Soft white baps

[Dan Lepard]

Soft white baps

Squidgy, soft baps are heading for extinction in crusty baguette Britain. Here's your chance to give a sausage a proper home.

For the yeast 'sponge'

1½ level tbsp (12g) cornflour
525g strong white flour
1 sachet easy-blend yeast
450ml warm water

For the dough

50ml water
75ml milk
75g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 level tbsp (15g) cornflour
275g strong white flour
50g caster sugar
2½ level tsp salt

First make the sponge. In a big bowl, toss together or sift the cornflour and flour. Add the yeast, pour in the water, stir to a soft dough, cover and leave to rise for two and a half to three hours.

Next, make the dough. Bring the water and milk to the boil, then remove from the heat, add the butter and set aside till warm. Pour into a jug and top up with water to make 200ml. Toss together the cornflour and flour, add the sugar and salt, and mix. Beat the buttery liquid with the yeast sponge until combined, add the dry ingredients, then mix to a firm dough. Give the dough three 10-second kneads on an oiled surface over 30 minutes, then leave, covered, for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220C (200C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 7.

Divide into nine 150g pieces, shape into balls on a floured surface, place on a paper-lined tray, flour the tops, cover and leave to rise for 45 minutes to an hour, until almost doubled in volume. Bake for 25 minutes. Leave until cold before removing from the tray.

[Dom]

Dan,

I am going to cook these with my son's primary school class on Thursday.
(wish me luck!)

couple of questions

how much dried yeast is there in a sachet (I have 7g in my head - is that right?). I have some dried active yeast in the cupboard that I would probably use instead.

Why the cornflour?

I have often used soy milk instead of milk in breadbaking, but have never gone to the trouble of scalding it. Do you know if it is necessary for soy milk?

cheers
Dom

[Dan Lepard]

Hi Dom,
In no particular order:
soya flour wont need to be scalded, it's something particular with milk protein (pasteurising cows milk isn't the same as boiling it, and dried milk isn't heated but rather forced through a jet into a vacuum, so if you use cows milk in baking you will get a lighter crumb if you boil it first)
The cornflour is a replacement for potato starch in the original recipe I have from the 1930s, it makes the buns very soft and squidgy just like the chemical laced one. Crumb conditioning from the old school)
I think there is 7g in a sachet, but I use 2 1/2 level tsp for every sachet.
Just don’t overbake them!! They will continue to cook through once removed from the oven, and leave them on the tray until they get cold.
Dan

[Dom]

thanks Dan, your recipe worked really well.

Baking over a 90 minute period with eighteen 4 and 5 year olds (in 3 aliquots of 6) made for an exhausting but fun afternoon.

More than anything else they loved making a mess, and then 'cleaning their hands' (ie making more mess - this time of a wet kind). But they were very excited to take home their bread rolls.
It was a bit of a feat of scheduling to manage to shape rolls, and mix dough with all three groups, but we managed to bake 2/3 of the rolls. (OK, OK perhaps they were a little underproved). The others I baked when I got home, and the kids will have them tomorrow.

cheers
Dom

[breadandwine]

Hi Dan!

Bit concerned about the flour to liquid ratio in your recipe.

You’ve got 825g:650ml which is a lot of liquid, and is about the proportion I would use for a ciabatta beaten entirely in the bowl.

Then your instructions say ‘mix to a firm dough’.

(As a comparison I looked at your focaccia recipe in ‘Baking with passion’ and there, for 1kg flour, you use 680ml.)

If you left out the instruction to 'top up with water to make 200ml', that would give you 825g:575ml; still quite a slack dough, but probably manageable.

Interesting you're using cornflour to soften the crust - must give it a go!

BTW, Hovis, I think it is, only provides 6g of yeast in a sachet, rather than the more common 7g.

Cheers, Paul

[Dan Lepard]

Hi Paul,

Do make them if you get the chance Paul; must say they have a very soft processed texture and that seems to be due to the cornflour.

Can't say I had a problem with it, nor did Dom (above). Though the butter will make the dough softer it doesn't quite as much as water. So I make it:

827g flour = 12g (cornflour) + 525g (strong white flour) + 15g (cornflour) + 275g (strong white flour)

575g liquid = 450g (water) + 50g (water) + 74g (milk)

I wouldn't call the dough or baked texture ciabatta-like, and Dom might have flagged that as he is a bit of an expert:
http://www.sourdough.com.au/forum/viewt ... f=17&t=435
But perhaps Dom's (and my) idea of firm-dough is a bit softer than yours. Will watch for that.

regards

Dan

[breadandwine]

Thanks for the reply, Dan.

I saw Dom's reply after I'd posted - good for him, sounds like a great session!

You make the calculation:
575g liquid = 450g (water) + 50g (water) + 74g (milk)

But in your recipe you say to top up the milk and water mixture with more water to make 200ml. So the correct calculation should be:

650g liquid = 450g (water) + 200g (50g water + 74g milk topped up to 200g).

It would be interesting to hear Dom's experience, since he's actually made it.

Cheers, Paul:)

[Dan Lepard]

Paul,

The top up is simply to replace the water evaporated by the boiling of the milk.

If you melt 75g butter and add 75g milk and 50g water it will measure 200ml.

But if you bring the milk and the water to the boil first before adding the butter you will lose a little liquid through evaporation. The "topping up to 200ml" simply replaces this.

"Bring the water and milk to the boil, then remove from the heat, add the butter and set aside till warm. Pour into a jug and top up with water to make 200ml."

Dan

[Dom]

Paul makes an interesting point,

I confess that I too was a little surprised at the slackness of the dough. (Given Dan's description of it as 'firm') However my doughs are usually pretty slack, so it didn't fuss me terribly.

For the kids I added a handful or so of extra flour so that handling the dough would be a little easier.

In terms of the actual hydration I get

78% (if you include the melted butter/marg), or 69% if you don't. (I included the cornflour in the calculations). Either way would be consistent with a moderately sticky dough (and 78% would be consistent with a very slack dough), and in fact given the large proportion of preferment (the sponge), the dough would be expected to be even stickier than the calculation would suggest.

The last batch of dough (1/3 quantity) that the kids made I turned into a small tin loaf, and didn't add any extra flour to it. The resulting loaf was used for sandwiches this morning, and looked great (I haven't actually tasted it).

cheers
Dom

[Dan Lepard]

Firm dough:

The photographer couldn't capture the wet dough as it poured far too quickly out of the jug.
"Like a waterfall", she said.
Dan