Dough Balls

My children both love dough balls. We had them at Pizza Express and I thought they must be fairly easy to make and they are! If you have a breadmaker...

I use the pizza dough recipe from Fresh Bread in the Morning. It's a really good pizza dough recipe and of course works well with the dough balls too.

Ingredients
1tsp fast acting yeast
450g white bread flour
1 tsp salt
2tbsp olive oil
250ml water

Method
Add the ingredients in that order to your bread maker. Set it to your pizza dough setting - mine is 45 minutes.

Once it's finished, turn it out onto a floured surface. I separate my dough into 3 balls. Onf for a mummy and daddy pizza. A smaller one for 2 little girl pizzas and the last one for about 20 dough balls.

Make the dough balls about the size of a chestnut. Cover them and leave them to rise - probably for about 40 minutes.

Bake them in the oven at 180 (fan) for about 10 minutes. I don't let them go brown.

Serve with some garlic butter. Or use them instead of bread with a pasta sauce.

For a bit of variety, you could put some mozzarella and chorizo in the middle of the balls.

Easy Cheesy Bread Rolls

Easy Cheesy Bread Rolls

Attempt 1
I made these rolls according to the recipe in Annabel Karmel's My Favourite Recipes.

Ingredients

• 1x7g sachet of fast action yeast
• 1tsp sugar
• 150ml hand-hot water
• 60g mature Cheddar cheese grated
• 30g Parmesan cheese grated
• 225g white bread flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1tbsp sunflour oil
• 1 egg, beaten for greasing
• Seeds for sprinkling (I used sesame and poppy seeds)

Method

1. Mix yeast, sugar and 3tbsp water in a bowl. Stir to dissolve the yeast. Leave it to stand for 5 minutes or until frothy.
2. Stir together flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the oil, yeast mixture and water.
3. Mix into a soft dough. Add more water if it is too dry.
4. Turn onto a floured surface and knead until smooth - about 10 minutes.
5. Pat the dough into a circle about 20cm (8in) across. Spread the cheese over it then fold the dough in half, then in half again so that the cheese is enclosed. Knead for 1-2 minutes.
6. Divide into about 8 pieces. Shape them into balls and place on an oiled baking sheet.
7. Leave to rise for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
8. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (180 fan). Brush with egg. Sprinkle with seeds. Bake for about 12-15 minutes.

This is a really good recipe to do with the children. My two especially loved kneading the dough, spreading the cheese onto the dough and making the dough balls. They made tiny ones, so I had to watch my time so they didn't over cook.
Jeff preferred these rolls to attempt 2.

Attempt 2 - Even easier cheesy bread rolls

I decided to try to make cheesy bread rolls using the Bridge Rolls recipe that I wrote about earlier in the year.
I followed the recipe as usual to make the dough. Once the dough was finished in the bread machine, I turned it out and split it in half. I used half of the dough to make normal rolls, and I used the other half to make cheesy rolls, following the method above from point 5 onwards.
I prefer the rolls done this way. They were easier to make and lighter to eat and the cheese taste was more subtle.
The girls still got to do knead the cheese into the dough and make the balls etc. So they were happy! And they each got cheesy rolls in their packed lunches.

Mini Burger

Rebecca loves burgers. She loves that Shaggy and Scooby Doo loves burgers too! So I decided to try making some at home.

I based my burger on an Annabel Karmel recipe from My Favourite Recipes. But my husband is not fond of onions, so I skipped that step.

Ingredients:

• 250g lean mince beef
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs (2 slices of bread)
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• about 1 tbsp of fresh oregano chopped
• salt & pepper

Method:

• Put it all in a bowl and mix together with your hands. 
• Divide the mixture into 12 small balls. Flatten them slightly. Cover and chill in the fridge.
• For cooking, I put them in the George Forman grill for a few minutes until cooked through.

The recipe for the rolls comes from an absolutely brilliant bread machine recipe book by Annette Yates called Fresh Bread in the Morning. I use the Bridge Roll recipe, but I make them into round rolls instead.

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• Semi skimmed milk
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp golden caster sugar
• 500 g strong white flour
• 40 g butter, cut into small cubes

Method:

• Break the egg into a jug and beat it slightly. Make the mixture up to 300 ml by adding the milk.
• Add the dry ingredients to your bread machine, followed by the butter, then the egg/milk mixture. Set your bread machine to the appropriate basic dough setting. On my machine the programme lasts 2 hours 20 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 180 degrees (fan)
• When the programme is finished, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it lightly to knock out the air.
• Cut the dough into 24 pieces. Shape into balls. Arrange on the baking try quite close together.
• Cover and leave it to rise (30 minutes or so).
• Put in the oven and cook for about 12 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through.
• Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.

These are really tasty burgers and the rolls are good with everything! The roll in the picture was glazed with an egg, which is suggested in the recipe book. However, I forgot to glaze them one time and found that they were just as nice without the glaze, so I save using up an egg and do without now.

Obviously the chips and sweetcorn are just a serving suggestion... but burgers without chips? Come on!