A Bread A Day

Week Eleven: Savory Pancakes

This week, I decided to feature a type of bread that many people hardly even consider to be “bread” in the first place: the pancake.  And truthfully, I don’t exactly consider the typical fluffy and sweet American pancake to be bread either (there’s a reason why we call it “pancake” and not “panbread”).  But other types of pancakes (unsweet, mind you) most certainly are bread; there is but a fine line between a flour tortilla and a savory crepe.  The main difference is the amount of liquid used, requiring different methods of cooking.  So this week, I’m featuring savory pancakes from around the world, some familiar, some not, but all basically just flour mixed with liquid and cooked on a hot, flat surface.

First up this week is a textbook savory pancake: the Russian blini.  You’ve perhaps come across miniature blini at a posh cocktail party, hidden under a dollop of crème fraîche and topped with caviar or smoked salmon.  And while those are traditional accompaniments, blini are generally larger and thinner in their native land.  The main defining characteristic of blini are the use of buckwheat flour, and that they are yeast-risen.  Many traditionalists will insist that to make them otherwise renders them squarely in the realm of “crêpe” or “blintz”.

In Russia, blini are closely associated with Maslenitsa, the week-long, pre-Great-Lenten Butter Festival.  Also called “Pancake Week”, Maslenitsa is a kissing cousin to the more familiar Carnival, or Mardi Gras celebration.  The Orthodox Great Lent falls at a different time than the Western Lent, though, so the two don’t generally coincide.  As dairy products and eggs are among the forbidden foods during Lent, blini represent the last chance to enjoy such fare.  Made with milk and eggs, cooked with butter, and served with sour cream and more butter, they are off limits for the next forty days.

During the festival, blini may be served at every meal, with caviar, salmon, herring, and many other toppings, which generally become more humble as the week progresses.  Blini are also said to represent the round Sun, a holdover from an ancient Pagan festival dating back as far at the 2nd Century, A.D.  After the 6-month Russian Winter, it’s understandable why they would be lauding the sunshine!

After the rise of Communism, the religious aspect of Maslenitsa was done away with, but people kept on celebrating “Pancake Week”, mainly to get together for platefuls of blini.  Today, religious tones have crept back in to the celebration, but the blini remains firmly in the realm of the secular, enjoyed by nearly everyone at all times of the year.

As a side note, the word “blini” is a Westernization of the Russian word “blin”, which means “pancake”.  When referring to blini in English, native speakers of Russian will usually translate the word and say “pancake” instead of “blini”.  Interesting!

Though blini and Beluga caviar are as natural and expected a pair as tomatoes and basil, they are often served in Scandinavia with any type of fish roe, from whitefish to trout to salmon to herring.   They are typically accompanied by chives or diced onion, and sour cream and melted butter.

I’m not sure if beer is a traditional ingredient in blini (it is not), but I liked how the malty flavor complemented the buckwheat flour.  I used a Bock (Leinenkugel’s 1888 Bock, to be exact), which is not as heavy as a stout, but has a more robust flavor than your standard lager.  I served these for dinner with smoked salmon topped with plain yogurt and dill, with a little salad on the side.  They were delicious, but the store-bought salmon made me wish I still had some home-cured salmon in the freezer.  If you’re having a party, blini or not, you should absolutely try curing your own salmon sometime.  It’s so, so easy, and far better than anything you can buy.  Cheaper, too!  And since the point of curing is to better a piece of inferior fish, you don’t have to go to much expense.  I’ve seen sides of salmon at Costco for well under $20, and you end up with pounds of cured fish.  Try it sometime!  You can thank me later.

Buckwheat Blini
Adapted from Bo Friberg
Makes about 20 blini, 4 1/2 inches across

2 generous teaspoons active-dry yeast
1 1/2 cups whole milk, at room temperature
5 ounces buckwheat flour (about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons)
2 ounces bread flour (a scant 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup beer
3 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Butter for greasing the pan

1.  Sprinkle the yeast over the milk.  Whisk in the buckwheat flour and mix to form a smooth paste.  Cover and set aside to rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

2.  Add the bread flour, buttermilk, beer, and egg yolks.  Whisk just until smooth.  Cover and set aside in a warm place to rise again for 1 hour.  After the second rising, the batter may be refrigerated for several hours.

3.  When you are ready to cook the blini, whip the egg whites with the salt and the sugar until stiff but not to the point where dry peaks form.  Fold gently into the batter in three installments.  Preheat the oven to 200º F, and leave a sheet tray on one of the racks.

