friederike's Reviews
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The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making
By Alana Chernila
Clarkson Potter - 2012
Hamburger Buns : page 208
I had real doubts when I read through this recipe. The author didn't really seem to know why she was doing what.
In step 2, she asks you to combine the flour with the salt, then add the butter and gently rub it with your fingers. This is something you typically see in pie crusts and the like, as you want them to be short, ie. with a crumbly, crusty texture. To achieve that, you need to handle the flour as little as possible to prevent the gluten to be activated. This is why you only gently rub in the butter to mix the ingredients, and you don't knead the dough at all.
Yeast, in contrast, is different. For yeast, you actually want the gluten to be activated so that the dough gets stretchy, and is able to hold back the bubbles of gas produced by the yeast, which in turn makes the finished product light and airy. And guess what? In step 3, you're asked to knead vigorously – which is good for hamburger buns, but in stark contrast to what you've been doing in step 2.
Also, there's no need to beat the eggs, as you'll knead any air out again, and you can just as well mix the egg yolks and whites directly into the dough. Beating them beforehand will only get you another bowl to clean.
I also had an enormous problem with the dough as it turned out way too sticky. I double-checked with other recipes, and I found a recipe for basic yeast rolls in The All New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook that was near-identical to this recipe, so I guess that the reason for the stickiness most likely lies in different kinds of flour. I think I added about 200g of extra flour.
All that said, the buns turned out beautifully, and they were HUGE! Next time I would probably make 12 instead of 8 buns from this recipe. I'm hoping to make my own pickled gherkins in the summer, and I've already joked that if I then also make homemade ketchup and mayonnaise, I could host a 'slow fast food'-dinner.
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