Butter Simit Recipe
There is a soft, buttery bagel sold in Ankara Cumhuriyet Bakery. Maybe it is sold in other places too, but I just ate it there. Such a puffy, fluffy bagel with the same taste as you know because of the sesame seeds. But as soon as you divide the simit into two parts and see the inside, you realize that its calorie is at least twice as much as the simit you know.
As far as I understand from the consistency of the simit and if I'm not mistaken, the patisserie dough is made into a simit shape and covered with sesame seeds and baked like a crunchy Anlara simit. The dough is quite oily. This makes people feel conscientious. In order to reduce this guilt a bit, I decided to make a version with the same consistency but less oily as possible at home. The result was much better than I expected.
While sharing the recipe, I wanted to share a solution to one of the questions I received the most for years and had to give a negative answer. The question is;
Can I Store Yeast Dough in the Refrigerator and Bake in the Morning?
The reason for doing this is pretty obvious. Not wasting time kneading the dough and waiting for it to rise, but still wanting to eat fresh pastries. It's a pretty reasonable request. But unfortunately, yeast is a short-lived creature. If the appropriate amount is not adjusted and if it is left to wait longer than necessary, its food (sugar in the dough) will run out and it will die.
There are certainly some exceptions to this. For example, a very small amount of yeast can be added to the dough of the Neapolitan pizza and it can be kept for a few days. But the dough and the recipe must be specially adjusted for this. You cannot prepare a random pastry recipe the same way and leave it for days. Not even days, the dough that waits for more than an hour at room temperature (especially if the weather is a little hot) will rotten. It smells bad and does not rise when baked. This waiting time in the refrigerator may take a little longer, but it is still risky.
Even if we accept that the yeast will not die, keeping the dough in the refrigerator is not a time-saving method. It is necessary to wait for the dough to come to room temperature before shaping. This means waiting for at least two hours. In these two hours, you can knead, shape and bake the dough.
What if we knead and shape the dough and place it in the fridge ready to be baked?
This is the next question for those who want to push a little more. When the dough is left in whole or in small shaped form for a long time, the yeast eats sugar, produces gas, and this gas accumulates in the dough and makes the dough rise. The more gas there is, the more the dough rises, the thinner and more sensitive the walls of the gas chambers become. These delicate walls also collapse at the slightest blow. This blow does not have to be a physical blow. There may also be impacts that you cannot see, such as temperature changes. In this case, the walls collapse. You know, sometimes the cake rises magnificently in the oven and then suddenly collapses, this is what can happen to pastries.
If you pay attention, I'm not saying it will come, I'm saying it MAY come. Since the subject is a living creature like yeast, its every behavior is unpredictable. You may have heard those who say that they are doing it and it works well. There could be two reasons for this. First, those people were born lucky, and they have luck every time. Secondly, they do not expect that the pastry they make to be fluffy and even the hard pastries are a very good result for them.
I say it every time. I create my recipes with the aim of not wasting your time and ingredients and to get the best results. I never recommend risky behaviors, but of course I cannot stand in front of those who want to take risks. I can offer good alternatives instead. I will do that today too.
How to Store Uncooked Simits in the Freezer?
You can use this method not only for simits, but also for other leavened doughs. Its risk is not zero, but it is lower than other dough storage methods. In this method, the dough is fermented, shaped, fermented again, and then frozen. When it is to be baked, it is placed directly to the hot oven and baked without thawing. How is this different from the methods I listed above? First of all, its success does not depend on whether the yeast survives or not. When frozen, the dough rises and the air chambers do not rise excessively, the walls are not thinned, and they form solid chambers with thick walls. Even if the yeast dies when you put the dough in the oven, the walls of the chambers are cooked immediately and preserve their form. Under normal conditions, when the dough is baked, the yeast dies under the influence of heat, you cannot ever eat live yeast.
Things to Watch Out for When Freezing Simit!
Make sure the simits are fully risen.
Bake the bagels directly in the hot oven without defrosting them.
Wait until the oven is fully heated (until the light or warning sign goes out) at the temperature indicated in the recipe.
Even if you prepare the simits the night before to bake the next morning, you should still freeze them.
We said that the risk is not zero. If the life safety of yeast is in place, where is the risk? Of course in the applicator. This is actually a risk that is always present. Behaviors that seem unimportant for the practitioner but are vital for the dough, such as not kneading the dough enough, not complying with the waiting times, thawing the dough, may fail the method.
The fictional character I most identify with in terms of my work is Doctor House. Doctor House says"Everybody lies.". Many diseases are diagnosed by revealing the lies their patients tell or what they hide. Every time I dig an unsuccessful attempt to implement a recipe, there is something that the practitioners change about the recipe or didn't pay attention to. Just the other day an interpretation session that started with "I did everything same." ended with the discovery that the only common point of the recipe applied with my recipe was that they both set out to make cakes.
So there will be those who are satisfied with this method, and there will be those who fail, and we will never know why this has happened unless the person is completely honest with me and you.
On top of this general information, I would like to open one last paragraph for the butter simit recipe. I used unroasted sesame seeds on the day I took the photo because the conditions required it, but you can also use sesame seeds by roasting them in a pan or in the oven. In this way, you will have darker simits. When you wait, the butter simit will not be like the first day. But it will not become rubbery as traditional simits. However, if you want to heat it the next day and consume it in a better consistency, I recommend heating it in the oven instead of the microwave.
Enjoy the recipe...
Butter Simit Recipe with Video
Ingredients
- 100 g of soft butter,
- 1 cup of lukewarm water,
- 1 cup of lukewarm milk,
- 4-4.5 cups of flour,
- 10 g of instant yeast,
- 1 tablespoon of sugar,
- 1 teaspoon salt.
For the topping;
- 1 coffee cup of molasses,
- 1 coffee cup of water,
- Sesame seeds.
Preparation
- Take butter, water and milk into a bowl,
- Add sugar and yeast and mix,
- Add the flour little by little and start kneading,
- Add salt in half of the flour,
- Add the remaining flour little by little and knead until you reach a soft dough that does not stick to the hand,
- Make a ball, cover it and let it rest until it doubles,
- Knead the dough again and divide it into seven equal parts,
- Take one of the pieces and press it with back and forth movements as if using a rolling pin on the counter, and turn it into a long thin wick,
- Fold the wick in half and join the ends and twist,
- Put the two ends back together and make a ring,
- Let the simits rest for another 15 minutes,
- Mix water and molasses in a bowl,
- Dip the simits first in molasses, then cover with sesame seeds, and place them on a wax paper,
- If you are going to bake immediately, bake them in a preheated oven at 250 degrees until they are golden brown,
- If you want freeze tem, take them with greaseproof paper on a tray suitable for entering the freezer and put them in the freezer,
- After freezing, you can put them in airtight bags and store them in the freezer for up to 6 months,
- When you want to bake, you can bake them directly in the preheated oven (at 250 C degrees) without defrosting.
Enjoy the recipe..
- John: How much flour are we adding? December 5, 2023 4:35 pm
- Kevser: 4 to 4.5 cups. But you can see big changes based on the type of the flour you use. You should adjust according to the consistency and texture of the dough. December 5, 2023 4:43 pm