Bread with Meade Armstrong - RGK Cooking School Ep. 4
This week’s episode of RGK Cooking School is going to be all about BREAD! Taught by Meade Armstrong of Mother’s Daughter Bread, we’ll learn how to make sourdough, cinnamon rolls, and a flexible preferment dough recipe that can be used for pizza dough or focaccia.
If you enjoyed the episode or the recipes, please consider donating to our RGK Cooking School Fund which supports food industry professionals in need of assistance.
Below you will find the Brioche dough recipe that can be used for cinnamon rolls or just regular delicious brioche dinner rolls.
To view Meade’s Sourdough recipe complete with photographic steps, please click here.
To view Meade’s flexible dough recipe for focaccia and pizza crust, click here.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil Brioche Dough for Rolls and Cinnamon Rolls
Combine 35g flour and 175g buttermilk in a saucepan (or nonstick...more fun to clean) over medium heat. Stir, scraping bottom of pan and smashing clumps of flour with a flat ended heat-proof rubber spatula. Do this until the mixture thickens and begins to resemble gluey mashed potatoes. Remove from heat and dump into the bowl of a stand mixer. Let cool as much as you can stand to. It is alright if it’s still warm when you add other ingredients (~75-80 F), just not blazing hot. (Tip: spreading this mixture out onto the bottom and sides of the mixing bowl will help it cool faster, as will setting the bottom of the mixer bowl into an ice bath.)
Measure out remaining 88g buttermilk or kefir into a vessel with a spout. Add 47g sorghum and whisk thoroughly. Add to bowl of stand mixer with paste.
Drizzle 7g yeast on top of all of this, then add 50g eggs (~1 egg), and remaining 315g AP flour. Mix on medium with dough hook for ~4 min, or until everything is fully incorporated. Let rest for 10-15 min.
After resting, mix again until dough is super smooth and not pilly (as in, my winter sweater is pilly...gotta take a razor to it.) The dough will also begin to make a wet, smacky sound at this stage of gluten development, as it gets knocked around in the mixer bowl. This is good, and means it’s time to add salt.
Add 10g salt to the dough and mix until incorporated.
SLOWLY (as in a drop at a time) add 87g EVOO in a little drizzle. This part takes a while. Enlist help if you have some on hand. Or have a book ready. I find this always takes longer than I hope it will...but it’s going to be great, and so worth it.
Oil a container or bowl and let dough proof in this, covered, until doubled in size (~1 hour).
Once doubled, you have two options: cinnamon rolls or dinner rolls. (My recommendation would be to make a double batch and just do both, but we’ll continue as if you’ve just made one batch of dough.)
CINNAMON ROLLS
Dust a work surface with flour and roll out dough into a golden rectangle. If dough begins to tear, back off and stop rolling.
Melt ½ stick butter (4 oz, 57g) and brush evenly over dough with a pastry or paint brush. You can also use your hands, just have a rag nearby.
Sprinkle dough rectangle evenly with 1 cup/200g brown sugar + 1 T cinnamon + finely grated nutmeg (~⅛ of a whole nutmeg or less) + a pinch of salt.
Starting with the long end closest to you, roll up dough, pushing away from you. Do your best to keep these rolls as tight as you can. As you finish rolling up your dough, try to arrange the log so that the seam can rest under the dough, and against your work surface.
Cut a piece of dental floss ~18”. Hold one end of the floss with your right hand, and the other end with your left, wedge floss underneath one end of your dough log, about an inch and a half from the end of the log, and bring your floss ends to meet above the dough. Finish pulling the floss against itself until it cuts through the dough, making a single cinnamon roll without smashing the dough. Repeat, until you have 12-14 cinnamon rolls.
If you have a baking sheet or casserole dish with a lid, those work great.
Line a casserole or baking sheet with parchment paper and spritz a little cooking spray.
Set cinnamon rolls .5” apart from each other. Once all are placed in the pan, smash each one until they are uniform in size and are all touching each other.
Covered, proof in the fridge overnight.
1 hour before you wish to bake, pull cinnamon rolls out of the fridge while the oven preheats at 375.
Bake for 16-22 min, until they reach the darker side of golden brown.
While Cinnamon rolls are baking, warm up and slightly melt 2 oz/57g butter, 2 oz/57g cream cheese, and 25g kefir or buttermilk on stovetop or in the microwave. Add 100g powdered sugar, 33g sorghum, a pinch of salt, and half a vanilla bean (if you have it). With a hand mixer, immersion blender, or blender, thoroughly mix until no clumps remain. Put this glaze in a sandwich bag, seal it, and let it rest in the fridge until ready to use. When rolls are hot out of the oven, snip one of the bottom corners of the sandwich bag and drizzle/pipe glaze over rolls.
Learn to Make Sourdough
Follow Along with Meade’s Photographic Recipe
Make a Focaccia or Pizza with Preferment Dough
Check out Meade’s recipe adapted from Flour Water Salt Yeast