Semolina bread / pav buns

Sometimes leftovers can be amazing 😆this was the case of a small portion a dough that I had kneaded earlier for making some pav buns with a combination of semolina ( chiroti rava and whole wheat flour left in the fridge with no plan but cold proofing nicely , drained out of any creative juices close to midnight I had to just bake it without even shaping and see what happens . So took out the cold proofed dough , just made a ball 😆allowed to rise in room temp for an hour , had enough ! Went ahead and baked and my God what a stunning cute bread I got . I think the long cold proofing turned it into a sourdough ( like ) bread . Will do more research on this !

I have baked extensively with all kinds of flour . I hadnt tried semolina except for baking cakes . They turned out great . I had a good quantity of semolina which I had to use so I thought why not in breads or baking pav buns .

I realised after adding semolina / sooji to the mixture of yeast for kneading that I hadnt powdered them finer as was being done in many recipes, but I took my shot as the quality of semolina that I used was very fine and powdery .

So make sure to use chiroti rava for this recipe or powder the semoline in a blender if you have normal sooji at home .

Semolina bread is so soft and light and I never imagined baking with semolina would give me such satisfying result, I am now absolutely in love with this kind of baking . I have used chiroti rava / sooji which is super fime and almost like flour itself , yet has that perfect grainy texture .

The result was unbelievable . I have used a combination of semolina and whole wehat flour to bake this almost sourdough like bread . The result was incredible , and i believe i got this great looking small bread as i had allowed the dough to sit in the fridge cold proofing .I guess the awesome texture, taste and also aroma of bread was so different and i could swear it had the taste of sourdough bread .

As Iam not an expert in sourdough breads i cannot say more on this except the method that i followed did give me amazing results, I now look forward to using more healthier options .

I am sharing in this post images of both kinds of buns and bread baked with semolina and whole w ehat flour and semolina with all purpose flour for making the individual buns . you can check the full vidoe of the same below the post .

Ingredients

10 tbsp warm water or milk

1.5 tsp yeast

1 tbsp jaggery

1/2 cup fine semolina ( I used chirotirava)

1/2 cup wholewheat flour

1 heaped tbsp milk powder .

3 tbsp softened butter

1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp extra milk if needed.

Method

First allow the yeast to activate by ading milk , sugar/jaggery to the yeast and setting aside for few minutes .

Take a bowl, add the activated yeast , add the flours, salt,milk powder , and prepare the dough as shown in the video , initially the dough will be sticky, but you have to continue kneading this sticky dough till it comes together to a smooth dough .

Add butter into the dough and keep kneading till a perfect shiny dough is achieved .

Cover and keep for proofing .

It may take upto one hour, take out dough to a work surface, and lift and fold the dough on to itself few times, then shape into a ball and refrigerate this dough for about 8 to 12 hours for proofing in the fridge . This slow cold proofing will give excellent results .

After 8 to 12 hours , take out dough from fridge, it will be easier to handle now as it is non sticky and very firm, .

Divide the firm proofed dough into required no of pieces if making individual buns or rolls, Shape into individual pav buns or rolls, place in a greased baking tray. I also set aside some extra dough for making one big round bread , as shown in the pic above, this was actuallyb a left over dough after making some pav buns .

Cover the tray with clingwrap or a cloth and allow for one more proofing to enable the dough balls to become bigger .

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 25 minutes or till baked .

Take out the baked buns from the oven , allow to cool , brush with butter and cover and keep if you want a soft crust op top .

Enjoy these soft fluffy semolina buns with bhaji .

After three days I took out the extra dough that i had prepared with half of semolina and half of wholewheat flour , allowed to sit in fridge cold proofing and just shaped it into a smooth ball, allowed to rise in room temperature. The result you see in pics below .

To prepare the round semolina and whole wheat flour bread , just take it out of fridge, gently knead and smooth out , shape back again into a smooth ball or any shape you want , allow to rise in room temperature for an hour or two .After it has risen well, score the top with a blade or a knofe , brush with water , bake in a preheated oven at 180 C for 30 minutes or till done .Oven timings will vary .

Watch this youtube video of semolina pav bun recipe and bread making, this is the same procedure i followed for baking the single round bread , just substitute flours , m instead of all purpose flour i used whole wheat flour and semolina in equal quantities, but kneading and other steps are the same .