The grilling season has begun! (Actually I’ve been grilling for a couple weeks now.) I like to grill pretty nearly everything. One of our favorite grilled vegetables is broccoli with butter, salt, and pepper (various squashes are also quite good). We also like grilled potatoes. Grilled corn on the cob is wonderful.
This is my first attempt at hamburger buns. I haven’t been able to get my sourdough starter started ever since I killed my last one (purposely). So I’ve been making a “soaked” bread. That is, the flour is soaked in an acidic solution for a while. Since I use raw vinegar (with the mother of vinegar still in it) for the acid component, it might also be called a fermentation. I’ve developed the following technique based on the famous New York Times no-knead bread recipe.
- 15oz hard red spring wheat
- 12oz less 1 tablespoon cool water
- 1 tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon yeast (either active dry or instant are fine)
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
Grind the wheat into flour as finely as you are able. Mix this all up in the evening, cover, and put it in the refrigerator over night. Take it out in the morning and knead it by hand for about one minute. Put it back in the bowl and cover. Leave it at room temperature.
In the afternoon, liberally cover a pizza peel or edgeless cookie sheet with cornmeal. Take the dough out of the bowl and fold it 3 ways like a letter. Fold it again the other way. Put it on the pizza peel or cookie sheet. Cover it with a towel and wait for it to rise a bit. Probably about 2 hours or so, but whatever seems right.
Put a cookie sheet in the very bottom of the oven and fill it with water. Put your pizza stone on the middle rack. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Let it continue preheating after the oven thinks it is preheated. It’s lying. Preheat it at least 20 minutes. When the oven is ready quickly slide the dough off the peel directly onto the stone. Bake for about 30 minutes. I haven’t yet found the perfect baking time. Last time I did it 35 minutes and the crust was a bit too brown.
For the buns in the above picture I first folded the dough and then cut it into 5 pieces (6 might be better). I shaped them gently into balls then I put them on a sheet of parchment paper on an edgeless cookie sheet. The rest is the same.
I’ve also made this into bread sticks and pizza.
