Happy Halloween! Today you get treats with no tricks. And no hawking of books. Our recipe is for all you kitchen witches and wizards out there. You can create some monster goodies with this bread dough. You can make buns. You can use it for pizza or calzone dough. You can use it for a variation on a pirogi-type stuffed bun. And the best part is that it’s pretty quick from start to finish. What you do with this dough is more for “intuitive” bakers but beginners can make it and use it, too.

Prep time: 15 minutes
Rest time: 25minutes
Bake time: 20 minutes
Yields: 12 buns (more or less)

Ingredients:
6 cups all purpose flour
1 cups warm water
1 cup warm milk
1 egg optional (more fluffy)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp yeast
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup olive or corn oil

How to make it:

• Sift the flour.
• In a large mixing bowl, pour warm water and milk, yeast, sugar and two and half cups of sifted flour. Combine well using the paddle beater. Don’t over mix. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 10 minutes.
• Heat oven to 150F and turn it off when that temperature is reached
• Uncover the bowl and add remaining flour, salt and oil and knead until elastic and non-sticky dough. Put a little oil on your hands and work the ball of dough away from the sides and bottom of the bowl, coating the dough with the oil on your hands. You don’t want the dough to stick to the bowl. Cover it again
• Let dough proof in in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes or until it doubled in size. Take dough out.
• After dough is removed from oven, preheat to 350F.
• Punch down the dough to release the gas and shape it as desired.
• Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. (I’d suggest using cooking sprat on parchment paper for easy clean-up

Tips:

• Buns: Pinch off dough and make 12 balls. Stretch the dough to desired shape–round, sub, hoagie, etc. Brush with melted butter, sprinkle with cheese, herbs, whatever you desire.
• Pizza: You can roll or hand toss dough to the size you want–1 large, 2 medium, 4 individual. Use whatever sauce and toppings appeal.
• Calzone: I’d make four. Roll out dough to desired size. Put “toppings” on one half and fold the other half over to cover. Pinch edges together.
• Stuffed buns: Sweet or savory. Meaty or veggie. Stir up your favorite stuffing. Shape the buns, put the good stuff in the middle and fold half over. You might want to let them rise for about 20 minutes to get super soft and puffy around the filling. Cover them with a light cloth if you do this.

There you have it. Mess around with it and have fun. Make some kitchen magic happen. As I mentioned above, not hawking any of my books or characters today though I will note that several who actually…you know…cook are making not of this recipe. LOL Since today is Halloween, I thought I’d ask you this: What’s your favorite Halloween movie and/or book? My movie is PRACTICAL MAGIC. I enjoy the book, too, but the movie just hits all the feels for me. I may have to check to see if some channel is streaming it this afternoon. Tonight is reserved for the World Serious! No tricking or treating for us tonight. It’s too blasted cold out! How about y’all?