Normally, a hot summer is not sufficient incentive for me to give up baking bread. But for some unknown reason, I found myself one day this summer in desperate need of bread, but completely unwilling to turn on my oven. To top it off, I was too exhausted to want to spend the time it would take to make tortillas.
"There's got to be some kind of flatbread aside from tortillas I can bake on the stovetop!" I exclaimed and turned to the Internet.
Sure enough, I found several different recipes for stovetop breads, but the one which intrigued me enough to get me out of my chair and into the kitchen was a recipe for Tibetan flatbread.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil (I've had even better results with 2 Tablespoons!)
1 cup + 2 Tablespoons water (This is divided.)
There are a few things I should note about the ingredients. First, the olive oil should be pure olive oil, rather than extra virgin, as it can withstand high heat better without burning. Also, this flour mixture is not set in stone. If you only have all-purpose flour at home, feel free to use 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. I have found my family enjoys this recipe best when I use 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, and 1/2 cup flour ground from oat groats. I'm curious what would happen if I tried this recipe with even more oat flour and less all-purpose flour: how much of a role does gluten really play in this recipe? But that's a question to be answered another day.
First, combine the dry ingredients--flours, baking powder, and salt--in a mixing bowl. Add the 1 cup of water. With more whole wheat flour, a little more water may be desired: you want the result to look like more like a batter than a dough, nice and gooey.
Next, take a COLD 12-inch frying or saute pan (one which has a lid) and add the olive oil, spreading it around to ensure it covers the entire pan.
Pour the batter/dough into the pan and spread it around more or less evenly. Then take the 2 Tablespoons of water and pour them in around the sides of the dough. (I know you were wondering where they fit in!)
You may be looking at this and thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of oil and water just sitting around my cold dough. Do I really want all this stuff in there?"
Yes, yes you do. You see, as the bread cooks, all this stuff is going to be used to create steam and be absorbed into the bread, which gives it an absolutely luscious taste far beyond anything you thought you could create with flour, baking powder, and salt.
Put the lid on your pan and cook it over medium high heat for 10 minutes. Then flip the bread over, cover it again, and cook it for 5 more minutes.
This is what it looks like after it's been flipped.
You can let it cool some in the skillet, which I think produces better results, but if you are really in a hurry, you can pull it out on a cutting board and let it cool there.
Cut it and serve!
The olive oil makes it so tasty that no butter is needed, in my opinion, but it does taste good with either honey or jam.
This has actually become a staple in our house this summer, as a fast bread I can make to serve with our summer garden vegetable soups or as a quick breakfast bread. There are never any leftovers.
One day I hit upon something which we decided was sheer genius: we call it Tibetan Flatbread, Pizza Style, although it is probably closer to focaccia style. After the bread had cooked the first 10 minutes and was flipped, I sprinkled on some grated mozzarella cheese, some Parmesan cheese, and some Italian herbs before covering the pan and cooking for the last 5 minutes. After it finished, I slightly tilted the lid to allow for some heat to escape and waited for 15 minutes or possibly even longer. (I was waiting for people to come back in after morning chores.) It was an instant hit--so much so that I made it twice in the same day! I'm sure this could be expanded to make actual pizza, with sauce, etc.
I'm not sure making bread gets any simpler than this!
Back in May, my husband headed out to London for a couple of business conferences. We decided it was worth the money for me to take a few days off and join him for the interim between the conferences.
Our trip to London was great for many reasons. It was fun to explore all the streets and places we'd heard about on History Channel specials or read about in classic literature. (*ahem* Sherlock Holmes . . .) It was also great for the exposure to the bread. Sausages on nice, chewy rolls, Danish-style pancakes (basically a giant crepe), so many lovely artisan breads at the bakery--it all seemed a bit like Heaven.
In the middle of it all, I learned I've actually been using Baps properly . . . sort of. Baps are a recipe I found in a Scottish cookbook some years back, when I was still trying to re-create the Middle Ages
and figured many traditional recipes from Scotland would probably be
similar to what they ate then.
