Buttermilk baps

I am a creature of habit. Let me explain a little - I take sandwiches to work each day - they tend to be cheese sandwiches - easy, cheap and pretty much indestructible. However, I do sometimes want them to be a little different and so I tend to vary the bread rather than the filling. This is the latest offering, and one I'll certainly be making again. It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that the following recipe is a Dan Lepard recipe, originally published in the Guardian, but also available on his forums, which, as I've mentioned before are an excellent source of advice and discussion!

As I followed the instructions exactly, I won't reproduce them here, you can find the recipe for yourself at the aforementioned forums but I will note the ingredients I used. I actually stuck pretty closely to the printed recipe, with just a couple of very minor tweaks; I reduced the salt very slightly from 2 tsp to a generous tsp and the butter slightly because I just cut a slice and it turned out to be about 35g. I don't buy sachets of yeast, but a packet but the sachets usually contain 7g, so that's what I used.

Buttermilk baps

Ingredients

1 generous tsp (about 7g) instant yeast

50g wholemeal flour

450g strong white flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

35g soft butter

200ml cultured buttermilk

oil for kneading

I made 9 from this recipe, probably left my dough more than 10 minutes between each kneading (I get easily distracted) and when shaping I left my rolls as balls rather than flatter ovals. I also forgot to flour the tops before baking. Next time I'll try and make them longer and flatter - more surface area for the all important cheese filling!!!

I really enjoyed these rolls - the buttermilk adds a really nice but subtle flavour that I find goes particularly well with a cheese filling. It's something I've noticed when making soda bread with buttermilk, and it seems to lend the bread an almost creamy flavour and texture in the mouth (avoiding that 'mouthfeel' word, which, I suppose is what I'm trying to get at) which is really delicious. The small amout of wholemeal flour adds a little colour and interest too. I can imagine that this would make a lovely slicing loaf. I actually think that I prefer this bread to the previous soft white baps. You can see the crumb in the picture below - close textured without being heavy at all and with a lovely chewy exterior.