4.  Generously butter a heavy 10 or 12 inch skillet, or a griddle.  Heat until the surface is hot but not smoking.  Pour 3 or 4 small pools of batter on to the skillet, using slightly less than 1/4 cup batter for each blini.  (They should be 3/8 inch thick; if the batter doesn’t spread properly, thin with a little milk.)

5.  Cook for about 4 minutes on one side, then flip and cook 1 minute on the other side.  You can usually judge when they are ready to turn by watching the bubbles as they form on the surface.  Brush additional butter on the skillet as you turn the blini, if necessary to avoid a dry appearance.  Transfer blini to the sheet pan in the warm oven to keep warm while cooking the remaining ones.

Notes:
1.  As soon as the top of the blini start to look dry, and the bubbles look like they’re setting, they’re ready to flip.  But if they start browning too much, turn your heat down a little, and flip those suckers over!

2.  My blini were cooking properly at a constant medium heat, but depending on your pan and your stove, you may need to adjust the heat.

3.  Oh, and I hope you like blini, because this recipe makes a lot.  I know mine were a little bit smaller than 4 1/2 inches; but good lord, I ended up with nearly 40.  If you’re making miniature ones for a party, this one recipe will provide you with all the blini you’ll ever need.

Week Ten: Dinner Rolls

This recipe has the adjective “rustic” in the title, which is basically culinary shorthand for “it doesn’t have to look pretty, and probably won’t, but it will be charming nonetheless”.  These rolls are my favorite type of bread: crusty, chewy, airy, and with a slight and wonderfully sour flavor.  They aren’t the most handsome rolls you’ll ever make, but they taste so good, no one will care.

There is a slightly unusual step here, one that you don’t see very often, but one that can improve the texture and flavor of just about any bread.  It’s called “autolyse”, and it’s basically a cat-nap for your dough.  Right after you mix the ingredients together, except for the salt, you let it rest for 20 or 30 minutes.  This gives the flour time to absorb the liquid, and lets the strands of gluten start to form into a nice, neat, little structure.  It makes the dough much easier to work with, and you don’t have to knead it as much to get a proper chewy texture.

Why don’t you add the salt in?  Long story short, it gets in the way.  You will get the best autolyse without salt, but many’s the time that I’ve mindlessly thrown it in with everything else.  It seems to turn out ok, but it is best done properly.  (Some will also tell you not to add the yeast before an autolyse period, but I don’t know about that one.)

Additionally, there’s a folding procedure in the middle of the rising time.  This is a sort of kneading and punching down all in one, but it’s far gentler.  It helps redistribute the yeast in the dough, deflates some of the gas that might otherwise over-stretch the gluten, and also helps develop the gluten properly.  It might seem trivial, but it’s a very important step.

The best breads I’ve ever made have used both of these techniques, and you can’t really get the same result any other way.  Yes, it takes a little more time to make bread this way than with a standard straight-dough method; but if there’s one thing that breadmaking will teach you, it’s patience.  Good bread takes time; and if it all tastes this good, I for one am very happy to give it all the time it needs.

Rustic Dinner Rolls
Makes 16 rolls

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon water, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast, or 2 teaspoons active-dry yeast
2 teaspoons honey
16 1/2 ounces bread flour, plus extra for dusting
3 tablespoons whole wheat flour (about 1 ounce)
1/2 teaspoon salt

1.  Whisk water, yeast, and honey in bowl of stand mixer until well combined, making sure no honey sticks to bottom of bowl.  Add flours and mix on low speed with dough hook until a rough dough is formed, about 3 minutes.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature 30 minutes.

2.  Remove plastic wrap and evenly sprinkle salt over dough.  Knead on low speed for 5 minutes.  If dough creeps up attachment, stop mixer and scrape.  Increase speed to medium and continue to knead until dough is smooth and slightly tacky, about 1 minute.  If dough is very sticky, add 1 to 2 tablespoons flour and continue mixing 1 minute.  Transfer dough to a lightly-oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

3.  Fold dough over itself in bowl, rotate bowl one quarter turn, and fold again.  Rotate bowl again, and fold once more.  Re-cover with plastic wrap and let rise 30 minutes.  Repeat folding procedure, replace plastic wrap, and let dough rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes more.  Oil two 9-inch round cake pans and set aside.

