45 minutes ago, kayb said:What really cool ideas! I'd like to hear more about some examples of the "stuffs."
Thanks, kay. It kind of depends on the size I'm going for. My standard dough is generally between 500 - 600 grams, roughly 65% hydration, 2% salt. Those are all general guidelines. If I want to use an enriched dough (making them more like buns than rolls) I use the same formula, but add an egg yolk and 10 - 30 grams of buttermilk powder, and sometimes some butter if I'm feeling saucy. If I'm going for more of an "artisan" boule, I'll up the hydration and ferment time. A full batch will make 16 'small stuffs' or 8 'big stuffs'. 16 is a lot for ultimately one person to go through, so I'll make the dough then subdivide it into balls; sometimes that means 4 big stuffs and 8 small stuffs, etc. And it's easy to make 3 or 4 different kinds with each batch. They freeze well once baked, and we typically use a combination of microwave and toaster oven for reheating.
I'm a big believer in reformulating leftovers, so that's a big source: I might roast some kind of meat, and that'll be dinner once or twice, soup once or twice, and then baked into stuffs or a casserole or bread if there's any left. That might mean braised beef with mole stuffs, or braised chicken (I braise a ton) with a bunch of various ground/dried chiles. Those generally get a couple of chunks of pizza mozzarella (often a bit less fat, which is better for these), then the dough folded up around. Pizza flavours are a good choice, generally reserved for the big stuffs. I've done potato-chickpea curry stuffs, some lox and cream cheese with dill and capers (okay, but obviously the salmon gets a bit slammed in the oven, don't plan to make again).
They also work well with any sweet filling and can serve as a good light snack / tea / dessert. Especially with cream cheese, I'll just blend in fruit, candied or otherwise, or maybe a dollop of one of our jellies). Sometimes they get rolled in nuts or seeds, sometimes not. As a concept I find them endlessly versatile. They'll basically work with whatever flavours you want.
Either way, they all tend to get individually bagged and frozen, then all the bags go into a labelled big freezer bag. If you like a crustier roll sort of stuff, you can bake them separated on a sheet; lately I've been baking them inside of a 6-8 qt pot with a lid - that works especially well for the softer / enriched bun sort of stuff:
30 minutes ago, eugenep said:@jimb0 - nice.
Thanks, bud.
30 minutes ago, eugenep said:and the high heat of the oven might further burn off and destroy some/most of the "flavor molecules?" responsible for flavor - e.g., when adding lemon zest (can't taste it)
Yeah, I originally wondered about this, too, but it works. Consider: at its hottest, your bread isn't going to get above the boiling point of water on the inside (unless you're explicitly drying something out). You might lose some flavour of your addition in the very outermost parts of the crust, but that's a small enough percentage that it isn't worth worrying about. Adding a little bit of honey to the bread dough and lots of lemon zest could work very well with either a sweet filling or with less sweetener in something savoury like a Greek or Moroccan chicken theme.
30 minutes ago, eugenep said:I've only had fruits/veggies mixed bread from mass market grocery chains and these didn't taste that great
so..i wonder about the taste of veggie/fruit mixed breads and whether or not its worth it (e.g., does the flavor add to the bread and is it still retained after mixing and baking etc.)
Sure, but if we were all completely satisfied with grocery bread we probably wouldn't make it as much ourselves, right? Better quality fruits and veg will out; if you want to guarantee tasting them, leave them in bigger chunks. If it's not dried or candied, I tend to cook everything first before it goes into a dough, else it'll express a lot of water and lead to cavities and textural issues. For the same reason I generally recommend against using frozen fruits and vegetables.
As an aside, in terms of not tasting things in your bread: I use recipes more for flavour ideas than anything else; one of my pet peeves is that a very large percentage of the ones I see online tend to skimp on stuff like spices and lemon zest, so I often add more than what is typically called for (sometimes by two or three times).