The note by the recipe states they are usually found on the breakfast table.
They take too long to rise for me to try to make them before breakfast, but I discovered fairly early on that the consistency is firm enough and the size large enough to make absolutely lovely hamburger buns. (No more soggy, squishy buns! The biggest problem might be opening your mouth wide enough after you dress up your burger with all the goodies, especially if you've loaded it with two hamburger patties.) I had no idea how the Scots used them, but I figured as a citizen of the melting pot of cultures which is America, I was justified in adapting them to my need.
Well, I didn't see any Baps being used as hamburger buns in London, but they were used in breakfast or lunch sandwiches. They came out of the kitchen sliced in half and filled with sausage or bacon. (By the way, the bacon there is nothing like the fatty American bacon with which we're generally stuck when we go to the grocery store. Americans would recognize it as closer to "Canadian-style" bacon.)
Ingredients:
1 lb strong plain white flour (3.5-4 cups--I use all-purpose flour, sometimes adding some whole wheat.)
a pinch of salt
1 oz fresh yeast (1 cake compressed yeast--I used a little less than a Tablespoon of yeast.)
1 level teaspoon caster sugar (this is regular sugar for Americans)
1/2 pint milk and water mixed (1 1/4 cups)
2 oz lard (1/4 cup--by the way, shortening works here)
a little extra flour
The first thing you might notice, if you are paying attention, is that the size of British cups and American cups seems to be different, as in America, 1/2 pint of liquid is 1 cup, while the recipe translates it to 1 1/4 cups. I decided to just go ahead and pretend that the British cups were American cups. (Bread isn't usually "rocket science", so some of the measurements don't have to be too exacting. The amount of flour added always varies with atmospheric conditions, anyway. What this means, of course, is that my Baps may be a bit bigger than the recipe intends them to be, as I am adding more liquid.)
First, warm the milk and water mixture to lukewarm, then stir in the yeast and sugar so they dissolve. Set aside for a few minutes. (Note: if you do this with powdered milk, it is a lot simpler. Just use water for this step and add some powdered milk in the mixing bowl with the flour.)
Put about half the flour, along with the salt, into the bowl of a stand mixer. The directions say to "rub" the lard into the mixture of flour and salt, a process which involves, basically, putting your fingers into the mixture and, well, rubbing the lard into the mixture until it resembles a bowl full of crumbs. I decided to try this with the wire attachment to the mixer.
Seemed to work well enough, to me!
Change the wire attachment to the dough hook, then add the yeast liquid and continue mixing in stand mixer, adding flour until the dough has formed around the hook well. Allow the stand mixer to continue mixing at a slow speed, adding just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl, for about five minutes.
Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover it with oiled plastic wrap and leave the dough in a warm place to rise. It should double in size in about 30 minutes. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and punch down, then cut it into eight pieces. (If you are really picky, like me, you can use a kitchen scale to make sure the pieces are of similar weights.)
Shape each piece into a roll. I do this by slightly flattening each piece in my hand, then pulling up the sides to pinch together in the middle. This seam goes on the underside when it is placed on the baking sheet.
Senior Master Kitchen Helper demonstrating the technique . . .
Flatten the rolls with a rolling pin and place them on greased or floured baking trays. (I confess to flattening them only a little.)
Allow the baps to rise on the trays in a warm place for about 15 minutes. (In my experience, it usually takes a bit longer than this; it's a good time to preheat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit or 220 Celsius.)
Brush the surface of each bap with water and dust with flour. Bake the baps for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
Who wants squishy hamburger buns, anyway?
The Baps I saw in England were a little flatter than mine, so I may be too timid when I flatten my rounds. Perhaps I'll do so a little more aggressively the next time we're feeling like a good burger . . . or not. There's something satisfying about opening your mouth to its limit to accommodate a giant stack of meat, vegetables, and very tasty bread.
