Soft white bread (machine) rolls
I use my bread maker to do all the heavy lifting of mixing and kneading, and indeed this dough recipe is based on one that comes with the machine. It can be made with 70% white and 30% wholemeal flour for a tastier and slightly more, dare I say it, virtuous, result.
Stats
Makes: 8 rolls
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 2-3 hours
Ingredients
- 1 tsp yeast
- 1/2tsp sugar
- 450g strong white bread flour
- 40g unsalted butter
- 1/2tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 270ml water
Method
- Put the mixing bowl from the breadmaker on some scales, add the yeast and sugar then zero the scales
- Measure the flour in then add the butter, salt and egg
- Add the water by weight as it's easier to be accurate with the amount of water by weighing it
- Use a dough program on your breadmaker, mine takes 2h 20m
- When the dough is nearly ready, pre-heat your oven to 40 degrees then turn the oven off and leave the door shut (or use a dough proving option if it has one)
- Place some baking parchment on a baking tray, ready to receive the shaped rolls and get some flour onto the worktop to help with shaping, 2tbsp should be good to start with
- Tip the dough out onto the worktop and divide in half, the dough is a little sticky so dust your hands with flour when necessary. I weigh the pieces of dough make sure there's an even split, with each being about 400g. To divide the dough I use a dough scraper like this one, you could just as easily use a knife though it does make it easier to move the dough around if its sticking to the worktop
- Divide the two pieces of dough in half again, giving four pieces of about 200g
- Divide each of the four pieces of dough in half again, giving eight pieces of dough of about 100g
- Shape each of the pieces into a roll shape and place on the baking tray. I shape the dough by folding the corners into the middle repeatedly until it has a nice round shape - where I've folded the corners in becomes the bottom of the roll
- Place the rolls onto the baking tray as they're shaped, cover with a clean lightweight tea towel and leave to rise for about 20 minutes in the just warm oven which should allow them to double in size
- Remove the rolls from the oven and dust with flour ready for baking
- Heat the oven to 220 degrees (fan assisted) and put the rolls in to cook for 12-15 minutes once the oven's up to temperature
- Put the rolls onto a wire rack to cool down
These rolls freeze really well if you let them cool completely, bag up and put in the freezer. I can't say how long they freeze for as they're rarely in there for more than a few days, being free of preservatives that are used to keep mass-manufactured bread fresh and soft these rolls are noticeably poorer the next day but come out of the freezer almost as fresh as they went in.