Bacon and Onion Breads: Basic dough a lot of variation

I bake bread very often, actually because my family member love to have something to eat before breakfast, they wake up early, so the first thing in the morning is a cup of coffee with a piece of bread. 

But you may think that I didn't post a lot of bread recipe lately, well, due to the fact that most of the thing that I bake is the one that already posted in my blog, haha. Anyway for this time, I just got a request from someone who try the bread recipe in my blog and she said ask me about the recipe from Mikasan (門間 みか) (this is what me and my friends like to call her, ^^) and I start to think that I didn't touch her books lately (it's the problem from having too much books, hehe, I just read new one and forgot about the old one). So, I took her books out of the shelf and start to find something to try, ^^. Actually her books are very good esp. for the beginner because the basic recipe is good and easy to follow, most of people, who said they couldn't make bread, got great result from her recipe. And when you can make bread at home one time, you will love the joy of it. Even some people will say that it's different from the one from the bakery, but the pride from making your own bread and the feeling that you know what you put into your bread you make for your family (all natural and the best quality that you can find), will inspire you to bake more and more. That's my feeling in every times I bake, ^^. Making bread at home doesn't require any special equipments, esp. when you knead by hand, and with this kind of small recipe, you will be very easy to do it.

And the best thing from this recipe, that Mikasan calls it a rich bread, is you can use it as a base for other bread that you want,  like the one that I made before Cheese and Salami Twists. 

So, why don't you start making your own bread today, and you will know that homemade bread is delicious and easy to make than you ever think.

Note: For the tin you can use Texas muffin tin instead of pastry ring.

Bacon and Onion Bread

Makes 7 (9cm bread)

Dough
200g ............................... Bread Flour
3g .................................... Instant dried yeast
20g ................................. Sugar
3g .................................... Salt
20g ................................. Unsalted butter (soft)
140 g .............................. whole milk
Filling
70g ................................. Bacon (sliced)
1clove ............................. Garlic (sliced)
40g ................................. Onion (sliced)
......................................... Black pepper
Topping
140g ............................... Mozzarella cheese (grated)
......................................... parsley (chopped)

  

Put the flour, the sugar and yeast in a bowl, whisk to combine, add and salt whisk again. Pour the milk into the bowl.

Use large spoon (or pastry scraper) to mix everything together, and knead briefly to bring all the ingredients together.

Take the dough out of the bowl and knead, you will see the dough will be elastic after about 2 minutes.

Add the butter and knead by using the heel of your hands to compress and push the dough away from you, then fold it back over itself. Give the dough a little turn and repeat. Put the weight of your body into the motion and get into a rhythm. Keep folding over and compressing the dough. Knead for 10-15 minutes or until the dough is soft, pliable, smooth and slightly shiny, almost satiny.

Or you can also try stretching part of the dough, if it can stretch into a thin sheet without breaking, you've kneaded enough.

Put the dough into a light buttered bowl. Let the dough rise in a warm place until double in size (can be 1 hour or 1 hour and a half check often depend on the temperature).

While you wait for the dough, make the filling:

 Put the sliced bacon into the pan, and put the pan over low heat. Stir until the bacon oil begin to come out of the bacon, turn the heat up to medium and put the garlic into the pan. Keep siring until the the bacon start to turn golden (don't let the bacon dry too much). Take off the heat and set aside.

 Use the same pan (you will have the bacon oil in the pan), heat the onion over low heat until golden, season with black pepper, then take off the heat and set aside.

Place the baking paper on the baking sheet.

Butter 7 (9cm) pastry rings and place the rings over the baking sheet.

Take the dough out of the bowl, deflate by touch it lightly.

Roll the dough into rectangular 20 cm x20 cm. Sprinkle the bacon, garlic and onion top of the dough, then roll into the cylinder. Cut into 7 pieces, and place into the prepared pastry rings.

Let the dough rise until almost double in size (about ½ hour)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

When the dough is ready, sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top, and  put the dough into the oven.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the dough is golden.

Let the bread cool on the wire rack, and sprinkle with parsley before serving .

Bacon and Onion Breads:

 Basic dough a lot of variation