Note: I've also used this recipe in a pinch for bratwurst buns, too, rather than hot dog buns; I just shaped them differently. Granted, I'd rather have German bread, but this will do until I learn how to make it.
This year, I made Bunny Buns for the second time. Last year, my kids found the recipe in a children's magazine and pleaded so much, I finally decided to try them out, even though they took a little extra work.
The dough is actually a reasonably normal sweet roll dough with orange flavoring, found in my Sunset cookbook, as well as other sources. But this twist (pun intended) on the recipe makes it a fun Easter treat.
Ingredients:
1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (about 110 degrees Fahrenheit)
1 cup milk, warmed not quite to boiling
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tablespoons grated orange peel
5 1/2 cups flour, sifted
Glaze, 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup hot water, 1 teaspoon butter
I did vary a little bit from this recipe, as written. For one thing, I used 1 1/4 cup warm water and 1/3 cup of dry milk, instead of the 1/4 cup warm water and the 1 cup milk. This removes the necessity of staring at the walls while the milk mixture cools enough to add into the bowl without fear of killing the yeast. I also heated the shortening a little to make it softer and simulate the effect of putting shortening into hot milk. (It doesn't usually melt completely when you do.)
My Senior Master Kitchen Helper helped me with the oranges, grating the peel and squeezing out the juice.
Yes, that is a Mexican key lime in the background. We'd just finished a pie.
If you intend to mix this recipe by hand, refer to the link at the very top of this page, as the original recipe is written with this in mind. (You will notice it really is written for kids, as the first step directs the baker to wash their hands with soap and water . . .)
First, mix the yeast and sugar in with the warm water. Allow it to sit for at least 5 minutes to proof.
In the stand mixer bowl with a bread hook, add the salt, softened shortening, and powdered milk. Add the beaten eggs, orange juice, grated orange peel, and the yeast mixture. Gradually add the flour and mix until the dough starts to pull away from the sides. Continue mixing, adding flour a little at a time to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl, allowing it to knead for at least 5 minutes. (For more complete directions on mixing a yeast dough with a stand mixer, click here.)
When the dough is ready, drizzle a little cooking oil in the bowl and allow the mixer to twirl once to spread it around. Remove the bread hook and twirl the dough to distribute the oil more completely, then turn it upside down so the oiled side is up. Cover with paper towels and allow to rise 2 hours or until about doubled in size.
After rising . . .
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a rectangle 1/2 inch thick. Cut the dough into strips about 1/2 inch wide and 14 inches long. (A pizza cutter is handy here.)
Roll the strips between your hands to make a rounded snake shape. (I confess I'm not terribly good at this part.) Cut one strip into pieces 1/2 inch long and roll those into balls. (I usually can get these from the ends and edges . . . Why cut up a perfectly good strip?)
Place one long strip on a greased cookie sheet. The recipe then says to place one end of the strip over the other to make a loop; bring the end that is underneath up and cross it over the other end. I find it simpler to understand this way:
Place the long strip on the greased cookie sheet as if it were hanging from a nail or something, with the two ends roughly even.
Then take hold of both ends and twist them twice. They will end up on their original sides.
Place a ball of dough on top of the loop, as if you are filling in the hole there.
Cover the bunnies and let them rise in a warm place for 45-60 minutes, until almost double in size. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12-15 minutes.
Remove the bunnies when they are lightly browned. Stir the glaze ingredients together and frost the bunnies while they are still warm.
These bunnies come out a little large, especially if your strips get out of control while rolling and increase their length. (Never happened to me . . . nope . . .) After about a dozen, I get tired of shaping them and just roll the rest of the dough into balls. This serves the dual purpose of getting me off my feet faster and making smaller rolls for people like me, who don't usually want to eat an entire bunny bun.
Regardless of the shape, they all taste delicious!
