What are you Baking the Week of July 4, 2021?

[Mike Nolan]

I'm planning to make some sandwich rolls this week, I bought some pre-sliced beef and I plan to reheat it in broth to see how close it comes to Italian Beef (as suggested by Serious Eats), but I need a roll sturdy enough to handle being drenched in the jus.

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[Joan Simpson]

Just baked a small frying pan of corn bread.

[BakerAunt]

I wanted something crunchy to go with dinner on Wednesday, but the temperatures in the high 80s and the humidity did not inspire me to turn on the big oven. However, I decided to see if I could bake “Onion Parmesan Cracker Bread,” using an individual 10-inch Emile Henry pizza stone and my countertop convection oven. The recipe, by Rosemary Leicht of Bethel, Ohio was entered in the National Festival of Breads (2017) and appeared in King Arthur’s Sift (Fall 2017, p. 9). It may be on the KABC website. I followed the ingredients except for cutting the salt by 25%. My little pizza stone only accommodates a 10-inch, not a 12-13 inch rolled out cracker, so I divided the dough into five pieces rather than four. I found it easiest to roll one out, let it rest 5 minutes, brush on the egg white, sprinkle on the Parmesan, put it into bake (425F for 7 minutes—I lowered the temperature by 25F and cut the time by at least a minute, as I was using convection). While that one baked, I rolled out the next one. I was able to use my “cake lifter” to move the parchment with the cracker on it to the stone, and to remove it, then peel the paper off to reuse for another one. The process went fast and did not heat up my kitchen. The centers are not quite crisp. Next time, I will bake a bit longer. The cracker bread is delicious and went well with the quinoa salad we had for dinner.

[skeptic7]

I did cheese pizza on Monday, and apple scones the previous Saturday but for the most part its too hot to cook. I've been subsisting on chocolate chip cookies from the grocery store and milk for the most part. I'm going to see if I can get up the energy for a real supper.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, the rolls stuck to the pan, which I didn't grease, and I think I over-proofed them a little, too, as they're not very tall, but they're tasty and I think I'll try them with the Italian Beef tomorrow, to see if they hold up when soggy.

[BakerAunt]

What recipe did you use for the rolls, Mike?

[Mike Nolan]

I used this recipe it made 4 rolls:

Gonnella-style rolls for Italian Beef

The recipe didn't specify what kind of flour, so I used KA bread flour. I wound up adding quite a bit more flour than the recipe called for to get a dough that wasn't really sticky. I used the Chicago Metallic sandwich roll pan that King Arthur used to sell to bake them. I should have greased the pan, but I was able to get the rolls off without too much damage to them.

I'm going to make the Italian Beef tonight, with some roasted sweet peppers, we'll see how the rolls stand up to being soaked in broth.

Here's the Serious Eats article on making Italian Beef using meat from the deli:
Italian Beef at home

[Mike Nolan]

The Serious Eats recipe I give a C, it has some of the characteristics of good Italian Beef but is missing something, I'll have to play with it, maybe tweaking the spices or cooking the pre-sliced meat in the jus longer. The meat itself was OK, it had the right amount of 'bite' to it, so it was sliced to the right thickness, and I nailed the roasted peppers. A different beef stock recipe might help too. Mine has a lot of tomatoes in it.

The Gonnella-like roll recipe was disappointing, I give it a D+, I'd go lower but I think I contributed to the issues by over-proofing it. It fell apart when it got wet, but it looked and tasted a lot like a sourdough bread, and IMHO sourdoughs tend to fall apart when wet. I could see using this recipe for other things, though, it has a nice caramelized taste to it.

I may try the original King Arthur recipe that came with the sandwich roll pan, I haven't made it in a while but as I recall it was pretty good, made fairly decent pizza bread, too.

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[BakerAunt]

I have that pan Mike and have baked those rolls. As I recall, King Arthur sent its own recipe to use in place of the one that had been on the pan. I haven't baked them in a while. I should put them on my bake in the near future list.

[Janiebakes]

My quilt group is meeting tomorrow, all vaccinated on an outdoor deck. We have resumed our potluck lunch as well. I baked what I like to call a sandwich roll. I made an enriched bread dough using milk, butter and an egg along with flour and yeast. Rolled this our into a rectangle and laid out sliced turkey and cheese. Some like to put down a layer of mustard as well. Rolled it up from the long side so had a long skinny roll. I made two of those and shaped them into horse shoes, than interlocked them. Let them rise, brushed with egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seed. Baked at 350 for an hour or so, Any melted cheese that escapes just becomes part of the dough since it is all squished into a nine by thirteen pan. Next time I will try cutting the rolls into chunks and piling them into an angel food cake pan to make pull aparts.

Since the oven was on, I defrosted the sourdough cheese cracker dough I made a couple of weeks ago. First time I have made it from frozen dough and I was amazed how much easier it was to roll out "see through" thin. Used the leftover egg wash to brush the crackers and sprinkled with salt. Docked it with a fork and cut random sized squares with a pizza cutter. Baked until golden reddish brown. Absolutely fabulous. I was wondering if freezing makes the gluten more extensible.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't remember a separate King Arthur recipe, the one I use is the one that was on the cardboard sheet with the pan. If there was a second recipe sheet, I've either thrown it away or have it stuck in a stack of recipes I haven't made. How different was it?

[Italiancook]

I have posted the recipe for Italian Beef that I acquired somehow when we lived in Chicago. I've received many accolades with this recipe. I've always purchased the roast from a meat market after they agreed to take back the roasted meat and slice it paper thin. That was before the pandemic. I don't know if they'd do that during the pandemic. I buy "hard rolls" from a bakery -- every city we've lived in has had a bakery that could give me hard rolls.

A quick search of KABC netted 3 recipes for hard rolls.

[Mike Nolan]

As I noted in your recipe (thanks!), the rolls traditionally used in Chicago hold up well to being drenched in jus (though most Chicagoans call it a gravy.) The recipe I posted a link to earlier was said to hold up well when wet, but the batch I made of them yesterday didn't do well, which may be at least partially my fault.

I think I tried the Chicago Metallic pan recipe in an earlier experiment with Italian beef, but I don't remember how well it handled being soaked. I seem to recall that beef recipe was pretty good, but thin slicing is a key component to true Italian beef.

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I have the original somewhere, but at the moment, I have what I copied into my baking book:

Night before (7-8 hours) make biga:
2 cups AP King Arthur flour
1 cup water and 1/4 tsp. yeast
(Let sit 4 hours but overnight is best)

1 cup water
1 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. yeast

3-4 cups King Arthur AP flour (I sub in 2 cups whole wheat)
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 Tbs. salt

The yeast is proofed in water and sugar, then stirred into biga. Butter and 2 cups flour are added, then another cup of flour, then the salt. Dough is allowed to rest, covered 20 minutes. Knead, adding only as much additional flour as needed for smooth supple dough.

After rising, dough is shaped into rough logs, placed in greased pan, and allowed to rest 15 minutes before shaping.

It bakes after second rise at 425F for 15 minutes or 190F internal temp.

[BakerAunt]

I celebrated cooler weather on Friday by baking the Apricot Oatmeal Bar Recipe, but I used Black Raspberry Jam—a jar from 2019, with a bit leftover from the batch I made last week. The only reason I still had jam from two years ago was because we had a bumper crop of black raspberries in 2018. As usual, with this recipe. I replaced the AP with white whole wheat flour and reduced the brown sugar to ½ cup.

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