Lamb burger

The lamb patty was formed earlier from a lamb roast along with a few spices and then frozen.

True story. *points* 

I have a jar of barley seeds that I picked up with the intention of germinating them to then toast and attempt to produce malted barley. The seeds did not germinate, so I do not know what the deal is. I lost interest in the barley seeds.

Today I milled a few tablespoons of barley seeds in the coffee bean grinder to a fine powder and used it to start off a small batch of fortified bread dough. Fortified with butter and egg, but not milk this time. The butter was heated in the microwave to melt which also heated the bowl. The egg was heated with hot tap water then whisked in with the butter. I wanted about 1 cup of liquid total, so I whisked about 4/5 cup of hot tap water into the egg and milk, added the yeast, the barley powder, and a small amount of sugar. Then I went off and did other things. 

I returned to a foamy mixture. I added a few tablespoons of all purpose flour and whisked again. Then I abandoned it again. 

A short while later I returned to a really foamy mixture. I added salt and all purpose flour by the tablespoon until a stiff dough ball was formed. I kneaded the dough ball for about five minutes. Coated a bowl and a dough ball with oil, covered the bowl with plastic and set the bowl outside on the bench in the sun. It was hot outside, nearly 90℉/32℃. This is unusual. Ordinarily I let the dough rise inside at room temperature, about 74℉/23℃, so it rose very quickly. Within an hour the dough had more than doubled, nearly tripled, in size. So that was fun. 

The dough ball was divided and formed into small ordinary boules, that is folded in thirds, then in thirds again, then pinched around the edges with the pinched edges drawn to the bottom so that the surface of the dough was stretched to the maximum taught extension. 

This dough is flavored with dry thyme and sage. 

The mini loaves are painted with egg white and drizzled with sesame seeds. 

Baked at 500℉/260℃ for 12 minutes to an internal temperature of 200℉/93℃. The oven chamber was steamed with water drizzled through an upward vent exiting by a back surface burner. Otherwise the hot oven chamber can be sprayed. 

Note, the dough was never punched down. That is a very rude and unnecessary thing to do to dough. This is a "be kind to your dough" bakery over here. We turn it out onto the work surface, stretch it, then fold it. Then do that again in a different direction to form stacked folds. The edges are pinched to close the loaf. All that handling does deflate the bubbles that were formed, so the result is the same as punching, but com'on, whoever thought of punching down a helpless bowl of inflated dough had  obvious aggression issues. Don't be that person!