Sacaduros 'The Bread Bible' Alpha Bakers

Sacaduros:  crisp crusted, soft interior dinner roll with a burst of salty butter. 

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“But he who dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.” -Anne Brontë

Dang, I had a "dinner roll shaping problem" this week. These little dinner rolls are Rose Levy Beranbaum's favourites from restaurant 'Daniel' New York. Thanks to the 'Bread Bible' I got to make them, firstly lets see what they are supposed to look like ....

Serious eats has a fabulous gallery of bread baskets in New York, including the bread basket from restaurant 'Daniel'. You can see the sacaduros front left, those round rolls were what I was aiming for. Mine didn't have the "petal like" pulled up sides you see pictured here. Even though I experienced "folding fail" the resulting dinner rolls are so incredibly delicious I can live with my misshapen little fellas.  

Here we go...

Three quarters of a dough batch from Rose's 'Basic Hearth Bread' was called for so I started by whisking together bread flour, wholemeal flour, instant yeast, honey and warm water for the sponge (dough starter). 

Bread flour combined with instant yeast was sifted over the sponge and left to ferment. 

Sponge bubbling through the flour topping. 

I used my Kitchen Aid to beat the sponge, flour and added salt into a dough then off to rise once more.

Cubed butter and salt are needed for the filling.

Fleur de Sel French salt: distinctly moist and often used as a finishing salt. 

I also made a flavoured butter by adding fresh coriander, garlic, chilli and grated ginger to softened butter. The butter wasn't whipped as in the standard compound butter technique but rather the flavourings were beaten in with a wooden spoon as to not incorporate excess air. Form the butter into a square and refrigerate before cutting into cubes. 

Time for pinching off 33 gram balls of dough (Rose recommended one at a time, I did four at a time... maybe my downfall part) and gently flattened balls into discs.  A half inch cube of butter and a pinch of fleur de sel on top of the butter are placed in the centre of each flattened ball.

And then I started talking about napkins:  I'm presuming the folds in the rolls were inspired by Escoffier's famous "rose" fold napkin technique, including "pulling" up pieces to form petals. 

Shaping the rolls; pull two sides of dough out and fold bringing them to the centre to cover the butter without squashing it down, then pull out the other two sides and bring to centre. Rotating the dough so a pointed end is facing you, repeat the folds.  Then in the written instructions there is "for the last two pulls, take only pinches of dough". The diagrams don't have this bit in my Kindle version. I was confused and also my dough did not want to stretch for those final two pulls. I tried to force it (yep, ok shouldn't do that) and ended up with my misshapen rolls that were placed upside down in a tray of flour. 

About a third of the rolls burst in the oven and the butter leaked, these were my "I bet I could stretch that dough with brute force" ones.     

At the end I had sacaduros with super thin hard and crunchy crusts that gave way to light and fluffy interiors with bursts of salty butter. Shaping aside these are the best bread rolls I have baked, so pleased with crust and interior texture. The long oven pre-heat and other tips within the book are yielding excellent results. 

Would I bake again? Yes, loved them. You could do so many different butters/flavours by changing herbs and seasonings. From a straight garlic butter to a lime zest black pepper butter, lemon and dill, black olive, or vanilla salt and butter to go with your scallops and white fish. 

Would I change anything? Yes, I wouldn't do the flour on top step, messy stuck in lipstick eating. Ha, ha if I folded them correctly next time that would be nice.  

How it works... joining the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a month I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Bread Bible'. I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible available from Amazon and all discerning book sellers. 

Happy Baking :) 

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Fruit Chews part two

Twice the size of the actual cupcake, a close up view of a Starburst fruit chew rose on "Spring burst cupcake"

Two months ago I posted a blog entry on how to  colour and shape Starburst Fruit Chews, today is in answer to queries about what else can you make with the softened fruit chews;

           Starburst fruit chews

Roses

You don't need any special cutters or ingredients, just fruit chews & a microwave oven. Great for beginners to try their hand at flower making and for the more experienced a pack of fruit chews in the pantry will serve you well in the emergency "I've run out of modelling paste" moment, also great for when you need a particular flavour for your flowers.

