How to Make Bread Hockey Pucks

To go with my tzatziki, I thought I'd make bread hockey pucks. It's the newest thing in bread, you know. Those sandwich thins ain't got nothin' on these. I've had better success making homemade bread in recent times, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

 

Start by gathering all your ingredients.

Then add the warm water to the yeast. When it looks all foggy like this, you know it's woken up and is doing its thing.

Next, combine the flour, sugar, oil and yeast mixture. Be sure to use part whole wheat flour, even though the recipe does not call for it, since you know it will be fine and won't affect the texture at all. Also, use idiot's logic that having a baked good in the house that's all white flour is probably a directive from Satan himself.

Since you know that salt is a natural retardant for yeast, plan to add it after you dump the yeast/water mixture into the flour. Then forget to add the salt at all.

Stir until it all comes together, until it forms a misshapen (if I was going for a foodie description, I might call it "craggy") ball.

Then commence with the kneading. Usually, a fancy-pants Kitchenaid will do this for you with the dough hook, but if you're feeling especially ambitious as I was, hand knead your dough. It will take a lot of time, but if you're listening to music and working out your frustrations on the dough, it can be quite cathartic. Knead until it's smooth and no longer sticky. I went about 15 minutes, I would guess. 

Then cut the dough into halves and then into eight equal-ish pieces. Use this moment, while you're lovingly admiring your cute little dough balls, to realize that you forgot to add salt, noting the bread will now likely taste like newspaper paste. Curse silently. Or aloud, like someone* did.

Roll into balls. Place on a baking sheet, cover with a towel and let them rise.

They should double in size. Smile to yourself, thinking that, despite the salt mishap, you have succeeded with yeast again, bringing the total number of times to a grand total of three.

Press them down into discs (or "hockey pucks") and coat with olive oil. Add salt in an abysmal last-ditch effort to impart some flavor.

Bake until golden brown on top. They should puff up in the middle, creating a pocket. These will not. Instead, they'll stay flat and cracked on the top, and each weigh in at approximately three pounds. This is likely due to the errant whole wheat flour that some idiot knew wouldn't affect the texture at all.

Sigh. Note that your success with yeast has regressed back to two times.

But wait! Note the silver lining that your husband, bless his heart, will spread copious amounts of jam on these cute little hockey pucks as a snack, thus making them edible. He's quite the guy, that Cookie Monster.

And that, my friends, is how to make your own hockey pucks at home.

Captain Obvious says: These were supposed to be pita bread. The author just royally fucked them up.

*It was me. I cursed audibly. If you know me, this will not be a surprise.

A Special Dinner at Home: Part I

Cookie Monster and I aren't too into Valentine's Day, but we did want to do something a little special. Obviously it would involve food. But restaurants always jack up their prices on V-Day, and they're crowded, and I'd be required to wear pants, etc. So, a special dinner at home it was. And the name of the game today? Homemade. I made, from scratch: ricotta cheese, pasta and bread. The bread was a big deal, because in the past I've had some ... issues ... with bread. Killed the yeast, didn't bake long enough, burnt beyond recognition.

Bread! It actually worked! I made it!

Using the famous no-knead recipe, I started my bread a good 24 hours before I intended to bake it. (Aside: I was totally suckered into the recipe by the adorable 4-year-old maker of the bread. So cute! And humbling. If a 4-year-old can do it, I should be able to, too.)

Ok, so here's the dough after I combined the following: 2 1/2 cups AP flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 teaspoon yeast, 3/4 tablespoon kosher salt and 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water. 

Then you just let it hang out. Since there are only two warm places in our house—either under flannel sheets, two blankets and a comforter in our bed, or inside the oven (turned off)—I opted for the oven. I just covered my dough with plastic wrap and let it bask in the warmth for nearly 24 hours. 

After dumping the dough onto a floured board and tucking the ends underneath, it made a lovely ball that I incubated in a Pyrex dish for another 4 hours or so.

And it rose! It did what it was supposed to do! I didn't kill the yeast! See how pretty it looked right before going in the oven?

After baking for 30 minutes with a lid, and then about 30 more without, it came out of the oven, making my house smell glorious.

 

Aaagggghhhhh. (That would be Homer Simpson drooling noises.) It was chewy and doughy but still light and fluffy. I spread real butter on top and reached nirvana.

Woo hoo! Homemade bread, dominated. Congratulations to me: I have the same skills as a 4-year-old. 

Coming next: Homemade ricotta cheese. Oh yes, it can be done.

Homemade pretzels!

Ok, so I think we've established that I am not a baker. I am a cook. I have not the patience to measure everything just so. I am, like my sidebar says, a "throw it in there and it will probably taste good" type of cook. So things like making bread--or really just using yeast in general--are intimidating to me. I can make a batch of cookies or a cake, but they never turn out as good as my cooking concoctions. But I have been trying to branch out, and when I saw this recipe over at Sugarlaws, I was sold.

Who ever thinks about making soft pretzels at home? Soft pretzels are something you buy with neon-orange "cheese product" at a baseball game, or from a stand in the mall. It makes me laugh that making something like this at home never really occurred to me. When I saw her post, I was like, "Oh yeah! I guess you can make that stuff at home."

And guess what? It was really easy.

Here we have my pretzel-making assembly line. Once the dough has risen and rested, you roll it out into long logs. Here I am rolling the logs. Look at my fat little hands! Neither of my parents are tall, and I inherited all that is short and squatty. My feet are so wide they're nearly webbed, my torso is short and round, I stand 5'2" on a good day, and my hands match the rest of me.




Next, you take the pretzel dough-logs and twist them into pretzel shapes. No need to be perfect here--these are homemade and can therefore be termed "rustic," which is what I like to call "I have no idea how to make a pretzel shape, so here's my best go at it."

After they're rolled, the pretzels take a short bath in a mixture of baking soda and warm water. Then they're sprinkled with salt. Their rustic appearance doesn't matter, because once they come out of the oven looking like this, you wouldn't care if they resembled Godzilla. All you wanna do is cram them in your face. Really, they are best warm right out of the oven. And with a touch of dijon or Monastery Mustard, they are simply delightful.



Ok, Mr. Pretzel, you're ready for your close-up.