Buffalo Ranch Chicken Bites

I came upon a recipe a couple weeks ago for ham and cheese bites.  The recipe looked good, but not something that we would really eat around here much.  Recently, we are beginning to think that Henry is lactose intolerant.  It has been a rough road, but we are hoping we are on the track to recovery now.  Anyway, I started researching other kinds of "bites" and came across one for Buffalo Chicken bites with blue cheese.  Now, that sounded amazing to me, but the rest of the family didn't think so.  So, I did a little modifying and came up with Buffalo Ranch Chicken Bites.  Turned out pretty amazing and was a huge hit!

Buffalo Ranch Chicken Bites

Ingredients:

1 cup finely diced chicken breast (I used regular pieces of chicken and boiled it, then pulled it off the bone and diced it.)

1 pkg cream cheese 

1 pkg dry Ranch dressing mix

1/4 cup hot sauce (I used Frank's)

1 cup warmed milk

2 tbsp brown sugar

4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 1/4 tsp rapid rise dry yeast

2 1/2 cups flour

 In a 1 cup measuring cup, heat the milk and then add the 2 tablespoons brown sugar; stir into warm milk until dissolved; place in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.

Add 2 1/2 cups flour and yeast to the stand mixer and mix on low speed until a soft dough forms, adding up to 1/2 cup additional flour, a little at a time, if necessary. Allow the dough to knead in the stand mixer for 5-7 minutes. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead a few times to form a smooth ball. Place dough into a clean bowl that's been lightly oiled. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled and bubbles appear on surface, about 2 hours. 

To make the chicken mixture, mix the cream cheese, dry ranch mix, hot sauce and chicken together in a medium bowl; set aside.

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in the middle of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 4 equal pieces. Lightly dust your hands with flour, then gently roll and stretch 1 piece of dough to form a 12-inch-long rope. Flatten dough and arrange so a long side is nearest you, then roll out to a roughly 12- by 4-inch rectangle with a lightly floured rolling pin. Gently press one fourth of buffalo chicken mixture into lower third of rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch border along bottom edge. Stretch bottom edge of dough up over filling and press tightly to seal, then roll up as tightly as possible to form a rope. Cut rope into 12 pieces and transfer to a sheet pan. Make 3 more ropes with remaining dough, filling and cut into pieces, transferring to sheet pans. Let rest at room temperature, uncovered, 30 minutes (dough will rise slightly).

Bake buffalo chicken bites in the preheated oven for 5-7 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned.  Remove from oven, some cheese may have melted out as in the pic above.  You can also brush the tops with melted butter before serving.  Enjoy!