These rolls are quick and easy to make, needing only one rise.
They are soft, rich and buttery, but robust enough to make excellent sandwiches.
The flavor and texture comes from the use of a pre-ferment, which takes about 30 seconds to put together and sits in the refrigerator overnight.
Making the pre-ferment
I was experimenting with pre-ferments and had some bread flour (strong flour) on hand that I needed to use up.
Mix together 4oz bread flour, 4oz cold filtered water (by weight) and 1/8tsp instant yeast.
The mixture will be very wet and rough – this is what you’re looking for.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, put into the refrigerator and leave for at least 6 hours – or overnight.
This is how it looks the next morning after it’s developed – little bubbles on top.
Making the dough
In the same bowl as the pre-ferment, add 8oz all purpose flour, 1/2tbsp instant yeast, 1tsp salt and 1tbsp white sugar.
In a microwave-safe jug, measure out 4oz milk and add a 1/2 stick (2oz) of butter. Blast the milk and the butter in the microwave until the temperature is 130F. This took about a minute in my microwave. Stir well to ensure that the butter is dissolved completely into the milk.
Add the butter and milk mixture to the rest of the ingredients and mix well with a spoon. This is a very wet dough.
Admittedly, this isn’t the easiest of doughs to handle when you turn it out on the counter to knead. A good bench scraper is very handy to start the kneading process.
Using only as much additional flour as necessary to prevent sticking (maybe 1/4-1/2 cup), knead the dough for a good 7 or 8 minutes.
It will become a lot more elastic, but still rather wet when it’s done. If you poke a finger into the dough and you feel some resistance and the dough springs back – you’ve kneaded enough.
Forming the rolls
I find the bench scraper an invaluable tool for chopping up dough for rolls. If you want to be more precise, you can use a scale, but I find halving the dough, then halving twice more (to form eight pieces) is easy enough to do by sight.
Flatten each piece a little, then pull the dough in from the sides to one spot in the center, creating a smooth round top. Use both hands to carefully roll the bottom of each roll flat. Place onto a lightly greased and floured baking sheet, about 2 inches apart horizontally and 1 inch apart vertically.
Sprinkle a little flour on each roll, and leave the uncovered rolls to rise in a warm spot until they’ve about doubled. At about 75 degrees, this will take about 75-90 minutes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the rolls 22-25 minutes until nicely browned and cool on a rack.
The rolls need to cool a little before you can slice them – at least 30 minutes or so. But be sure to take the opportunity to make a sandwich on them while they are still warm!
Sandwiches
