Onion Dill Bread

[Mary Ann]

Years ago, when I was in college, there was a vegetarian restaurant called The Tao. They also had a bakery, and everything they did was fabulous! This bread as it's baking will just about kill you with the fragrance! You can shape them into a rustic round loaf, or into little pull apart rolls; your choice.

The Tao is long gone, as is the commune that supported it, but the quality of their goods was outstanding. Here's one of their breads.

Onion Dill Bread

1 pkg dry yeast, or 1 tablespoon
1/4 c. warm water
2 eggs
3/4 c. cottage cheese
1/4 c. finely choped onion
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. dill weed
1 tsp. salt
3 1/2 c. bread flour

1. Dissolve the yeast in warm water.

2. Mix eggs, cottage cheese, onion, butter, sugar, and dill weed together in a bowl. Stir in dissolved yeast and 1 1/2 cups flour. Beat vigorously until smooth, about 2 minutes.

3. Add salt and enough remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Knead until smooth and elastic, 5-10 minutes.

4. Form dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Turn it once to coat the surface of the dough with oil. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.

5. Punch the dough down and let it rest for ten minutes. Divide in half and shape into two round loaves. Place on a greased baking sheet and let rise again until almost doubled, 45 minutes to an hour.

6. Brush the loaves with beaten egg and make two or three thin slashes in the top. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until crust is golden brown and loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.

This loaf is excellent for Thanksgiving Day; great on the table as bread or rolls, and dynamite for turkey sandwiches!

[snaffle]

All I need is the cottage cheese and the dill

I am planning to make this for Christmas Dinner!

[Mary Ann]

Me too! It'll have some shaved roast ham to stick inside. I'm making rolls, mostly to shut Heather up.

Who are you shutting up this year?

[snaffle]

They eat what I fix... and they don't have much say in what I fix

[snaffle]

I am a bit concerned ...

the dough is heavy like ... cement!!! (well not quite THAT bad )
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the bread flour is still sitting on the counter where I put it when I brought it home from the grocery store...

And FORGOT to use IT for this bread

[Mary Ann]

Oh.

So, did you use all purpose flour?

You have to beat the carp out of all purpose flour to develop the gluten. Otherwise it doesn't much wanna rise. Bread flour has a higher protein/gluten content, usually 13-14% versus regular white flour at 11%. Some brands are even less. Makes them great for cakes and cookies though.

If you don't like keeping plain ol' bread flour around, you can add about a tablespoon of gluten flour per cup of all purpose flour to increase the gluten content. Then when you beat it you'll get those strands that tell you you're going to have a nice elastic rise. They hold the gases in that form the network of bubbles that determine the lift or height of your bread.

[dpt13]

So, Mary Ann, do you recommend bread flour for all breads or rolls that you bake? I have always just used all purpose flour and my rolls are good, but sometimes don't rise as much as I would like.

[Mary Ann]

The difference between bread flour and AP flour is a higher protein/gluten content. If you don't want to buy bread flour, you can get these itsy bitsy boxes of gluten flour and add about a tablespoon per cup of AP flour. I used to always keep organic AP and gluten flour. Then I'd use the AP (which is white) for some cakes (without the gluten flour) and pizza doughs (with the gluten flour). My whole wheat breads were from red winter wheat, and although that's a higher protein flour, the bits of bran tend to pierce the little strands and give you a denser bread; so I added gluten flour at the rate of about a quarter cup (4T) per two loaf recipe. And I got a respectable rise.

I still keep just plain white organic AP flour, but I also now use a new cultivar from a white wheat. Unlike red wheat, it lacks the gene that makes whole wheat rather bitter; but it's still a whole grain flour with the germ and bran and everything. It has a 13% protein content, so I don't add any gluten flour to it. I just use it straight. The best white wheat flour is from King Arthur Flour, and they have it in organic, too.

So, long story long, you can still use your regular AP flour for your rolls and add a bit of gluten flour if you want more lift. Since it's a teensy amount, it won't take up as much space in your pantry as bread flour, and you'll still get some turnover. Flour that hangs around turns rancid, and we don't want that....