I had a weird outcome with my bread today. It was probably the prettiest loaf I have had with a nice shape and plenty of rise. Unfortunately when I took it out of the oven, the top collapsed. Not sure what caused that; when I google I get all kinds of random things so I'm just assuming it's a "doo-doo occurs" type situation.
Nope. It's just moist. I can't recall the process exactly, but I thing the crock pot lid is either ajar, or you put a towel around the perimeter. I've mentioned before that I've done Date & Nut Bread this way as well. You use cans of any size (usually veggie cans) to make individual & gift breads. You can use an old coffee can as a substitute for that large formal container...put foil over the top, tie a string around the perimeter & punch vent holes in it.
The Fuddrucker's buns are very tasty, but need to be tweaked (or made more carefully.) The pic is half of the batch I made. The recipe calls for rolling out the dough to 1/2" thickness and then stamping out the buns with a 3" cookie cutter. The 3 in the front were rolled out that thickness, while the others were rolled too thin. The 1/2" ones did a pretty good job rising and are the proper thickness for a burger. The thin ones barely rose at all and look like fat sugar cookies. The recipe called for proofing the yeast (I never do this) just as you put the milk on the stove to scald. By the time the milk scalded and cooled off, the yeast had been proofing for at least 15 minutes. By the time the dough got assembled, I think the yeast got used up (although the initial rise seemed to be OK.) Another contributing factor was I baked these in the Breville on two small cookie sheets. There was not a lot of room around the edges of the cookie sheets for the heated air to circulate, so even though I swapped positions halfway through, the oven might have been overcrowded. Plus, when you stack two sheets like that, you end up with one of them right at the bottom of the oven (or one of them right at the top) in order to get even a little space in between them. And even at that, there's not a lot of space. It's worth trying these again. There are way less dense than the other buns I've tried, and they have a light flavor (at least the 3 I had with butter tasted pretty darn good.) I posted the recipe here. I included 2 ingredient lists: the original quantities for 24 buns, and scaled-down quantities for a dozen. Next time I'm gonna try a recipe by Chef John. He has a following (may or may not be warranted) and his recipe is different enough from most others to give a shot. It got good reviews. I posted it here.
This is so weird, but I actually found that Chef John recipe in my recipe box today. What are the odds?? Anyway, he has the most annoying voice on youtube but some of his recipes look really good.
These were my first burger buns attempt; the recipe is almost the same as "Chef John's" except it uses milk instead of water. They were OK flavor-wise, but heavy.
That's interesting about getting the bun recipe. I've never seen any of his videos. My go-to recipe site is AllRecipes, and that's where I see his recipes posted.
Try those Fuddrucker's buns. They are much lighter. You just gotta make sure to roll out the dough to the proper thickness before stamping out the 3" circles, although after slicing them & putting the batch in the freezer, I think the thinner ones will be perfect for lunchtime cold-cut sandwiches. As I said in the thread I did in the Recipes group, I'm gonna stop making this stuff in my Breville...it's too small to do a decent job if I need more than one rack, and my baking sheets are not quite small enough. Have you baked on 2 racks at the same time?
I made Martha Stewart's banana bread this afternoon; it called for sour cream in the batter. It's pretty good but I almost burned it. It was supposed to bake for 1 hr 10 minutes but when I checked it at about 50 minutes it was browning too fast but not done in the middle. Ugh.
Honestly, that recipe doesn't sound any different than dozens of others, except for the rolling/cutting. I think the key for me is going to be making them thinner. Trouble is, I still want a lighter and fluffy bun. I agree about the Breville; I get better results in my larger ovens. And no, I haven't tried using more than one rack. Also, I have to turn the baking pan at about halfway through baking time (in the Breville); if I don't I get more uneven browning.
I'm thinking that Arnold's cheap white bread buns are probably the best carrier for a burger patty. They do the job, the flavor does not overwhelm the meat, and they don't add bulk. I've tried some brioch buns that are pretty good. Maybe that's the next avenue to explore. Regarding that Fuddrucker's recipe: it's the only one I've encountered that uses scalded milk, and that includes a bunch of dinner rolls that I've made. I wonder what type of flour factories use...
Today I searched for "small batch baking" on google and found several recipes I'm going to try. I have attempted scaling recipes down myself but starting out with a tested recipe is appealing. So I made these "30 minute rolls" to go with the beef tips I was serving for dinner. They turned out pretty well... I ate 2 of them and my husband ate the rest!! (Note that this is a smaller "toaster oven" size baking pan; I believe it's 8x10".) These were a good texture; light, fluffy and soft. I'm thinking resizing them just a bit would make good burger buns, so I'll try that later this week. The recipe for these used only one cup of AP flour.
I'm still in that "work all day/school at night" habit of cooking large batches, especially if I'm gonna be making something with an extended prep time. Would you rather do these small batches frequently or make a regular batch of rolls and freeze the leftovers? Or has the process turned into a hobby?
This is definitely my new hobby; I'm having a blast with it. As for large batches, I don't like wasting a lot of ingredients on "test" recipes. Also don't care for a lot of leftovers or stuff in the freezer.