Monkey Bread Muffin with Dill

As you grow older, live a little and play a lot, there aren't many "first" anymore. They become very precious and scarce. At times, the need for "my first' becomes very complex and sophisticated. No longer one says one's first job, one's first travel abroad. These days one says one's first skydiving, one's first helicopter ride. I myself fall to the victim of trying to cross things in my bucket list. But this morning, I figured, I'm going to leap from the clouds I've been perching myself to some resemblance of earth. This morning, I'm making my first Dill bread. Or my first Dill. Period.

Since I have no stand-in mixer, no paddle whatsoever, I knead everything by hand. Maybe that's why after 30 mins, I feel my bread is still a puny. The recipe said it would yield anywhere from 40-56 balls of 1-inch size. My 30-min dough will yield 20. So I put it back into the oven. I live in a tiny studio-sized apartment. So when I need a warm place, I turn on my oven to 50-60 degrees and put the covered bowl inside.

My 1 hour dough eventually yield 64 balls. I must have made them in varying sizes and tad smaller than 1 inch. I started by greasing my muffin pan, and fill each cup with 5 balls. But soon after dunking the ball in dill butter, there was a pool of liquid butter in each cups. Hence some of the cups are left ungreased.

You'll see that the balls don't have a nice round shape. That's because my hands were over greased with those dunking and shaping the following balls became almost impossible. Never mind. It's for home consumption anyway.

I baked them in 150 C (instead of 190 C) and bake them longer. They didn't rase as much as Ashley's one, but boy, they are so delicious! I couldn't stop at one and ate three muffins, right before I head out to gym. Oh, well done, S!

Anyway, recipe is from Ashley Brower here and here's how I did mine:

The dough:
* 2 tbsp warm water + 1.5 tsp boulangerie yeast + 1 tsp white sugar, proofed about 10 mins, till bubbly.
* 2 1/4 cup bread flour + 1/2 tsp salt, mix well
* 1/2 cup  milk
* 1 egg
* 1 tbsp melted butter
* 2 tbsp dill (i use 2 strands fresh dill and cut them using scissors)

Dill butter:
* 3 tbsp melted butter mix with 2 strands of chopped/scissor-cut dill.

How to:
* Preheat the oven to 50-60 celcius.  Grease a bowl with butter and set aside.

* Sift the bread flour & salt. Add with the yeast and mix well. Gently knead with your hand.

* Add milk, egg and melted butter. Mix well before you add each subsequent ingredient. Lastly add in the dill. Knead about 5-10 mins until the dough doesn't stick to the edges or your hands anymore.

* Put the dough into the greased bowl. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and a wet terry cloth. Put back into the oven for about 1 hour. While waiting, make the dill butter.

* Once the dough has raised (it won't double in size), punch and knead a little. Then start shaping them into 2 cm sized balls. Mine gave me about 60ish.

* Dunk the balls into dill butter mixture, before assembling them into muffin cups. 5-6 balls per cup.

* Put it back into the oven for another 10 mins or so till they rise a little. Afterward, take them out and turn the oven knob to 150 celcius.

* Give the balls another brush of dill butter, sprinkle with some sea salt (I used coarse sea salt) and put it back into the oven for 20 mins or till done.

And the rest is your story. Make sure you wash your hands before. Enjoy!