Bread Rolls with Semolina Flour

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "İrmik Unlu Ekmekçikler"
PER ITALIANO "Panini di Semola"

It's been at least one year since I tried this bread recipe for the first time. Since then I made it several times, even photographed to share in the blog, but I had one small experiment to do first. 

I had never seen "Semolina Flour" in Turkey, but only Semolina which is called as Semola here in Italy. I wanted to make sure they were the same thing so I bought Semolina when I was in Istanbul last time.

The aforementioned flour is called as "Semola di Grano Duro Rimacinata". I had the De Cecco's product and on the package it was translated as "Double Milled Durum Wheat Semolina". It is a very finely milled flour.

The semolina which I bought in Turkey is coarse as you can see in the picture below.

"Double Milled Durum Wheat Semolina" explanation made me think: Given the fact that we are able to obtain icing sugar from sugar, rice flour from rice, chickpea flour from chickpeas... etc, would it be possible for us Thermomix users to mill Semolina flour from Semolina. I hadn't seen such an example on the web, it was either not done or not shared. (or I simply missed it)

I needed 100g of Semolina Flour for the recipe. So I put that much Semolina in TM Bowl.

I milled it for 15 seconds on Speed 10, opened the lid and checked the result.

I waited for 30 seconds so that the flour wouldn't overheat and remilled another 15 seconds on Speed 10. I repeated this process 4 times. Here is the picture of the result:

Even though the flour I obtained was not as finely milled as De Cecco's product, it was fine enough for me. The look was satisfying and so now it was time to reapply the recipe with the flour I milled in Thermomix.

As I said before, I had made the recipe many times. So I followed the instructions once again to the letter. I was wondering how this would go. Things looked very promising, the dough was very well leavened.

Now it was time to prepare the rolls and then bake.

The rolls that you saw in the very first picture above are the ones I made with the flour I milled with Thermomix. The ones you will see below are from one of my previous times and prepared with De Cecco's semolina flour. Both way they tasted great. I can say that this has been a positive experience.

The semolina flour that we are using in this recipe is only 1/6 of the total amount of flour. Would we obtain a positive result in a recipe where we need to use only semolina flour? We would have to try and see that. I can only say that this method worked for this specific recipe.

Ingredients:
200g water
100g milk
20g honey
20g fresh yeast
50g extra virgin olive oil
500g bread flour
100g Double Milled Durum Wheat Semolina (Fine Semolina Flour)
15g salt

Top
2 tbsps of extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsps of milk
A pinch of salt
Sesame, poppy, nigella seeds...etc
Timo, oregano (optional)

Preparation:

• Place water, milk and honey in TM Bowl and warm for 1 minute at 37°C at Speed 1.
• Add yeast and mix for 10 seconds on Speed 4.
• Add olive oil, bread flour, semolina flour and salt. Knead for 5 minutes.
• Give it a ball shape and transfer it into an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic film. Let it rise for 1 - 1.5 hour.
• Pop air bubbles pressing and kneading for half a minute by hand.

• Get pieces off the dough and shape them as you wish. If you'd like to shape like mine, here how I did: 
• Get a piece off dough, roll out with rolling pin and cut it into triangular pieces as in the picture.

• Roll each triangle as in the picture. Before rolling you can sprinkle with a little oregano if you wish.

• For another shape get three pieces off the dough. Roll them into rope shape and braid. Cut into the desired sizes.

• Here is another folding method that I used.

• Place them in oven tray lined with baking paper. (I got 2 trays of rolls. Place them distant from one another since they will grow during 2nd rise and baking)

 

• Cover with a damp tea towel. Let them rise for another hour.
• Mix 2 tbsps of oil with 2 tbsps of milk in a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and beat.
• Brush the rolls with the mixture, sprinkle sesame, poppy seeds...etc

• Bake in preheated oven at 200ºC for 15 - 25 minutes. (The baking time may vary depending on the sizes of your rolls)
• Let them cool a bit on wire racks.

Enjoy...

Adapted with a few changes from this recipe.
Many thanks to Francesco for sharing...