No Knead Whole Wheat Parker House Rolls | Healthy Snacking Anytime

Kneading is therapeutic. I have been very vocal about it in most of  bread post. But there came a time when I didnt have enough time and wanted to bake bread. 

Did I tell you, these days I am on a bread high. I want to bake bread on most days and touch wood they come out nicely and moreover give the house a warm bakery aroma. The aroma actually makes me happy.

But since I am slightly busy these days, I don't have enough patience to knead or time. I know, you might ask what is another 30 minutes spend in therapeutic kneading. 

 These days, I want the results quick quick in an instant without much work.  Believe me, no knead technique also gives me the much needed (kneaded !? :D) high. You mix the batter, cover it, go out, come back and bake it. By the time the family comes home you are done and have a warm loaf or rolls waiting to be gorged on.Moreover I make the batter in fridays, take out and bake on saturdays. Ha Heaven!. Your work is done. No time spent in worrying what is to be made for snack time or breakfast.

Anyway, coming back to the post, I tried no knead parker house rolls from TastyKitchen and they turned out wonderful. Whats more they were healthy too with whole wheat flour in them.

A Parker house roll is actually a dinner roll shaped differently.You flatten the dough piece into an oval and fold in half and brush/dip with butter. The roll got its name from Parker House Hotel in Boston in 1870s and its still being served there. Well, there are several stories on their origin, but this no knead one is a sure hit with me.

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour: 1/2 cup
Whole Wheat Flour: 1.5 cups
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Sugar: 2 tbsp
Instant Yeast: 1.5 tsp

Vegetable Oil: 2 tbsp
Water: 3/4 cup

Melted Butter: 2 tbsp +/- for dipping/garnishing/drizzling

Preparation:

Mix in a deep bowl all the dry items. Stir in the oil and water. Mix well and you will get a sticky moist sticky batter like dough. Do not over mix. Barely 13 times or less is enough.

Keep the dough covered with a plastic wrap and let it sit until doubled for another 1-2 hours.

Punch down the dough and let it rest for a few minutes again.Here you can halve the dough,freeze one portion of the dough for later use and work with the other half.

Whatever you decide, it is better to work with separate pieces as the dough is very sticky.The dough freezes well and can be refrigerated up to a week. The dough can turned to become cinnamon rolls,scones,monkey bread etc or whatever way you want to use, as  it is the basic bread dough

Place the one half of the dough on a well floured surface and roll it out into a 1/2 " thick circle. Using a cookie cutter, cut circles of the dough.

Take a circle, stretch it lengthwise within fingers to make it look oval shaped, dip one half in melted butter, fold over in half and place in a well greased/ buttered baking tray.

Repeat this with other dough circles, placing them close to one another in the baking pan.Cover the rolls and let them rise until doubled.

 Bake for 20 minutes in a preheated oven at 375F or until they are golden brown. Take out brush will more melted butter if needed and serve warm.

Yum rolls, perfect from the oven, and healthy ones too.They will be golden thanks to the wheat flour.

Savoury Kugelhopf | We Knead to Bake #7

A Kugelhopf of gugelhupf is the German term for a marble or bundt cake. It traditionally consists of a soft yeasted dough with raisins, eggs, nuts etc baked in a circular pan with a central tube. Rather the bundt pan with which we are familiar is derived from the kugelhopf pan. All this time I didn't know about the savoury version of Kugelhopf aux Lardons (Kugelhopf with ham and walnuts) from Alsace, France. Thankfully Aparna made a vegetarian version of this for this months We Knead to  Bake and here it is.

The ham has been replaced by tomatoes and bellpeppers and this makes it colourful or a jewelled. Eggs are there in this recipe but can be replaced and I have used Ener G egg replacer as usual.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour : 3-3.5 cups

Instant Yeast: 2 tsp

Salt: 1 tsp

Unsalted Butter: 6 tbsp /75 gms room temp

Milk: 3/4 cup

Eggs: 2 or Ener G Egg: 1 tbsp powder + 4-5 tbsp water

Filling: 

Oil: 1-2 tsp

Onions: 1/3 cup chopped

Tomatoes: 1/3 cup chopped and deseeded

Green bellpepper: 1/3 cup chopped

Thyme: 1.5 tsp +/-

Pepper: 1.5 tsp

Salt: as per taste

Cheddar Cheese: 1/3 cup diced

Walnuts: 1/3 cup + more for garnish

Preparation:

In a food processor pulse for a few times flour,salt and yeast.Add in butter little at a time and pulse again.

Add in milk and egg and pulse again till we get a sticky sort of dough. Do add tablespoonsfuls of flour and continue pulsing till the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Still the dough might be sticky. Do not add more flour though. Pat the dough into a round and keep it covered in an oiled deep bowl turning once to coat with oil until it doubles in volume which is almost 2.5 hrs!

Meanwhile prepare the filling or stuffing. Finely chop onions, tomato and bellpepper. Make sure you remove the pulp of the tomato before chopping.Heat oil in a deep pan and saute the tomatoes and bellpepper adding a pinch of salt and pepper for 1-2 minutes while the raw smell goes but they're still crunchy and colourful. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and keep aside. Add more oil to the pan if needed and saute onions adding little salt, sugar, pepper and thyme. Once golden brown remove from fire and mix in with the bellepepper and tomato. Do the taste test and add more salt and seasoning if needed.

Once the dough is doubled deflate it gently and flatten it. Flattening helps in stuffing the bread.Spread the filling on the dough along with diced cheese and walnuts, fold it over to cover the filling and knead it gently so that the filling is evenly spread. 

Turn the dough into a log and place it in a greased bundt pan which has already been sprinkled with walnuts

Here for me atleast the dough became tough to manage with the filling pouring out from every side of the dough. Somehow I turned it into a log. Instead of the bundt cake I had gone for smaller muffin pan and even mini bundt pan.

So I pinched pieces of the dough placed in a walnut studded muffin pan. For the mini bundts, I pinched pieces, rolled them out and placed the piece circularly in the mould and pinched the edges together to close the circle.

Once this is done, let the dough sit covered in plastic wrap until it rises again for another hour or so.I went for 2 hrs again but still the dough rose but didn't exactly double.

Bake in a preheated oven at 190C for about 20-25 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and they sound hollow when tapped.This is how it was for me as I went for smaller sizes. If going for an 8" bundt pan, then go for 35-40 minutes at 200C.

Cool for 5-10 minutes and then invert these on a wire rack to wait until consumption.

Snack on the mini bundts or kugelhopf muffins whatever you call them. Perfect with tea or with anything or as such anytime. 

They look crispy but were soft with a little crunch of the nuts while biting. Atleast thats what I got. But since they are yeasted cakes, I suppose I got it right. I had a perfect tea with  savoury cakes. They can also be consumed for breakfast, and also served with soup for dinner.Now lets see whats happening with others. Drop in at Aparna's and enjoy the stories on kugelhopf.