Pan Dulce is a Mexican sweet bread. (In fact, "Pan Dulce" literally translates as "sweet bread".) Down here in the desert Southwest, it is very easy to find it in grocery store bakeries. The topping on the bread comes in a variety of colors, usually pink, white, yellow, or chocolate brown.
I found a few recipes for Pan Dulce on the internet, but this one from Allrecipes was the one I finally settled on making this time.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
1 cup milk
6 Tablespoons butter
1 package active dry yeast (for me, a little less than a Tablespoon--I kind of eyeballed 2/3 of it.)
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
For the topping:
1/2 cup white sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tablespoons butter, softened
2 egg yolks
The recipe said to heat the milk, then add the butter, stir until melted, and leave to cool, then dissolve the yeast into this mixture.
Ugh. It drives me crazy to wait for things to cool, so I look for workarounds.
I decided to make life more simple on myself by using powdered milk and lukewarm water, instead of milk from the refrigerator. This water could then be used to dissolve the yeast, along with the sugar. I also decided to melt the butter separately and add it to the dry ingredient mixture apart from the yeast mixture. In this way, I wouldn't have to sit there, wondering when the milk and butter mixture would actually reach the correct temperature to not kill the yeast, which has sometimes been a tricky proposition.
Yeast, sugar, and water mixture on the left, melted butter on the right.
In a stand mixer, add the salt, melted butter, and, if you are using it, powdered milk. Add a cup of the flour and mix with a bread hook. Add the eggs and mix again. Add the yeast mixture and mix again, adding more flour, until the dough pulls away from the bowl and is well-kneaded. (For a review of mixing a bread dough in a stand mixer, see here. If you want to mix it by hand, see these general directions or look at the original recipe link.)
A note here: I was counting on the flour and powdered milk to help mitigate any extra heat from the butter, which I had heated just to the point of melting. If I had added the melted butter into the mixture too hot and then added the eggs, I might have ended up with bits of cooked egg in my dough, which was not what I wanted. Be aware of this possibility when working with warm melted butter and eggs.
Cover the dough and allow it to rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about an hour.
An hour?? Remember, this dough has not only eggs, but also butter, which means it takes a little longer to rise than a dough with no eggs or butter.
By the time my dough had finished rising, I had gone on a walk with my husband, lifted a few weights at the community weight room, gone to the local convenience store, walked home carrying jugs of milk (we counted it as part of our workout), taken a shower, and totally pampered myself with lotions, etc.
I'm not exactly sure how much time had passed, but it was closer to two hours, despite my pellet stove adding heat to my house. Good thing I had covered it with plastic wrap, then a kitchen towel, so the top of the dough didn't end up drying out.
Divide the dough into 16 pieces and roll them into balls.
With a rolling pin, flatten the rolls into oval shapes and place them on a greased baking sheet.
Time to rise again! Cover the dough and allow to rise until doubled, about 40 minutes. (This time, I covered them with wet paper towels to avoid drying out. Rising time was a little over an hour.)
While the dough is rising, it is time to make the topping. Here, the Kitchen Artiste in Training helps me separate the eggs.
Mix the sugar, flour, and softened butter in a bowl until well-blended. I mixed the sugar and flour, then added the butter cut in small pieces. Reaching deep into my memory from making Scottish scones (which I haven't posted yet), I put my fingers into the bowl and rubbed the butter into the dry ingredients until it was evenly distributed, nice and crumbly.
Beat the egg yolks with a fork to break them up, then add them to the flour mixture and mix.
This was the result. I decided to leave it plain, instead of using food coloring to make it pretty or cocoa powder to make it chocolate. (I can hear my family now . . . "What? She passed up an opportunity for chocolate?")
When the bread dough has finished rising, it is time to sprinkle on the topping. But when I got ready to sprinkle the topping on the rolls, I realized I had a problem.
How can someone sprinkle a crumbly topping on a roll with a somewhat rounded top and expect it to stay on the roll, instead of falling all around the roll?
