Splat Buns - or Baps to You and Me..

Woops - missed last week, naughty! We did actually make some Barm Brack, but I wasn't particularly happy with how it turned out so didn't bother to blog it. That's one for a bit more experimenting I think.

This week's recipe is from the brilliant Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley. I can't recommend this book highly enough - since reading it I've finally got my head round how making bread actually works. I haven't by any means made every recipe in the book, but the fact that I can now make wheat and rye sourdoughs with ease and have a sourdough leaven happily living in my fridge, makes it worth every penny we paid for it. Can't tell you how my manky, evil-smelling sourdough starters I have thrown away in the past...

This recipe for Baps is also an absolute winner. It never fails - everyone who has tried them has been impressed and there have been many requests for the recipe. So I thought it was about time I got round to it.

Some notes on the recipe:
Whitley suggests using all strong wholemeal flour - we do this sometimes, but we usually white flour too, so that's what I've give quantities for here. We've also tried it with half wholemeal spelt and half strong white flour - this makes delicious baps which rise a little more quickly.

Whitley is very specific about his water temperatures - which is extremely comforting when you are beginning with sourdough, but I haven't found it vital with baps, so I'm not bothering with that here. One more thing - he specifically says that the dough should not be kneaded after it's first rise - but we have found that if it is kneaded fairly thoroughly at that stage (err, thrown around the room - why do you think we call them splat buns?) it actually seems to give the baps a much better final texture.

Splat Buns (Baps) based on a recipe by Andrew Whitley

5g dried yeast
390g lukewarm water
300g stoneground strong wholemeal flour
300g strong white flour
5g salt
30g butter, lard or olive oil

Put the lukewarm water in a large bowl (or your food mixer bowl), add the dried yeast and stir it around with your fork to dissolve it. Add the flour, the salt and fat (we always use farmouse butter from Westry Roberts - gorgeous stuff). Knead (or use your mixer) until, as Whitley puts it 'the gluten [is] properly developed' - that is until the mixture is no longer very sticky, and springs back when you poke it.

Then cover your mixing bowl with a damp cloth (another Whitley no-no - but it works for me...) and put it in a warmish place for 1-2 hours. Towards the end of that period get some flour ready in a small bowl, flour your work surface a little bit, and get a baking tray ready (just lined with baking parchment/sprinkle with flour).

Then get the dough and bang it around a bit (it helps to get some help from small children at this stage, but it's not vital) and divide it into 12 equal-ish sized pieces. Mould each piece into a ball, pulling the dough round tightly to form a smooth rounded top and then dip them in a little flour before putting them on the baking tray, about 2cm apart (see picture).

Then put the whole tray in to a large carrier bag (Bag for Life again), making sure that the buns are in no danger of touching the bag, even after they've risen. Put this into a warm place for the buns to rise for about 30-45 minutes.

Sometime during this period pre-heat your oven to 230C/Gas Mark 8 - (it really depends on how long it takes your oven to do this - it'll become second nature). When the buns have risen so that they are just touching each other - see picture - put them in the oven for 5 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 210C/Gas 7 for a further 7-12 minutes.

When you're happy that they're done, remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Hope you enjoy these baps as much as we do. If you want to see Whitley's original recipe then it here on Google Books. There's also a recipe for overnight baps (which have an even better flavour & are more easily digested) included here in his article Let's Have Some Decent Bread in Resurgence Magazine.