Saturday, August 20, 2011

Amish bread and more, Recipes for my breads

What's Amish Bread?
I think the only thing that makes this bread Amish is how much you let it rise, how much you knead it, and let it rise some more.
The ingredients are right bloody simple
6 cups flour
2/3 c sugar
2 c Water
1.5 tbs Yeast i have a huge brick of it.
1/4 c Oil
2 tsp salt, or i do about six to twelve grinds with my sea salt

Pour two cups of near hot water in a bowl, add yeast and sugar, stir to dissolve.
Let the yeast sit until you see a foam or froth form. This usually takes about 15 or more minutes.

Slowly add oil, salt, and the flour, stirring a cup at a time.
I get about 4 cups into the mix and I switch to my hands. To knead a good dough you need to get in to it up to your elbows. Knead the thing for about 15 minutes, it should be fairly dry, but with a lovely gloss due to the oil.
Oil a bowl and pat some oil on the exterior of your dough ball. Place it in a bowl for about an hour and cover with a Damp dish towel.
The dough should expand about 5 plus times its size.
Take the dough out of the bowl, punch it down and throw it into pans, shape it how you fancy and then let it sit again. The dough should rise about 2 inches above the pans, or make a right puffy whatever.

Bake for 30 minutes @ 350 degrees.
Pull from the oven, throw from the pans and let it cool.
I find that the bead is sweet, savoury, and screams for me to apply a generous pat of butter.

I know you see a pizza crust, some sauce. I had so much dough from my last batch. I used about 12 cups of flour, 4 cups of water, 3 tbs yeast, a c and a half of sugar and I kept the oil still at 1/4 c. The bread came out amazing. I rolled part of it into a pizza crust, made a sauce from some paste, water, basil, oregano, garlic, and whatever else I found in the Fridge. Baked at 425 for about 20 mins, Gave me a crunchy Crust with perfect cheese.
Oh yes the Cheese, It was smoked Gouda, Parm, mozzy, and another one that is escaping me right now.

The wee puffy smurf huts with the Garlic stem popping out of them are stuffed with basil sauced chicken and chopped garlic, more of a buttery crust than anything.







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