Obviously, you can't. Even the rolls which still maintained a certain amount of flatness on the top had a tough time keeping this topping on top, and a lot was being wasted on the pan.
I had read in the comments beneath the recipe a suggestion to add a little milk and make the topping into a sort of paste, then spread it on the rolls, so I decided to try it.
It sounded simple, but it proved to be much more difficult than it sounded. How do you spread a somewhat sticky substance on a risen roll without smashing the roll? Very, very carefully . . . and it might have a difficult time coming off the spatula and sticking to the roll . . .
I topped some of the first tray of Pan Dulce with the crumbly version and some with the paste version. But after baking, I realized there was another problem relating to mixing two varieties of toppings on the same tray: the toppings don't brown at the same rate.
To be honest, I didn't like either of those results, because neither was like the topping we were used to seeing in the store. The crumbled topping tasted fine, but it didn't have the delightful texture I wanted. And the texture of the paste was not satisfactory at all. Partly because I had had to remove the tray before it had properly browned, it did not have the crunch we associate with Pan Dulce.
Back to the drawing board.
I remembered reading somewhere that another way of topping Pan Dulce is to roll the topping out with a rolling pin and lay it on the roll. I had actually tried that way with a different recipe some time earlier and had not been too pleased with the results, so I had been reluctant to do it again. But at this point, I decided it was time to cave and pull out my rolling pin. Perhaps this topping recipe would work out better than the other one had.
I took some of the crumbled topping and squished it together in my hands, then rolled it out thinly with my rolling pin.
I placed the topping on the rolls and baked them.
At last! Something which looks closer to the Pan Dulce in the store! If you want the straight lines you frequently see on bakery Pan Dulce, cut the lines into the topping after rolling it and before placing it on the rolls.
So we ended up with quite a variety of topping styles, but at least I figured out which one I like the best. Next time, I think I will divide the topping and try a little variety. Maybe I'll put cocoa in some, to make the chocolate topping. Or maybe I'll add cinnamon to some, which sounds like it would be very, very good.
When the girls tasted it, the first thing one said was, "That doesn't taste like Pan Dulce!"
"That," replied my husband, "is because you've only eaten them stale."
The ones in the store are usually very dry, while these were much softer. The topping was delightfully sweet and buttery, with enough crispness in the ones where the topping was rolled out to crack and crunch just a little. They were definitely delicious, and almost all were gone by the end of the day.
It's just as well they were, because they are definitely better the day they are made.
A little over a week ago, I had some time on my hands, so I figured I'd look up a new bread. I wanted something reasonably simple, but exotic, so I started my recipe search in Africa, then moved to Israel.
While perusing kosher recipes, I found this recipe for an overnight Yemenite bread. It isn't African, and it isn't Israeli, per se, but it seemed reasonably simple, and the idea behind it was definitely exotic!
A bread which cooks at a low temperature overnight?
I had heard of cookies which sat in a cooling oven overnight to finish, and of course, my yogurt cultures overnight in a cold oven with the light on, but a bread? Breads are supposed to be baked at high temperature, aren't they? Hasn't that been the challenge of all bakers?
This I had to see!
Unfortunately, with one thing or another, and recognizing I needed about 5 hours between first mixing and bedtime, I wasn't able to try it out until last Saturday night.
The waiting was killing me . . .
Interestingly enough, the choice to make it Saturday night was rather appropriate. Apparently this bread is made by many Jewish people on Friday evening, to be ready for their Sabbath on Saturday. In some strict households, no cooking is done on the Sabbath, in keeping with the idea that no fire should be kindled on the Sabbath. So to have a bread which is started before Sabbath starts and just cooked overnight (no fire being kindled, because it was already on), would be just the thing. We are not Jewish, and we do not have the same kind of restrictions, but by cooking it Saturday night, it was ready for our Sabbath on Sunday morning.
At last!!
