I’m on a baking adventure for bread these days, partly because of the many bread posts I see recently and mostly because the family seems to clear bread faster than cakes. I got interested in Bahn Mi and decided to give this a try. I like how easy it is to make and how it taste a lot like baguette which I really like. Recipe adapted slightly from Olady Bakes.

(makes 12 rolls)

Ingredients

  • 500g bread flour
  • 310g warm water
  • 20g canola oil
  • 10g caster sugar
  • 2 tsp instant yeast
  • 2 tsp salt

Method

  1. Preheat oven at 220 degrees C.
  2. Place the bread flour, caster sugar, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl, being careful to place the yeast and salt on different sides of the bowl.
  3. Stir to mix and create a well in the middle of the flour mixture.
  4. Pour in oil and water and knead to bring the dough together.
  5. Once the dough comes together in the bowl, tip it out on a work surface and knead away! You can choose to use a mixer fitted with a dough hook, but these days, I have come to enjoy getting some arm workout, kneading bread dough. I love the feel of bread dough and how the texture changes from sticky mess to soft elastic smooth dough after about 5 minutes of kneading.
  6. Once the dough is elastic and smooth and does not stick to work table anymore, you can smooth it into a ball and leave to rest in a bowl, covered with a tea towel. You also also test the readiness of the dough but pinching a small piece off, stretching it to see if it can form a ‘window pane’ effect. This means the dough can be stretched so thin, you can read newspaper underneath it.
  7. Leave the dough to rise to twice its original size. This will take about 30 minutes.
  8. Once proofed, knock out the air from the dough, tip onto a work surface and give it a gentle knead. Divide the dough into 70g portions, rolling into a ball and giving them another 15 minutes rest, covered in tea towel.
  9. Then roll out each dough and roll into a swiss roll, pinching the ends to form a rough baguette shape.
  10. I don’t have a baguette pan, so I improvised by resting them on tea towels, in between ‘fan folds’ of the tea towel.
  11. Leave to rest for about 45 minutes or when the dough doubles in size.
  12. Score the dough and spray generously with water and send immediately into the oven.
  13. Place a tray of water in the oven. Bake in preheated oven of 220 degrees C for a total of 20 – 25 minutes. Spray water into the oven at the 1 minute, 2 minutes and 3 minutes mark. After 10 minutes, remove the tray of water.
  14. Once baked, remove to cool completely.

This is easy to bake and really lovely when warmed to enjoy.