Hot Packet Dough

On February 23, 2010 I posted chicken packets and in it I used store bought croissants.  This past summer I combined some recipes and came up with this to make your own dough. It is easy and keeps for about a week in the refrigerator.  You can use it for the chicken packets or get creative and adapt it to many different meat and cheese fillings.  When I was working at Kahvi's, in addition to the chicken/cream cheese mixture, we also offered roast beef/cheddar, turkey/provolone/, and peanut butter/jelly.  I am sure you could think of some of your own.  A friend of mine suggested adding some spinach to the chicken and cream cheese.  I thought that sounded good, but I haven't had the opportunity to try it yet.  Please leave comments with your creations.

Ingredients:

4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold milk
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons softened butter
1 heaping tablespoon yeast
2 1/4 teaspoon salt
Filling of your choice to put into the packet

Combine all of the above ingredients in a large bowl and mix it all up until it forms a stiff dough.  Knead it into a ball.  Put into a bowl and cover the top (or in a plastic container with a lid).  Place in the refrigerator overnight.  It will have risen to about double in size. Turn the dough out onto the counter and divide in 14 pieces.  If you have a kitchen scale each piece should weigh approximately 2.5 ounces.

Roll out the pieces into rectangles.

Put your filling in the center.  For the chicken packets I use 1 ounce of cream cheese and 1.5 ounces of chicken/packet (along with some seasoning).  This is the part where you get creative.  Like I mentioned before, the first time I posted this was February 23, 2010 so you can look there for the initial recipe.

Fold 1/3 of the dough over and pinch the sides down.  After you do this you can push the filling into the packet to sort of spread it evenly inside.

Fold the other 1/3 dough over and pinch the sides down.  Also pinch the seam down the middle.

Roll each end and seal the dough shut.

Continue with the rest of the packets and place on a prepared pan (either sprayed or with parchment paper).  Normally I would have put crushed crouton or crushed crackers on top, but I didn't have any at the moment of the picture.  I just decided to spread some butter garlic on top. Put into a preheated 375 oven and bake until golden brown.  This will take between 12 and 15 minutes.