Ingredients:
2 1/2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1/3 cup lukewarm water (for the yeast)
3 Tablespoons sugar (to add while the yeast is dissolving)
3 Tablespoons honey or additional sugar (I used honey)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 to 6 ounces margarine or butter (That's 8 to 12 Tablespoons of margarine or butter. I used 12 Tablespoons of butter. This will be divided.)
3/4 cup very hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour (or more, as needed)
8 eggs in their shells (optional)
The original recipe includes directions for mixing by hand, very similar to what I've written here.
I mixed the ingredients as I normally would in my stand mixer. First, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water with the 3 Tablespoons of sugar. In the stand mixer bowl, combine the remaining sugar, honey, salt, half the butter, and the 3/4 cup very hot water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and the butter has mostly melted. Check the temperature to make sure it's not too hot, then add the yeast mixture. (If you are concerned it might be too hot, add the first cup of flour, mix, then add the yeast mixture.) Add the flour, cup by cup, and mix with the bread hook attachment. Add more flour as necessary to get the dough to the stage where it will start to clean up the sides of the bowl, then gently tap bits of flour to prevent the dough from sticking again while the bread hook kneads the dough for about 5 minutes.
After the dough has been kneaded, add a little oil, allow the hook to carry the dough around the bowl once or twice, then turn off the mixer. Remove the bread hook, twirl the dough around to grease the bowl with the oil, and flip the dough upside down, so the oiled side is up. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and allow to rise for an hour or until nearly doubled in volume.
Leave the other half of the butter on the counter to soften it. You'll want it to be very soft.
Because this recipe did not include eggs, I didn't think the rising time would be terribly long. But I had forgotten that recipes with a lot of butter also take a long time to rise. It took the entire hour mentioned in the recipe, and that was with the boost of the pellet stove!
After the first rise, punch down the dough and allow it to rise again for about another hour. (Alternately, you can refrigerate it for 3 to 4 hours.) Grease the pan or dish you intend to use and preheat the oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit. The recipe called for a 2-quart dish, about 8x8x2, which I happened to have.
Whenever a recipe tells me to roll out or shape bread dough, it has always told me to do so on a lightly floured surface. But this recipe was different. Instead of flour, this recipe calls for oiling the prep surface and rolling pin. (It was at this time I decided I'd better put on an apron. Flour on my clothes comes out easily; a drop of oil can ruin them forever.) I kept a little oil in a dish available to be able to refresh the prep surface if needed.
Shiny!
Divide the dough into 8 portions. Roll a portion into a rectangular shape. (I realize nobody would learn the proper definiton of a rectangle by this particular piece of rolled dough, but you get the idea.)
Once the dough is rolled out, spread about 2 teaspoons of butter on to the surface, then roll it like a jelly roll.
Flatten the jelly roll using the knuckles of your hand, then spread about a teaspoon of butter on top.
Roll the flattened and buttered dough into spiral, like a cinnamon roll.
Place the rolled dough, spiral side up, in your greased pan or dish. Repeat for the other seven portions of dough.
The recipe stated here, if you want to include eggs, it is time to wash the eggs and place them in the dish, but there was no indication exactly where they should be placed. I realized there was absolutely no way I could fit eggs on top of this dough and still put a lid on the dish, and there was no room to place the eggs beside the dough, so I decided to forego the eggs this time. (Subsequent research shows people do actually put the eggs on top of the dough, sort of sqeezed between the actual rolls. However, I'm not sure all people add the eggs at this point in the recipe process.)
Create a false lid for the bread, using either greased paper or aluminum foil. I used parchment paper, oiled and placed on top of the bread.
Because the recipe called for a tight-fitting lid, my lid was not terribly tight-fitting, I improvised, adding a layer of aluminum foil to help seal the cracks.
And into the oven it went!
After 3 hours, with the surface of the bread a golden brown, it was time to flip it. If you have put eggs in with the bread, remove the eggs and replace them after the bread has been flipped. (I wonder if some people just put the eggs in at this stage in the game.)
