Saturday, October 05, 2019

Polly's Excellent No Knead Bread

EXCELLENT!!!  Finally, the right formula.
(Room temp@ 77'F.)

The picture from the first batch.
INGREDIENTS:
2 C Flour
1 Tbsp Yeast
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 tsp salt
1 C Water
2 Tbsp Avocado Oil
In plastic container with lid, Mix roughly with spatula to get everything moist.
Cover and place in warm place to rise.
Let rise. Start at 11:10 - 7 pm
Transfer to lightly floured work surface.
DO NOT KNEAD.
 
 Mix in everything well with spatula.
 Cover
 Let rise at least 7 hours to develop flavor.
Roll out and just tuck to form smooth ball. Score the top.
Place inverted in floured Banneton.  Pinch close the ends well.

 This is a pic of second bread I made with the same formula.  The scoring got messy, but I know you can do better if you hold the Lame or the slasher tool in correct angle.

 Cover and let rise till 2/3 full.
 This looks more like 3/4 full rise. 
Heat dutch oven without lid in gas oven at 425'F. Place roasting pan for steam at the bottom of oven, but do not add water, yet.
When dough rise to 3/4 height...about 45 min. Depending on your room temperature. 
Remove Dutch Oven out
 Invert Banneton basket gently over to the parchment paper and place in Dutch over, VERY carefully not to burn your hands. 
Place the lid. Use oven mitt and place the covered Dutch oven back into oven.
 Bake for 28 min.  Pour water onto roasting pan at the bottom.
 I wonder though, if the Dutch oven is covered, does steam matter?  wear oven mitt and add water. to the roasting pan.
 Please wear oven mitt to do this.  The steam burn is very painful.
 Remove lid.
Qucikly Add more water to steam pan. Bake without lid for 10 min or until browned. And internal temp reached 220'F.   Check...
Took 10 more min to reach 220'F internally and browning.
This is the pic of the first bread that I managed to score nicely.
Some raspberry jam and butter - it's delicious.
The texture of the crumb is soft and airy.
When the bread is fully cooled, Store in plastic bag.  Makes about 10 to 12 slices

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Polly's Fluffy Layer Biscuits

Make  4 to 5 biscuits.
Dough Paste:
In a bowl; mix 1 Tbsp  Avocado oil with 3 Tbsp flour to make paste. Add a Tablespoon more to firm up a bit, if needed.  Set aside.
Biscuits:
1 C flour  - shift together with 2-1/2 tsp Baking Powder, 1/2 tsp salt.   Shift three times.
Chop 1/4 C butter into squares with pastry knife. 
Transfer flour mix onto a work surface.
Mix butter into shifted flour by cutting the butter in with pastry knife on the work surface. 
Make a well in the center and slowly add a portion of 1/3 C cold milk - 1 tsp+ at a time.
Use the pastry spatula and mix flour in.  Add some more milk.  Repeat until a shaggy dough is formed - somewhat spread out on the work surface.
Smear the paste on top of the shaggy dough.  At this time, Preheat oven to 425'F.  


















With the smeared paste on top of the shaggy dough, Fold the dough into 1/3 to cover the paste.  
Then use pastry spatula to fold it over again. Then cut into the shape you like.

 To "cut" - holding the sharp knife vertically as though you are cutting to form the croissant dough - move the knife around the edge in up and down motion as you go around.    Do not cut down/press down to form shape - the top part of the dough would smear down below and ending up sealing the edge as you cut down.   
Place on baking sheet.
  Bake.  It bakes quite quickly like in 10 --- 12 min.  Take out and butter the top to look shiny - and Tasty.
 They baked so quickly in my convection electric counter top oven that I was surprised. 
 I was even more surprised that they tasted so good.  Fluffy, light, and tasty.