I had a thought – ramen into bread. I was able to do this successfully by creating a bread with cooked noodles as an ingredient in place of some bread flour. But what of a bread where instant noodles are the flour? I mean, it is flour, isn’t it? Today, We’ll look at my initial attempt and see what was learned from it and how it went.
Shin Ramyun Bread Experiment v1.0
The Concept
I got a four pack of Nongshim Shin Ramyun at the grocery store and brought it home. We have a little ‘Magic Bullet’ blender and I figured use that to powderize some noodles. It worked very well – the noodles were absolutely powdered up. I decided a basic white bread recipe would have the greatest chance of success, using scant oil as the noodles were heavy on that.
The Recipe
- 2 1/2 cups Shin Ramyun noodle block flour
- 3 sachets Shin Ramyun seasoning powder
- 4 sachets Shin Ramyun vegetable sachets
- 4 tsp sugar
- yeast
- water
- oil
The Doings
After everything was loaded into the bread machine, the kneading started. It was evident right off the bat that this was going to be a little bit different. The water was sucked up immediately, logical as these were noodles which were rendered into a fine powder. We kept adding water until it got to the desired consistency. At this point, I figured that the best we could expect was a very sunken loaf which was very dense. As it rested and rose I had high hopes – it looked and smelled kind of like bread! Very promising!
The Documentation
Here’s what happened – from the dough making to the baking, to the finished product.
The Result
Finished (click to enlarge). As you can see, it didn’t work. So, what happened here? Well, we got a nice crust, but the innards were like a heavy porridge – thick, dense and sticky – but dough-like.
What the issue here was that all that water had nowhere to go. We figure that the ‘flour’ held onto it and just wouldn’t let it go. Also, if it had, maybe by cooking futher at a low temperature, we don’t think that the center would have become something with the texture of bread but more hard and crunchy. I think that the next try will involved doing this with ooked noodles and bread flour. I had high hopes of a bread made solely out of pulverized instant noodles, but I don’t think it’s in the cards. Nevertheless, nothing ventured, nothing gained – and it was not only fun but somewhat educational as no the fact that this doesn’t work. I knew there were a million reasons as to why this wouldn’t work, so it wasn’t a surprise, nor a setback, but somewhat disappointing.
Rest assured – Shin Bread will rise from the ashes of this experiment – maybe next weekend. In the meantime, here’s a loaf of bread that did work for the most part.
