Tag: bread

Bread: Pretzel Buns

My phase of making bread/biscuits continues, and today we’re going to talk about something fun and tasty: pretzel buns!

This isn’t as time consuming as the Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks, but some work still needs to be done. It’s actually pretty simple to make, and I’ll give some tips on how to make it easier for yourself if you decide to make this recipe.

It first starts off with getting a large mixing bowl (you’ll see why later). Once you have your bow, you need to warm up 1/2 a cup of water. While the water is heating, measure out your white sugar and active dry yeast. To make it easy, use two packets of the active dry yeast that comes in the 3-pack.

To save yourself the frustration, use two of these packets for 4 1/2 teaspoons.

You’ll put the warm water in the bowl and add the sugar and yeast together. Let them do their thing in the bowl for 5 minutes.

t = zero minutes
t = five minutes

After the five minutes are up, add in the milk, shortening, eggs, vegetable oil, flour, more sugar, and salt.

All ingredients added together.

Then you need to get your hand mixer and start it up while adding the rest of the flour (1/2 cup at a time). This will get a little messy, because the dough will bunch up in your mixer.

This isn’t going the way I had hoped…

Once you’ve had enough of your hand mixer, you’ll need a surface that is lightly floured, and you’ll need to knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

I had to wash my hands to get this picture.

Once you have kneaded the dough enough, spray another bowl with cooking oil and place the dough in there. Cover it with plastic wrap and put the bowl in a warm environment for an hour.

Ready for action!

After an hour, the dough should look like this:

The dough has risen!

The recipe tells you to pull out dough balls the size of baseballs, which will make them large (I guess hence the name “buns” instead of “biscuits”).

It’s about the size of a baseball.

You’ll need to make the dough lengthen like a breadstick, and then you roll it like a cinnamon roll.

This picture makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Do this so you end up with 12 buns.

I’m making snail shells!

Make sure your oven is preheated to 350 degress for these. If you’re like me and put the oven on at the last minute, preheat the oven while you do the next step.

Get 4 cups of water and heat it up. Put that in a bowl and mix it with 1/2 cup of baking soda. With the water-baking soda mix, dip the buns into that water before placing on the cookie sheet. Put 6 on a cookie sheet at a time, and use aluminum ones so you don’t burn the bottoms too quickly. Once on the cookie sheet, spread melted butter on each bun and top with a little bit of sea salt.

My very basic setup.

Bake each set of 6 for about 22 minutes in the oven.

Fresh out of the oven!
The Instagram picture.

Overall, I would say that this is a keeper. I’d recommend this recipe for anyone, but just make sure that you have an extra hour set aside for the dough to rise. These are delicious and very fluffy. One of my coworkers saw me eating one, and was extremely jealous. Now they want me to make them some, although if I were to do this again, I would make them smaller and more along the lines of a pretzel biscuit.

Ingredients:

  • 4 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar
  • ½ cup warm water
  • 2 cups warm milk
  • 6 tablespoons vegetable shortening
  • 2 eggs 
  • 6 cups all-purpose flour, divided 
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt
  • ½ cup baking soda
  • 4 cups water
  • ¼ cup melted butter
  • sea salt

Directions:

  1. Sprinkle the yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar over 1/2 cup of warm water in a small bowl. The water should be no more than 100 degrees F (40 degrees C). Let stand for 5 minutes until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam.
  2. Add milk, shortening, eggs, oil, 3 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Blend with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Mix in remaining 3 cups of flour by hand, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. The dough will be sticky.
  3. Lightly oil a large bowl, then place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a light cloth and let rise in a warm place (80 to 95 degrees F (27 to 35 degrees C)) until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Uncover the dough and punch it down.
  4. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  5. Pull off baseball size portions of dough and roll into “snakes” about 6 inches long. Roll each “snake” into a spiral to give the tops some texture. Set each formed bun aside.
  6. Mix the baking soda and 4 cups hot water in a bowl. The baking soda does not need to dissolve completely. Dip each bun in the baking soda solution before placing on a baking sheet. Brush each bun with melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in the preheated oven until brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack or brown paper bag.

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Bread: Olive Garden Breadsticks!

After too long of a hiatus, I’ve decided to do some baking again. I decided to start doing breads that go with dinners, and this weekend I decided on Olive Garden breadsticks.

After several weeks, and contemplating what to do this year, I decided on biscuits, and the first one I wanted to share was the recipe for Olive Garden breadsticks, and they turned out amazing.

The recipe is pretty simple actually. You first start things off by combining warmed water, instant yeast, granulated sugar, and melted unsalted butter. You can combine all these in a stand mixer with your bread dough hook attachment.

First time using the dough hook on my stand mixer!

After the first bit of ingredients are mixing, you need to slowly pour in the bread flour little by little. I use a piece of parchment paper to slowly add the bread flour in little by little. After a while, the dough starts to stretch out little by little.

This will become something beautiful…

After being in a stand mixer, make sure you have a greased bowl for the dough to rise.

Greased up bowl!

Put the dough in the greased bowl and cover it in plastic wrap. Then put it in a warm environment. I had to improvise, so I used my laundry closet. Luckily, my dryer hose has a hard time staying attached, so it warms the closet. You need to let this sit for an hour and a half.

After that, you need to measure 2oz portions of dough, and stretching it out to a length of about 7 inches. Then you need to cover them up and let them sit for another hour. I had to cut it short to 45 minutes, and it seemed to work.

I got 13 instead of 12 that the recipe calls for. Yay baker’s dozen!

I used aluminum cookie sheets because they won’t burn the bottom of the breadsticks.

After the time, the oven was heated up to 400F and they were baked for exactly 12 minutes, and they came out perfect. Then I brushed some melted butter on top and sprinkled a kosher salt/garlic powder mix on top.

They look and taste amazing.

This is a good recipe to make if you decide to make these ahead of time. I recommend this recipe because it was so good, and it was a hit with my family for dinner. The recipe is a keeper!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
  • 16 ounces (about 3 1/3 to 3 1/2 cups) bread flour

For the topping:

  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

  1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the water, yeast, sugar, and butter. Add in the salt. Attach the dough hook to the mixer and begin to gradually add the flour on low speed. Increase speed to medium and knead the dough for about 7 minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic.
  2. Remove the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
  3. Divide the dough into 12 (2 ounce) portions. Roll each piece of dough into a 7-inch log. Place the dough logs on nonstick baking mat or parchment-lined baking sheets, cover, and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
  4. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately brush with melted butter. Combine the salt and garlic powder and sprinkle evenly over breadsticks. Serve warm.

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