4.  Transfer dough to floured work surface, sprinkle top with more flour.  Cut dough in half with a bench scraper or knife, and gently stretch each half into 16-inch cylinders.  Divide each cylinder into 8 pieces (you should have 16 pieces total), and dust top of each piece with more flour.  With floured hands, gently pick up each piece and roll in palms to coat with flour, shaking off excess, and place 8 in each prepared pan, cut sides up.  Loosely cover cake pans with plastic wrap and let rolls rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes (dough is ready when it springs back slowly when pressed lightly with finger).  Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

5.  Remove plastic wrap from cake pans, spray rolls lightly with water, and place in oven.  Bake 10 minutes until tops of rolls are brown; remove from oven.  Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees.  Using kitchen towels or oven mitts, invert rolls from both cake pans onto rimmed baking sheet.  When rolls are cool enough to handle, turn right-side up, pull apart, and space evenly on baking sheet.  Continue to bake until rolls develop deep golden brown crust and sound hollow when tapped on bottom, 10 to 15 minutes; rotating baking sheet halfway through baking time.  Transfer rolls to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.

Notes:
1.  Make sure you turn your oven on at least 30 minutes before baking, to make sure it’s properly hot.

Week Ten: Dinner Rolls

I was pleasantly surprised by this recipe.  Shocked, even.  You see, I dislike your typical white bread knots.  The fancy shape is usually there to cover up lackluster taste, to make you overlook subpar texture with the novelty of a roll tied into a knot.

Well, ok, not exactly.  The knots aren’t really there to mask texture, the poor texture is caused by the knots.  See, the more you work a dough, the more the gluten is developed.  Overdeveloped gluten affects bread two ways: one, by making the bread tough and overly chewy; and two, by failing to trap the gas given off by the yeast, which makes the bread flat and dense.  Letting dough fully rise, rolling it into ropes, and tying those into knots, all help to develop gluten.  In most cases, this results in poorer-quality bread.

This recipe is a bit unusual in that you don’t really need to let the dough have an initial rise.  Also, it’s made with a large percentage of yeast, as well as the use of cool liquid rather than the usual warm liquid.  Why?  Well, it’s all about the gluten.  Basically, we’re making a yeast time bomb here.  When the yeast start producing gases, it stretches the gluten.  You don’t want that sort of uncontrolled gluten activity until the rolls are formed into knots, so we keep everything cold to keep the yeast under wraps until we’re ready for it.  The large amount of yeast means we get the most air produced in the bread in the least amount of time.  Don’t worry, it won’t taste yeasty.

You do knead the dough a fair amount in the initial mixing step, so much that it would be too much kneading in many other bread recipes.  But since you don’t get the help of the yeast to develop the gluten, you’ll need that structure.  I know many of these steps seem counter-intuitive, but you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  It all works out in the end.

Incidentally, this recipe directs you to use a stand mixer.  Making this one by hand is difficult, since your hands will warm the dough too much.  It’s also hard to properly develop the gluten structure needed by hand, especially without adding too much flour.  So don’t let me stop you from trying by hand, but you will achieve the best result with a stand mixer.

The instructions here make a simple single knot, but if you know how to tie more elaborate knots, have at it!  If you like, this dough can also certainly be used to make a braided loaf instead of rolls.  The bread you end up with, however you tie it, is soft, but not aenemic, mild-flavored, but not insipid.  It bakes into cheerful little rolls that are almost a joy to pull apart, and would be a perfect addition to any special bread basket.  Even I would go back for seconds!

White Bread Knots
Adapted from Bo Friberg
Makes about 20 large rolls

4 3/4 teaspoons instant yeast, or 6 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups cold milk, microwaved on high for about 30 seconds, just to take the chill off
24 ounces all-purpose flour (a scant 5 1/2 cups)
1 1/2 ounces granulated sugar (about 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons)
4 teaspoons salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, beaten with a little water to make an egg wash

1.  If using active-dry yeast, dissolve the yeast in the milk in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Add the flour, sugar, and salt.  If using instant yeast, mix the yeast in with the flour, then add the sugar and salt, then add to the milk.  Mix, using the dough hook, until the dough forms a ball.  Incorporate the butter.

2.  Knead at medium speed until a fine gluten structure develops, 8 to 10 minutes, scraping down the bowl or dough hook as necessary.  Test the gluten by pulling off a small piece of dough and stretching it lightly; if it forms an almost translucent membrane, the dough has been kneaded enough.  Do not overknead.  If the dough is overkneaded, the gluten structure will be permanently damaged, resulting in loose and hard-to-work dough that will not rise properly, if at all, because the damaged gluten cannot trap enough air.

3.  Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turn to coat all sides, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.  However, if your kitchen is unusually warm, or if you are inexperienced in forming knots, skip this step.

4.  Punch the dough down.  Place it on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and flatten it.  Cover and chill for 30 minutes to 1 hour.  If you will not be making the rolls until the following day, you can freeze the dough at this point.  Let thaw before continuing.

5.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and punch down.  Divide it into four sections, and each fourth into five pieces (about 2 ounces each, you should have twenty pieces total).  Keep the pieces you are not using covered to prevent a skin from forming.

