Repurposing Dough Deemed Unsuitable for Bread

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I typically make up a batch of bread dough for four loaves at a time.  Most recently I seem to have left out the salt.  The resulting baguette was inedible...unless maybe I were starving.  I even tried eating some along with salty Roquefort.  Which didn't help.

 

I'd love suggestions as to how I could repurpose my dough.  I'm thinking maybe pizza but I don't want to throw good ingredients after bad.

 

Thoughts?

[gfweb]

Why not take a little bit and salt it...bake it up and see what you have?

[Smithy]

Bake it as is, then turn into croutons? Bake, then use for a panzanella or fattoush?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Bake it as is, then turn into croutons? Bake, then use for a panzanella or fattoush?

 

Thanks!  I had never heard of panzanella or fattoush.  Panzanella sounds more practical.  I may give it a try.

[Lisa Shock]

I'd try to work in some salt into the dough. Also, making a salty product would help. You could make soft pretzels, freeze any excess.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Panzanella it was tonight.  I can't say it was a good experience.  I used my leftover half loaf of "bread", nice tomatoes, and sliced red onion.  Dressed with lots of olive oil and wine vinegar.  Accompanied by quality mozzarella, prosciutto and salami.

 

Everything was lovely except the "bread".  It was so dry and flavorless it sucked the life out of the other ingredients.  Even a lot of soave couldn't help.

[Smithy]

That's surprising, but thanks for the information. I'll remember that the bread's quality matters in panzanella!

OK, here are more ideas:

- bake as is, then dice, toss with oil and seasonings (including salt), and toast for croutons;

- bake as is, then whizz into bread crumbs that can be seasoned at will;

- make a panade (I like the recipe from Zuni cafe) although it may be just as much a flop as the panzanella, for the same reasons.

Lisa may have a better idea, though: work salt into the dough, or make something small like pretzels to be coated with salt later. Could you make crackers with it, or pita?

[Anna N]

It is flour, water and yeast. Ditch it before you waste any more good food trying to rescue something that is not worth rescuing.

Edited because of course there was no salt in it!

Edited April 24, 2015 by Anna N (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

It is flour, water and yeast. Ditch it before you waste any more good food trying to rescue something that is not worth rescuing.

Edited because of course there was no salt in it!

 

Your advice is sound...but it was expensive flour and for right now I am out of it.

[Anna N]

Your advice is sound...but it was expensive flour and for right now I am out of it.

Even so if you keep on putting good food to bad it only makes the flour even more expensive. Pour another mai tai or a few glasses of MR and thank whatever gods there be that it was bread and not a ribeye steak! We learn little from our successes but much from our failures. I am so prone to leaving out the salt that I put the salt pig as close to the dough as I can get it in hopes I will remember to put it in!

[Martin Fisher]

Fried dough...butter and salt while frying. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I can report that after sitting in the refrigerator overnight, the panzanella (which by this time was essentially just flavored bread, as I had picked out all the onion and tomato bits last night) was better.  It made a satisfactory late lunch.

[lesliec]

Pizza base with a bit of extra salt in the tomato sauce?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Pizza base with a bit of extra salt in the tomato sauce?

 

That's one thing I have in mind.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight I used some of my defective dough and baked a Tuscan bread.  This a was actually rather good, in a tasteless Tuscan way.  Quite seriously the bread looked and tasted everything I knew of Tuscan bread.  I served the Tuscan bread with a suitably savory Moroccan tagine.  It just worked.

[pbear]

Why do you resist adding salt to the dough?  It's not hard to do.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Why do you resist adding salt to the dough?  It's not hard to do.

 

Once the dough is mixed it is too late to add salt.  Adding salt now would only make it salty.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tonight I used some of this saltless dough for pizza.  Not perfect but more often than not my pizza is too salty, and this was not.  Most of the salt was from the anchovies.

 

Quite tasty although the oven is a mess.  May have something to do with being a few hours past sober.  Not sure.  No matter, I baked on a pizza stone in an hour and a half preheated oven set on maximum temperature, then broiled per Modernist Cuisine.  For once I did not burn the pizza nor set off the smoke alarms.  Quite nice actually.

 

Saison du Buff goes so well with pizza.  Not to mention the bottle of Stone IPA.

 

I ate the whole thing in one sitting.  Which may be a first.