French Bread Rolls

PaulaG's Note:

Source: "Fine Cooking" This is one of my recently adopted recipes. I prepared it and it is wonderful. The end result are rolls with a crispy crust and soft chewy center. I always add wheat gluten when adding the flour. This produces a superior quality of bread so I am including it in the list of ingredients.

• Total Time: 5 hrs 25 mins
• Prep Time: 5 hrs
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 12 rolls

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted
• 2 ¼ teaspoons dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 cups water , 70 degrees
• 1 ¼ ounces nonfat dry milk powder , 1/2 cup
• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 5 teaspoons wheat gluten
• 1 tablespoon salt
• black pepper , to taste (I added 1 teaspoon coarse ground.)
• 1 cup rye flour
• coarse salt , for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast in mixer with water.
2. Add melted butter, sugar, dry milk, salt and pepper.
3. Whisk to incorporate.
4. Add 4 cups of flour and mix with dough hook.
5. Add additional flour until dough leaves the side of the bowl.
6. Knead dough by hand with a little flour until it is smooth and elastic Let rise in greased bowl, covered for about 2 hours until doubled.
7. At this point the dough can be refrigerated overnight or for 2 days.
8. Bring to room temperature before shaping.
9. Punch down and let rise until doubled again, about 2 hours.
10. Shape into 3 oz rolls, let rise covered for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
11. Sprinkle with rye (or all purpose) flour, slash with lame quite deeply, sprinkle with salt.
12. Bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes (throw 1/4 cup ice water onto bottom of oven as soon as rolls are put in or spray sides of oven with cold water), reduce heat to 400 and bake another 5 minutes.
13. Turn off oven and let rolls sit to crisp for another 5 minutes.
14. Cool at least 20 minutes.
15. Store rolls in plastic bag.
16. To recrisp, put into 400 oven for 5 minutes.

Reviews

[WiGal]

Croute croquante, doucement a l'interieur, et caoutchouteux! (Crunchy crust, soft inside, and chewy!) Made as posted including the black pepper-I used a 1/2 teaspoon which was skimpy. Fortunately, I have 3 oven racks so I put the pan of ice water on lowest rack, and the other 2 cookie sheets went on the other racks. Baked mine with ice water at 450 for 20 minutes and at 400 for a tad less than 5 minutes only b/c I was anxious to see if the bottoms were right and they were perfect. Used some slices for Slow Cooker French Onion Soup for our lunch today and Crock Pot Beef Burgundy for our supper. Merci Paula G for sharing. Made for my French jaunt during ZWT5 for the Chow Hounds.

[Sage]

These are great rolls and I also produced some Panini buns. I am kind of proud of myself; I have a hard time making nice looking rolls and these aren't too bad. I used my Bread Machine( Zojirushi ) to do the work and then shaped the rolls. I also use Gluten in my breads so I had it ready. I will be making these again;thanks for posting. I made this for ZWT5. Rita

[~ValeLovesFlorida~]

Just looking at he picture I had to make these divine rolls! These went so well with our meal. Everyone dug in and before I knew it the plate was empty! So much for my second one :) Guess I'll have to make them again so I can have as many as I want! Thanks for this recipe!