Baking kick-off

Look what arrived in the mail two Thursdays ago! My first order from the King Arthur Flour Baker's catalogue. I ordered Italian flour, instant yeast, Vital Wheat Gluten, and sparkling sugar.

I had been looking for instant yeast here in San Diego and I couldn't find it. It seemed kind of silly to order it online, but I really couldn't find it anywhere. I have been a fan of King Arthur flours for a few years, and had heard that they were the best place to find special things for baking. Indeed they are! Unfortunately, with my order, also came a printed catalogue, as if I needed more encouragement to fuel this hobby! I have at least two more orders worth of items flagged. First thing to try was getting some rolls to rise. I have tried making sandwich rolls or hamburger buns before, but I just couldn't get them to rise enough. They were tasty little hockey-puck type rolls- the flavor was perfect, but they were super dense. Chris choked one down without complaining, but I know that he was internally wondering- I hope she gets this out of her system soon! Well, since that wasn't going to happen, I decided that something was wrong with my yeast, and I was ready to trade up and try the stuff that supposedly the professionals use.

So with this yeast, you just throw it into the mix dry with the other ingredients. Here is the start to my dough.

Add the other ingredients and let the mixer combine and continue to knead. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth. It won't be sticky.

Place the dough, once kneaded into an oiled bowl, turn a couple times so that the top is oiled also, then cover with plastic wrap and let rise. (Sorry this photo is dark.)

I let mine rise in the oven, heated to 150 degrees and then turned off. This was the dough after about an hour. Another good way to check for proper rising is to insert a couple fingers and see if the dough bounces back. If the indentation stays, then it's ready to go. I decided that I was going to use half of my dough to make cinnamon rolls. Since this was a lean dough, I brushed melted sugar over the rolled out dough and then sprinkled it with a sugar, cinnamon, and flour mix. Just mix whatever quantities of the three you want, this is a good place to 'wing it' while you are baking. The small amount of flour mixed in with the sugar and cinnamon keeps the spiral from opening up while it is baking. Kind of acts like glue between the layers.

I made the rolls at night and then let them rise in the morning while I got the rest of breakfast ready. Here they are after another 20 minutes in a 150 degree-heated oven. After that, it was time to make the glaze. Just a mixture of powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.The rolls baked at 350 for about 20 minutes. And the other part of breakfast- the healthy part! A fritatta with Canadian bacon, broccoli, and cheddar. I can already tell I will be ordering from KAF again soon!!

Here is the link to the roll dough. The other half were for sandwich rolls, but I didn't do the onion thing, although I am sure it was good. I just knew that Chris and I didn't need all those sandwich buns, but the cinnamon rolls ended up being great. There is another recipe on the site for cinnamon rolls as well, but this worked great.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2008/06/20/onion-buns/