The gang at 37 Cooks had got me baking again. Well, baking wasn't required, but it's what I did.This time, we got some fun products from Slap Ya Mama, including some dinner mixes, and we were told to "think outside the box."
In other words, used those boxed mixes to make something besides the intended dinner.
Well, okay then.
I chose the Slap Ya Mama gumbo mix and decided to treat it like a spice mix. It's also got flour for thickening, but for my purposes, it was perfect, since I wanted to make a pull-apart bread using the mix in both the dough and between the slices.
This looks impressive but it's actually pretty easy, as bread goes.
Slap Ya Mama Peel-Apart Bread
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) Red Star Platinum yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
3 cups (13 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Slap Ya Mama gumbo mix
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
For the coating:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft or melted
1 teaspoon Slap Ya Mama gumbo seasoning
Combine all of the dough ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer and knead until the dough is elastic. You can also mix this is a bowl, then knead by hand.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside to rise until doubled in size, about an hour.
Meanwhile, have a 9x5 loaf pan standing by and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the butter and seasoning for the coating in a small bowl.When the dough has doubled, flour your work surface and turn out the dough. Divide it into 16 pieces. Truthfully, you don't need exactly 16, but it's easy. Divide the dough into 4 pieces, then divide each of those into 4. They don't have to be identical, but they should be close to the same size.
Form each piece into a ball then flatten each to form a disk about 4 inches in diameter.
Stand or tilt the pan so it's standing on one of the short ends. Place one of the disks into the pan lying on the short end. Brush the top of that disk with the butter mixture. Place the next disk on top of the first, and brush with butter again. Continue stacking dough disks with butter between until you reach the last disk. Don't brush the top of that one.
Once all the disks are in the pan, stand the pan on its bottom and arrange the disks so they're even in the pan. Brush or drizzle any remaining butter on top of the dough.
Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set aside until it rises about a bit over the top of the pan, about 40 minutes.
When the dough has risen, remove the plastic wrap and bake at 350 degrees until nicely browned, about 45 minutes.
Remove the loaf from the pan and let it cool completely on a rack. You can pull layers off if it, or slice it to serve.
Since I had the box of gumbo mix open, I decided to use it to spice up some chicken wings as well. No real recipe, I just coated the wings with a bit of oil mixed with the gumbo mix and baked 'em in a new gadget I was testing (more on that later). And this is what happened:
Looks pretty good, huh? They were. Lightly spiced, but not too much. Highly recommended.
I was supplied with Slap Ya Mama products for use in this recipe through 37 Cooks.
