Hand Kneading the Dough After All
I realized that one of the mistakes I made last night was in letting the machine do all the kneading, rather than merely the hardest parts of it. So, tonight, once it was done kneading, while it was working on the first rise and the paddle was set to pause, I pulled the dough out, kneaded the air bubbles out, shaped it into a large sphere, and then put it back in the bread bucket to finish rising in a properly temperature controlled environment.
The Second Rise
Last night, I had tried doing the second rise in the oven after heating it to 200 degrees first and then turning it off. That's not in the recipe simply because I had figured it was rather "on the nose." The idea was to find a warm place to let the dough rise. Mission accomplished, and then some.
Tonight, I pre-heated the oven to "Warm" (I'd kinda missed that setting on the dial the first time around), before re-kneading the dough, then flattening and stretching it out to a medium pizza size, about 1/2" thick. I then placed the dough on a cookie sheet, then placed that in the oven and turned the oven off, and let the dough rise for about 20 minutes.
Shaping the buns
Now, here's where I messed up last night and almost didn't learn anything tonight, either. Last night, without any of the above fixes, I had just taken the un-hand-kneaded dough out of the bread bucket, flattened it out, taken a large round (no wavy patterns) cookie cutter to it, re-rolled it as necessary 'till all the dough was accounted for, and then popped it into the pre-heated oven, turned the oven off for 20 minutes, then attempted to flip the non-buns over -- they stuck to the wax paper I had put down on the cookie sheet first, lol! It was a real mess, and I'm surprised any of them came out edible even in the slightest. They weren't what I wanted.
Tonight, after the second rise, I re-rolled and stretched the dough, enough to accommodate what I thought would be 6 thick buns, then started cutting them before a third rise I opted to put them through. I wound up with a lot more than 6.
The last two were, well, "special." Haha. Basically, they were the leftover scrap dough from the other more "perfect" cuts... "Special." You know, that word just shouldn't be abused. My special buns showed me what I was doing wrong with the rest of the buns on the cookie sheet! Essentially, I had to re-knead the dough scraps in order to get enough dough to cut the first of these two gems (now the stars of tonights photo shoot!), and then the other - well, the other? Heh. It's the best one in the bunch. Just more scraps kneaded together and then completely hand-shaped into a bun -- no cookie cutter was used to cut the dough at all. I did try to fill the cookie cutter with the dough I was shaping, to try and get a similar size to the others, but I didn't have to cut anything at that point - the dough was the right amount to begin with.
I suspect I'll be using the wedge-cutting technique used to make scones from now on, and then just hand shaping the wedged dough into sphere's before flattening them in the future.
The Third Rise
I kid you not. The buns required a third rise after all this. Now, that's because, well, I don't know why anymore. They just did. In the future, I think what I'll do is the wedge 'n shape method before the second rise, and then after that, just bake the poor things. It's something worth trying anyway. I again pre-heated the oven to "warm" and then turned it off after putting them in, and again let them rise for 20 minutes. Thing is, 20 minutes is about as long as I trust the oven to stay "warm" when turned off. Anywho.
Once I pulled the buns out again, I made a vegan Nucoa-wash (about 1 part Nucoa to 1 part "Vegetable" [soy] oil) and used that in a feeble attempt to help them have a nicer, more tender crust. Haha! Next time, I'll use either an egg-wash or some kind of protein and fat wash... I'll have to research that and come up with something.
Cajun Baking
In keeping to the letter of the law, I baked my poor buns for 40 minutes on 350 degrees. In keeping with my interpretation of the spirit of the law, I tuned the oven to 350 degrees and promptly put the buns in to finish rising as the temperature rose. I figured, "Why not?" I suppose, in the end, that wasn't evil. The real problem was that I should have probably cut that time in half, because of the smaller sizes of each bun. This wasn't one giant loaf of bread I was dealing with here - moisture-wise and thickness-wise, it's just really not the same at all. But, this is Midnight Baking goin' on here! (I.e., I was just tired and not paying attention at all at this point.) In the end, the buns still turned out edible, and much better than last night's batch, but seriously... Way. Too. Crispy.
Even adding far too much Nucoa for my own good to the first one still didn't de-crisp it nearly enough. But, it was still yummy to eat in it's own "artisan" right. I'd say at this point, I've raised my bun making grade from an F to a C-, lol.
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