Cooked-flour yeast dough for hand pies

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   How do you make cooked-flour yeast dough? Gather the ingredients for the so-called flour paste (the cooked-flour starter). The milk can be at room temperature or straight from the fridge — for the starter it doesn't matter. But take the eggs and butter for the dough itself out of the fridge now, so they can come to room temperature by the time you knead the dough.

2. Step 2:

   

   Pour the milk into a small saucepan or a deep skillet. Add the flour for the starter and set it over medium heat. Stir the paste constantly, breaking up the lumps.

3. Step 3:

   

   Cook the mixture until it holds the trail of a spatula well. It took me 3 minutes. If a few lumps remain, that's fine — the mixer will deal with them later. Cool the starter to room temperature.

4. Step 4:

   

   Meanwhile, let's make the sponge. Measure out the ingredients. Warm the milk to 100–104°F (38–40°C) — it should feel pleasantly warm, but not hot.

5. Step 5:

   

   Add the yeast and sugar to the milk and stir lightly. Leave the sponge in a warm place for 15 minutes. I leave mine in the microwave, where I've just heated half a glass of plain water. It's humid and warm in there — ideal conditions for proofing.

6. Step 6:

   

   After 15 minutes the sponge should look about like this, ready to use. If a good foamy cap hasn't formed, the yeast is poor quality — you'll have to use yeast from a different batch and make the sponge again.

7. Step 7:

   

   Let's start working with the ingredients for the dough. As I mentioned, the eggs and butter should be at room temperature by now.

8. Step 8:

   

   Sift two-thirds — yes, just two-thirds — of the all-purpose flour into the bowl of the stand mixer. Add the vanilla sugar and regular sugar. You can add a pinch of salt for flavor.

9. Step 9:

   

   Pour the room-temperature flour paste and the sponge into the bowl, and crack in the eggs.

10. Step 10:

    

    Knead the dough on low speed with the dough-hook attachment for 2 minutes.

11. Step 11:

    

    Then add the soft butter and knead on low speed for another 10–13 minutes. Go by the dough's consistency to judge whether more flour is needed. This dough is a bit stickier than a traditional yeast dough — it doesn't pull cleanly away from the bowl or gather into a smooth ball.

12. Step 12:

    

    I ended up using not all the flour, just 600 g — you may need a little more or a little less. As soon as the dough stops sticking maddeningly to your hands but still sticks a fair bit, stop adding flour :)

13. Step 13:

    

    With a silicone spatula, gather the dough from the sides toward the center. Leave the dough in a warm place, covered with plastic wrap, to proof for 1–1.5 hours.

14. Step 14:

    

    Here's how nicely my dough rose in 1.5 hours.

15. Step 15:

    

    After proofing, the dough was less sticky. But I still dusted the work surface with flour. In the end I got 18 large hand pies.