When I pulled the dish out of the oven, I immediately noticed a potential problem: the bread looked as if it had been constricted in its rising by the lid of the dish. In the center, where the lid was more raised, the bread had also raised high, while on the edges, it looked a little smushed. I decided I probably should have used my deeper dish, even without cooking the eggs.
Placing one plate over the dish, I inverted the dish, allowing the bread to fall upside down on the plate. I placed another plate on top of the upside-down bread, then flipped that. so the bread was right-side-up on the new plate. Then I placed the dish upside down on the bread, and flipped the entire thing, so the bread was now upside-down in the original dish.
This presented a new problem. Because the center of the bread had risen higher than the outside, the bread was now higher overall, preventing the lid from being able to come anywhere close to the dish. Hmmmm. I decided to do what I usually did when faced with a problem of an ill-fitting lid: use aluminum foil. I pulled out a large piece of aluminum foil and proceeded to wrap the entire dish, in the fashion of a baked potato . . . Well, at least, that was my impression. I knew there was no other way I could make a "tight-fitting" lid with aluminum foil on this dish, because the dish had no rims.
Turn the oven down to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, place the pan or dish inside, and go to bed. I am not sure exactly how long this bread should really be in the oven overnight, as the recipe did not specify. Mine ended up cooking at this low temperature for about 8 hours.
I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw when I pulled the dish out of the oven at 7:30 am.
It didn't surprise me too terribly much that it was brown on the surface. What did surprise me was the fact the brown color was carried completely throughout the bread.
What kind of a chemical reaction had taken place here?! I have no idea. Is this what happens when butter is cooked a long time? Would it have happened this way if I had used margarine? Perhaps it is because I added honey when the option was available, instead of more sugar. Perhaps there is a bit of carmelization going on. Perhaps . . . I really don't know.
The original top is on the top again!
The basic texture when the bread was torn somewhat resembled a croissant, but much more moist and less flaky. (Hardly surprising, with all that butter cooking in an enclosed space.) The flavor was also very, very buttery, as I expected.
I am not used to eating foods with such a high butter content, so it felt very rich to me--almost too rich. Then I reread the recipe and noticed the bread should be served with sugar or peppery tomato sauce. Since the bread comes from the Middle East, I figured honey might be a good alternative, as well. After some experimentation, I found that either sugar sprinkled on the bread or honey spread on the bread made all the difference. The former added a delightful touch of sweetness, while the latter lent a taste reminiscent of honey butter.
The Junior Taste Tester took a couple of bites of the bread and decided she didn't like it. The Senior Master Kitchen Helper ate some, decided she liked it, ate some more, and decided she didn't like it. The Master Kitchen Helper, who is my "foodie", was the only daughter who ended up liking it enough to eat more later on, but most of the kids decided it was just too buttery.
My husband's jaw dropped when I told him this. "Too buttery?" he exclaimed. "There is no such thing!"
He loved the bread. He loved the texture and the taste, especially with honey. In his opinion, it improved throughout the day, despite the instruction to serve the bread warm, fresh from the oven. He thought it was wonderful dipped in his Pero drink, which, he figured, would be something the Middle East people might do with their coffee.
Because of the color, I was convinced I had done something wrong, despite my husband's insistence that it was perfect, so I did some more research. None of the pictures I found showed a bread which was brown through and through, until I stumbled on this YouTube video . . . See their Kubaneh? It is brown all the way through! (They also have a few eggs.)
I will make it again, but this time, I will use a cast iron Dutch oven placed in the oven, both to allow for space to add the eggs and to more fully accomplish the goal of having a tight-fitting lid during the cooking process. It is tempting to try to reduce the butter to the lower amount suggested in the recipe, but I think my husband would not appreciate my doing that.
And who knows what will happen next time! This is, after all, an adventure.