6.  Roll one piece at a time into a 9-inch rope and tie it into a loose granny knot so that the ends protrude just slightly beyond the body of the roll.  Place each formed knot on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, and cover loosely.  Let the knots rise until slightly less than doubled in volume, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

7.  Brush with egg wash and bake for 15 minutes, or until properly browned.  Remove to a rack and let cool to room temperature.
Notes:
1.   Do not use the milk cold directly from the refrigerator.  It will kill your yeast.  The milk should be slightly cool to the touch, and not warm.

2.  Feel free to add herbs as you like to this dough.  I’m not sure why, but knotted rolls like this are often herbed.  Dill and parmesan are classic and lovely, and chive with garlic powder would be great.

Week Ten: Dinner Rolls

I think everyone in America must have their own memory of cloverleaf rolls.  Maybe you had them every Thanksgiving beside the turkey and cranberry sauce, maybe your grandmother made them for Sunday dinner.  Me, I remember them from any and every cafeteria-style restaurant I ever went to.  When I was little, I happily eschewed every other bread in favor of these lovely, soft rolls.  Forget cornbread and biscuits, those cheerful tri-formed shapes beckoned to me.  The butter liberally and invariably brushed over the tops coated my hands as I pulled them apart.  They always tasted the same, too; soft-crusted, mildly sweet, buttery, and wonderful.  Was there just the one factory somewhere producing them all?  Or did the recipe just get passed around that much?

In recent years, I have acquired a palate for more toothsome breads, ones with a hard crust and airy crumb, or a more nutritious whole-grain bread.  But I suppose I still have a soft spot in my heart for the cloverleaf roll – I don’t remember ever turning one down!  But I have discovered one little secret about cloverleaf rolls: there isn’t exactly a recipe for them.  They fall into a group of about three or four other breads, generally made from the same dough, and simply formed into different shapes.  Other breads like this include fantans, butterflake rolls, Parker House rolls, and a simple milk roll.  This just means that if you have a recipe for any one of these, you can make the others.

This recipe was adapted from a recipe for pull-apart dinner rolls, and includes mashed potato flakes.  Though it’s not standard in these sorts of breads, it contributes texture, a little flavor, and helps hold in moisture, keeping the bread nice and soft.  I figured I’d give it a shot, and I was not disappointed.  These came out beautifully, as cheerful and buttery as in my memory.  Pulling one apart, still warm from the oven, I knew I’d always carry a little love in my heart for these little darlings.

Cloverleaf Rolls
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast; or 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
7/8 to 1 1/8 cups lukewarm water*
3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 handful set aside
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for brushing on rolls
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1/2 cup instant mashed potato flakes
*Use the lesser amount in summer (or in a humid environment), the greater amount in winter (or in a dry climate), and somewhere in between the rest of the year, or if your house is climate controlled.

1.  If you’re using active dry yeast, dissolve it with a pinch of sugar in 2 tablespoons of the lukewarm water. Let the yeast and water sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, until the mixture has bubbled and expanded. If you’re using instant yeast, you can skip this step.

2.  Combine the dissolved yeast (or instant yeast) with the remainder of the ingredients, reserving the handful of flour. Mix and knead everything together—by hand, mixer or bread machine set on the dough cycle—till you’ve made a smooth dough. Add the extra handful of flour only if needed.  If you’re kneading in a stand mixer, it should take 5 to 7 minutes at second speed, and the dough should barely clean the sides of the bowl, perhaps sticking a bit at the bottom. In a bread machine (or by hand), it should form a smooth ball.

3.  Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise, at room temperature, until it’s nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Rising may take longer, especially if you’ve kneaded by hand. Give it enough time to become quite puffy.

4.  While the dough is rising, lightly grease one 12-cup muffin tin.

5.  Gently deflate the dough, and transfer it to a lightly greased work surface. Divide it into 12 pieces.  Divide each piece into three equal-sized pieces.

6.  Covering the remaining pieces, shape each piece into a rough ball by pulling the dough into a very small knot at the bottom, then rolling it under the palm of your hand into a smooth ball.

7.  Place three balls in each of the muffin tin cups.

8.  Cover the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the rolls to rise till they’re very puffy, about 1 hour. While the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 350°F.

9.  Bake the rolls until they’re a deep golden brown on top, about 25 minutes.

10.  Remove the rolls from the oven, and brush with melted butter.  After 2 or 3 minutes, carefully transfer them to a rack. They’ll be hot and delicate, so be careful. Serve warm, or at room temperature.

Notes:
1.  I ran out of all-purpose flour while making this recipe, so I had to make up the remainder with bread flour.  The higher protein content resulted in more gluten, so they ended up being a little tough.  But the taste was still good!