. To prevent the dough from over-browning, I covered the top with aluminium foil halfway through the required baking time. In all, this bread making experience is not quite a success. I have no complaints regarding the taste but the bread turned out dry with a tough crust when cooled, not fluffy as seen on the pictures on the book. Wonder what went wrong...

Post Baking Analysis:

1) Possibility of underproofing as suggested by Wendy. Will do my 1st  and 2nd proofing longer. Both took me more slightly more than an hour.

2) Baking temperature too high. I used 200 degrees C. Perhaps I will reduce it to 190 degrees C next time.

3) Baking time too long. I baked at 20 minutes at 200 Degrees C. Will reduce it in future.

4) I realised that my second proofing does'nt seem to be effective. Perhaps next time I might omit the second proofing. Need to do some research on this...  

5) (Latest) Just realised that I added more flour than asked for due to a mistake. Oops! This should be the main culprit for the dry and tough texture.