It's a New Year, Just Dough It!

Bread can seem intimidating to make at first but with the right recipes it’s a piece of cake. Bread has developed into many different forms over the years. Originally bread was just a flatbread that was pressed into the side of fire pits to cook. Bread was first created when humans were living a nomadic lifestyle and making it was considered a luxury. This created a need to domesticate cereals causing bread to become more common. The domestication of cereals made it possible to experiment more with different types of bread. Now bread has become a staple in diets and many variations have been created. This month I set out to bake different types of breads including focaccia, bagels, dinner rolls, and hot pretzels.

The first recipe I made was focaccia. When I first made the recipe I made a single batch and cooked it in an 8x8 pan. This was too big for the amount of dough I had. This resulted in the bread being not as fluffy and a bit dry. I was determined to do it better, so I remade my dough this time doubling the recipe. This was the perfect amount of dough for the pan and made a very fluffy bread. I topped the focaccia with garlic and oil, however, the options for this bread are endless. 

The next recipe I made was bagels. I found the directions in this recipe were very clear. I found using bread flour over regular flour gave me the best results for this recipe. One improvement I found the second time I made this recipe was weighing out each bagel to make them the same size. Like the focaccia, this recipe is very customizable as you can top it with anything you want. So far I have topped the bagels with, everything seasoning, poppy seeds, cinnamon sugar, sea salt, and cheese. 

The third recipe I made this month was dinner rolls. This recipe was one of my favorites to make. I found that the dough rose very well and it was very satisfying to separate the rolls after they cooked. This recipe is to make a sweeter roll with a crunchy outside and a fluffy inside. I also would recommend spreading melted butter over the top of the rolls once they are cooked to add a bit of extra flavor to the rolls.

 The final recipe I made was hot pretzels. This is one of the best hot pretzel recipes I have tried. They were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. In the recipe when I had the chance to choose between sugar and brown sugar; I used brown sugar. This is something I had not tried in my other hot pretzel recipes but I feel like it made it sweeter. Also when choosing whether to use an egg wash or butter wash, I chose butter because it added more taste where the egg would help crisp up the outside.