Shot out

Years ago I bought Richard Bertinet’s book Dough. The book has acquired quite a reputation on the back of the ‘slap and fold’ technique of working dough, which Bertinet illustrates in a DVD that comes with the book. It is a useful method, although I would credit Bertinet with popularising rather than inventing the technique, since a lot of bakers will inevitably have evolved very similar approaches to working with softer, stickier doughs.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good book, with some interesting recipes, very easy to follow and well illustrated. One recipe that looked interesting was for ‘bread shots’. Essentially these are dough balls stuffed with various fillings such as olives, cheese and pesto: a sort of rustic canapé. I’m not sure they would pass muster as proper canapés, but it’s not a field I have much experience in.

I didn’t actually get round to trying them until last year. Each section in Bertinet’s book starts with a ‘master formula’, which is then slightly tweaked for each individual recipe. In theory bread shots are simple to make. You make a batch of dough using Bertinet’s white bread formula, let it rise for an hour then divide it into small pieces and roll each into a ball before proving. After some experimenting, I found about 15g of dough per ball to be about the right size. Weighing it is probably pedantic, but I can’t help myself.

You make a dimple in each ball with a fingertip or an implement like the handle of a wooden spoon, and the filling, whatever it is, is placed inside. Once the balls have proved for 45 minutes, they are baked at 220°c for about 15 minutes. And that’s it.

My first attempt was a proper disaster. The dough balls swelled up during baking and ejected their fillings; in some cases the dimple containing the filling actually inverted itself, so that the finished result resembled a miniature cottage loaf. My daughters thought it was hilarious.

After many subsequent attempts, I emailed Richard at his restaurant, the Bertinet Kitchen, and asked for advice. Initially he replied via an assistant then, after a further query, he responded directly. The key, he advised, is to press the filling down into the dough just before putting the bread shots in the oven. Although it seems simple enough, it hadn’t occurred to me to do this because the fillings showed no sign of escaping when I put the dough in the oven. I had done a very thorough job of creating the dimples just after shaping the balls, and although they had risen, it was only in the oven that they spat out their contents. I was sceptical but followed Richard’s advice. It worked: the dough rose up around the filling exactly as he had predicted. A second prod after they’ve had a couple of minutes in the oven may be necessary if the fillings still look like they’re climbing out.

The cheese-filled dough balls look a bit alarming to me.

There is an obvious drawback: while you can easily push solid fillings like olives or cheese down into the dough, you can’t do the same with a soft filling like pesto. On this point I have finally conceded defeat: I have no idea how to make it work. If anyone reading this has managed it, please let me know the secret.