Baking Authentic Waterford Blaas With My Irish Mum

Hi Bold Bakers, we have a very special treat for you today. My mom is here all the way from Wexford, Ireland to bake with me for St. Patrick's Day. We are going to make something that is traditionally from the county where my mom is from, County Waterford. Mom, why don't you tell us what we're going to make? We're going to make a Waterford Blagh. Actually, it can only be called a Blagh if it's made in Waterford, so we're taking a bit of license. We are, but I do that all the soft, relatively soft roll, which is double proofed. So there's a certain fermented flavor to it. Yeah. And it is really popular bread roll in Waterford. Yeah, super yummy, like great for sandwiches. Great for rasher sandwiches, kind of similar to a bath, but not as soft as a bath. And how do you pronounce it? Tell us, because Kevin pronounces it kind of fancy. He says Blagh. That's not how they say it in Waterford, Kevin. They say Blagh. So it probably, yeah, Blagh. It's Blagh. Yeah. You know, but it comes, they reckon it comes from the French word for actually for corn. Not sure why, because it's a wheat roll. It's not made from corn. Somehow or another in Waterford it became Blagh. The recipe can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com. It's my mom's recipe. And also she did a lovely write up. So definitely check that out. OK, mom, let's get started with our first step. So the first thing we're going to do this time is we're going to sponge the yeast. And that's not what you usually do, Gemma. No, because I use instant yeast and I add mine straight into the flour. In Ireland and other parts of the world, it's very common to have active dried yeast, which is very similar. But the only difference is you would need to sponge it. You need to sponge it. And that means putting it in liquid. Yes. So into your warm water, you put some little sugar and your active dried yeast. Give it a stir and allow it to stand for about five minutes and it forms a sort of a foam on the top. So you might have noticed these aren't my usual spoons. These came from a bold baker in Hawaii, Rachel. She sent them for my mom to have. And they're very similar to mine. And they're really sweet. So, mom, you're going to take those home. I'm taking them home. Thank you, Rachel. So this is nice and foamy. So let's move on to our next step. OK, so we're going to use the mixer for this because that's what I would do at home with the dough hook attached, of course. So Gemma, add the flour and the salt. OK, so mom, in your recipe, you use bread flour. Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, a high protein flour. Yeah. You know, protein on the side of the pack where you buy your flour. Gluten is actually indicated as protein. Yeah. So the higher really for this recipe, the better. Yeah. You can use all purpose flour like I do that a lot for baking. Yes. You just might need, I think, less liquid. Yes, I think less liquid. It's a bit softer. Yeah. Yeah. Now just turn on your machine to a low speed. So now you can just add your yeasted liquid. I reckon about three quarters of it in one go and hold back the remainder just in case because flour in different places behaves in different ways. You don't always need all the liquid. No, you don't. No. Just hold a little bit back and then go from there. Yeah. So I can see that this is a little bit dry. So we will add in, I think, the rest of the liquid. OK. And then all you want to do is knead it for around, mom, how long? Five minutes. Five minutes or so. And by hand. I mean, equally. Yeah. You know, about five minutes. You can do this by hand also. You have to use a machine. The telltale sign that I like to look for is when your dough cleans the bowl. Yes. When it all comes up and it just forms one nice, big, smooth bowl. And that's what we're looking for. So Blas were a big part of our childhood because my mom is from Waterford and we used to go visiting Waterford. We would always stop at a certain shop to get Blas. That's right. A little shop on the Cork Road. A little shop on the Cork Road, which is where my mom grew up on the Cork Road. That's right. Yeah. But I remember that so clearly, getting Blas and then bringing them home to Wexford, where we're from and having them with butter and rashers. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely delicious. Yeah. And we grew up with them because, I mean, it was probably the only bread that we had that was freshly baked almost on the day. Yeah. And people had their favorite bakeries. Yeah. I remember that was one we used to go to. We used to also go to one in Furry Bank in Waterford. But it's just those kind of food memories that really stick in my mind. That's why I thought it'd be a really good idea to show everybody this recipe. Yeah. Mom, what do you think? Is this looking good? Yeah, it looks perfect, actually. Nice, clean bowl of dough. That's what we're looking for. So now it's going to turn off the machine and then take out our nice. Oh, this is really gorgeous dough, actually. Nice and smooth. And Mom, you've got an oiled bowl there. I do. The reason why you always want to put a dough in an oiled bowl is because the oil just helps it rise. If it doesn't have that oil there, it kind of has to struggle. You don't want your dough to have to struggle after going to all that lovely work to make it. I'm going to cover it tightly with some cling wrap and then put a tea towel over it. And Mom, like you said, it needs to ferment twice or prove twice. So this first time we're leaving it for how long? So I suppose about an hour for the first proofing and then you knock it back and proof it again. OK, great. So we'll come back in an hour's time and have a little look. Yeah. So it's been an hour and look at our dough. It looks gorgeous. It does. It's nicely risen. It's really this is a big dough. So all you want to do is just go in with your fist and just knock out all of the air. Yeah. There's a lot of yeast in this dough, isn't there, Mom? Yes, I think it's it adds to the flavor. Yeah, it wouldn't be normal. It wouldn't be normally what you or I would do. Yeah, normally we would use about a good teaspoon, maybe. But there are more like five teaspoons. Yeah, this one. It's just it's just a different bread roll. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing different, like wrong with it or anything. It's just a different bread dough. But it's proofed twice. So you get it's a it's doubly fermented. Yeah, really. So that's really important. Yeah. So there we go. You knock out all the air. Now what you want to do is cover it over with your tea towel again. And then Mom, how long do we prove it for this time? 30 minutes. So 30 minutes. It should rise right up because it's warm. Yeah, exactly. OK, 30 minutes and we'll come back. Yes. OK, so it's been 30 minutes. This is looking gorgeous. What do you think, Mom? Yeah, I'm ready to go. You're the boss for today. Not very often. And so all you want to do now is just knock the air out of this as well, right? Yes. Punch it back down again. