• Tangzhong style Hamburger Buns dressed
    Baking,  Breads

    Tangzhong Style Hamburger Buns

    If you have had to suffer through the low quality mass produced hamburger buns from the grocery store shelf, I likely don’t have to say anything else. You want a better buns. We all want better buns! Thankfully, I’m known for nice buns. Ahem… cough cough.. bread buns people! Keep it clean đŸ™‚

  • Proofed cinnamon star bread dessert, ready for the oven.
    Baking,  Breads

    How to build a Cinnamon Star Bread dessert

    Today we made a first trial run of making a star bread. Now this bread concept is made with a sweet danish type dough, without the laminations. The layers come from the building technique. Many different types of filling can be used; nutella is popular, cinnamon and sugar… even pizza! Might have to try that one another day.

  • Breads

    homemade flour tortillas (bannock)

    Spent Saturday morning doing some bread baking. Made our 4 loaves of bread for the week, and also made 8 pizza shells and a dozen sub buns. On top of that we made some pita wraps, also called flour tortillas or bannock. Super easy to make. The hardest part is rolling them out flat. So we made a video where the first half simply shows me rolling them. The trick is to keep dusting the shell, and flipping and moving it while making it thinner.

  • pita shells
    Breads

    Bannock/Pita/Nann shells

    Made some of these pita shells for supper after seeing a commercial for A&W’s Chicken Bacon Wrap Sandwich. Never made the shells before. Super simple recipe and they bake on the stove top in a frying pan 60 sec one side, 30 sec on the other. The shells with the darker spots had the best flavour so I’ll be sure to darken them some more next time I make them.

    Recipe

    • 3 cups flour
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 1 tsp baking powder
    • 1/3 cup liquid vegetable (or other oil)
    • 1 cup luke warm water (+1/6 cup water depending on water)
    1. Combine dry ingredients.
    2. Add wet ingredients.
    3. Mix for 1 minute in a small KitchenAid type mixer, or mix by hand. Dough should be soft and piable but not sticky. Adjust water to suit the type flour you are using.
    4. Place finished dough on floured surface and divide into portions, we make our size 43-45g each. Form each piece into a somewhat round shape and pat down on the table so that the portion size is about 2-3 inches diameter.
    5. Let the portions rest covered with a cloth for about 15 minutes.
    6. After this time, start to pre-heat your pan(s). There’s no set rule as everyone’s stove is different and type of pans used. You don’t want a hot pan that will burn the dough beyond the spots like you see in the pictures. Gina starts with a hot pan and then over each course of shells she has to turn the heat down on the pans.
    7. Start rolling out the shells so that they are quite thin. A 43-45 g piece of dough should roll out to 10 or so inches in diameter.
    8. When you are placing the rolled out pieces in the pans for baking, you should brush off as much of the surface flour as you can, to avoid the flour collecting in the pans and burning on during the baking process. Smoke will be created while baking these so have the over-the-oven exhaust fan on. If you don’t have one, then open a couple windows to allow for a cross breeze.
    9. After baking, allow them to cool for 30 minutes. When ready, store in a air tight container, or a plastic bag with as much of the air pressed out. We make them so that they fit in a large 4L ice cream tub and freeze them. Take out as needed to serve.

  • Baking,  Breads

    Canadian Harvest Hearth Bread

    Canadian Harvest Hearth Bread Mix
    Canadian Harvest Hearth Bread Mix

    Years ago when we owned a bakery, we used to make this multigrain bread. I recall it had a very good flavor, especially when toasted. While at a local bulk food store (TRA in Truro, Nova Scotia), I was very surprised to see this on the shelf. Now I expect most consumers would not purchase a 20kg bag of bread base (you still need to add more flour). But I’ve worked with this before, only now the equipment I have is much different. Time to experiment.