Take your softened fruit chew & roll a small piece to form the centre of your rose.

                        

Roll other small pieces and wrap around your centre piece one at a time, pinching the bottom of the rose to join as you are forming until you have a fully formed flower. Trim any excess fruit chew from the bottom of the rose with scissors. I used a centre & four petals to make the pink rose (uncoloured strawberry Starburst) on top of today's cake. 

Ejector cutter blossoms                                             

All your ejector cutters will work with the softened fruit chews; here I used a tiny blossom ejector cutter to cut blossoms from rolled out fruit chews & then ejected them into foam to produce a shaped flower. 

Cherry Starburst rose and coloured strawberry Starburst blossoms

Each Starburst fruit chew produces one rose plus 24 blossoms. Do keep in mind the flavour of your cupcakes, cherry Starbursts are great with Chocolate cake... not as great with peppermint cake!

Have Fun!!

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 Fruit Chews part one

Pavlova Cupcakes

lychee, raspberry & rose syrup pavlova cupcake

Not much in the way of dessert making on MasterChef as yet, but there was a pavlova courtesy of guest judge Donna Hay. Sooo, to mark the return of MasterChef I thought I'd make mini pavlova's for cupcake toppers.

Ingredients

12 baked cupcakes in flavour of choice (I used vanilla buttermilk cupcakes)

3 egg whites (room temperature)

165g (3/4 cup) caster sugar (superfine)

2 tsps cornflour (cornstarch)

1/2 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp pure vanilla essence/extract

Decoration Ingredients

300ml (0.63 pint) of cream, whipped. Flavour the cream with liqueur if desired

Topping can be anything you like, I used lychees, raspberries & a drizzle of rose syrup.

Other topping suggestions are; passionfruit & flaked white chocolate, strawberries & kiwi fruit, dark chocolate curls and hazelnuts, crushed peppermint candy, milk chocolate & peppermint liqueur cream, mango/paw paw/banana and coconut, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries & red currants, peaches with raspberry puree drizzle, chocolate dipped strawberries, orange and chocolate, fresh or preserved stone fruits.

Method

Preheat oven to 120c/250F (100c/210 fan forced)

Line a cookie sheet with baking paper, trace 12 6.5cm (2.5in) circles onto the paper & reverse the paper on the tray so the ink won't touch the food.

In an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating until sugar is fully dissolved between additions... this will take a few minutes.

It should be looking like this now...glossy and shiny meringue

Fold in the cornflour, vinegar & vanilla.

Divide the meringue between the circles drawn on your baking paper.

Bake for 45 minutes or until cases are firm.

Cool totally in oven with the door slightly ajar; use the handle of wooden spoon to keep the door ajar.

Pavlova's will have a white thin crispy shell and soft marshmallow interior

Just before serving spread a little cream or frosting on the centre of the cupcakes to attach the pavlova. Place pavlovas on the cakes and topping with cream and desired topping.

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                            Violets are blue pavlova  

Cupcake Cases, Liners, Papers & Wrappers

Cupcake liners can match your theme, just be pretty or act as an inspiration like these pretty ruffled cupcake cases from Wilton.

I received a couple of requests last evening about the cupcake cups I used in the 'I'm not in Paris Wombat Cupcake'. The cases are from Wilton and are available in three colours; teal, white and rose (which is red).

My husband immediately thought of "Christmas" when he saw them, I thought of Paris! They would be gorgeous for baby showers and weddings too.

They are lovely baking cups, bake beautifully & are best used with light coloured cake batter.

close up of ruffling

I got mine from Fancy Flours (US), elsewhere request them from your local cake decorating store, Wilton stockist or check Ebay.