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It's really funny how fast it rises. But there is a lot of yeast in that. Yeah, this particular dough. Yeah. So from here, all we have to do is turn it out onto a floured surface and cut it into rolls. That's it. So when you put it out on the board, now I didn't really do this terribly evenly, but you would cut it maybe in half and then roll into two sausages. Yeah. And then you can cut it. You know, it's at home. You don't need to be terribly perfect. Yeah, for sure. So for this one, I'm going to cut because I've already taken one off the end. So I'm not going to cut this into four pieces quite easily like that. And then these can be just rolled into rolls. Some of them will be a bit bigger than others, a bit more generous than others. Yes. But you can do it. Yeah. You can do it on the board like that or you can do it in your hands on your hand, which is actually really great. And it gets rid of all the seams. It does. It just makes it easier, makes it a bit more perfect than mine. Well, it's not a competition. What can I do? But if it was, I would be winning. They make nice, they make nice big rolls. So you're looking for 12. So just get 12 rolls out of it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the greedy person can take the big one. My mom knows, my mom probably was actually my first teacher when it comes to baking and to cooking. She also helps with social media. So a lot of you who message on the website, on Facebook, because we get, I don't know, a lot, thousands of messages each week, thousands. We have to have a team of people who help answer them. And because my mom has such a great background with food and baking and she knows everything. I do. And this is true that she's really good. I didn't know Gemma knew I knew everything. And that she's really good at helping answering the questions. And it just it takes a load off. So that's why you got to know a lot of people as well. Like a lot of bakers from all around the world. Yes, I do. I know their names. Even sometimes their children's names, how many kids they have. I know where they're living. Yeah. Yeah. We don't know all those things. Yeah. So yeah, it takes it takes a village, doesn't it? Absolutely. Yes, it does. So these are looking good. So let's put them into our pan. So over here we have our nine by 13 pan. It's oiled. And this is popping our rolls. Yeah. And then mom, how many rolls? So 12. But you know, I'm not that accurate. So I could finish up with 13. Okay. Well, in this house, we're accurate. We follow the rules. Nobody cares. So we're going to do four rows by three. Yeah, yeah. And then they grow together. Yeah. You know, which because it's a batch bake. So that's a very good point that this is called batch baking. And what you want to do is I like to say I give them enough room to like kiss, but you don't want them making out. So you give them a little bit of space in between. And then they then they proof because that's a proof again, they batch bake, which means you end up with not a round roll, but like a baking, all of them baking into each other. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it looks really nice. And it makes a really good sandwiches. So we're gonna lay over some cling wrap nice and tight, make sure no air gets in there. And then lay over our tea towel. And then mom, our last proofing, how long is this for? About 30 minutes. Okay, cool. You can go if you need to go a little bit longer, if your room is colder, 45, you know, you'd be the best judge of that. Yeah. So let's set them over to the side and let them proof. Yeah. So the rolls are proofed. And now you've got to do what is the important part, which is dusting them liberally with flour. Yeah, which is kind of their signature. Absolutely. Yeah. And in water, they used to call this baker's butter. Really? Why? Yeah, because I don't know, maybe some people didn't have real butter. So it was called baker's butter. Yeah. So I know that's another little, little side story to that. Yeah. And it's kind of the unique, it's what like, these are floury rolls. Like this is what makes them kind of one of the things that makes them unique. Yeah, it is unique to them. That's it. Yeah. So you dust them with the flour, dust them with the flour. And then are these ready to go into the oven? And these are ready to go into the oven. Perfect. Let's get them in. So now we just need to bake them off at 425 degrees Fahrenheit, 210 degrees Celsius for 25 to 35 minutes. These look amazing. They actually look just like real water glass. They do. And they're lovely and floury, which is how they should be. Yeah. Yeah. Gorgeous. And when they come straight out of the oven, they're really soft, aren't they? Yeah, they're really lovely. I mean, it's quite a dense bread, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Sustaining this one. Yeah. I like the batch. We did the batch baking and they all kind of baked in together. So tell me this now, mom. How do we? Well, I know how we do, but let's tell everybody how we serve them. So I mean, in some cases, nowadays they would serve them almost like a breakfast roll. So you would have bacon, maybe sausage and egg pudding, pudding, which is a black pudding, beans. Well, I know might be a bridge too far. Beans are delicious on a breakfast roll. They are. But that's relatively a modern invention. I mean, back in the day, you would have had maybe marmalade and butter and, you know, things like that. They make really good BLTs. Yeah, don't they? Absolutely. But what we would do at home, often my mom would go to Watford to visit her sister, Rosaline, or, you know, we would go for trips and come back. We would have them with Kerrygold, which is Irish butter, which is the best butter in the world. And rashers, which is our bacon. In America, we only have rashers here, so we're going to have those. So when they're fresh out of the oven, it's still nice and warm. Yeah, I took a really big bite. Oh my gosh, they're delicious. So they do say that Blaise, like champagne from the champagne region, made outside of Watford, can't be considered Blaise. But these are the closest things to Blaise that you're ever going to get. Yeah. I know I said these are best eaten the day off. You can pop them into the oven to refresh them. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm super out of the freezer. They're really good out of the freezer. We keep these in the freezer all the time because we have so many of them and Kevin and I just want little sandwiches every now and again. So we keep them in the freezer. Yeah. Thanks a million to Patricia Stafford for joining me in California to be on an episode of Bigger Bolder Baking. And happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody out there. Hope you have a lovely day. Recipes on my website and I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.