Schlotzsky's Style Sourdough Batter Rolls

If you love the buns that Schlotzsky's uses in their most excellent sandwiches, you will love these quick and easy sourdough batter rolls. Once you make this recipe, I think you will agree that I have achieved the "Schlotzsky's Style" taste, texture and light crunch in these flavorful dinner rolls. In developing this recipe, I found the the Scholtzsky's recipe online... well they use a proprietary mix plus water and yeast... and do not use a sourdough starter. Obviously, their dry mix contains a "sourdough" flavor so I had to adapt my recipe to use a liquid sourdough starter. I used their recipe to get the approximate ratio of dry ingredients to liquids... but then experimented from there. It took many trial and error attempts... trying ingredients like egg, buttermilk, milk, etc... but what I found was that simpler was better when trying to achieve the authentic taste and left out all those items. Additionally, Schlotzsky's uses a double rise method when making their buns, but my recipe uses a single rise method that is simpler and much faster. From start to finish, including preparation, rise and bake, these rolls can be ready in about an hour and twenty minutes... with very little hands-on time. Since this is a batter bread, the exact size of the wells in your muffin tin is very important... they should hold about 1/3 cup of water. if they are too small, the batter is liable to rise up and still over the boundaries of the muffin tin. You will notice that the recipe is easy to cut in half. This is because I used a small batch when creating the recipe. With these small rolls, you will find that 6 is rarely enough. I suggest planning on about 4 rolls per person. Finally, you will see that I am not a sourdough purist. It is primarily the fast-rise yeast that makes the dough rise. Interestingly enough... while the sourdough starter is used mainly for flavor, the rolls still have the big-hole texture associated with sourdough rolls. I hope you enjoy these rolls as much as we do!

• Ready In: 1 hr 22 mins
• Serves: 12
• Yields: 12 Rolls

Ingredients

• 2⁄3 cup water (very warm)
• 2  teaspoons sugar
• 1  teaspoon fast rise yeast (Bread Machine Style Yeast)
• 1  cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1⁄2 cup  sourdough starter (thick, but pourable)
• 4  teaspoons  vegetable oil
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
•  vegetable oil cooking spray

Directions

1. Mix very warm water, yeast, and sugar. Stir with small wire wisp until well mixed.
2. Add half the flour. Stir with small wire wisp until well mixed.
3. Add remaining flour, sourdough starter, oil and salt. Stir until batter is consistently smooth.
4. Lightly spray and smear a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray.
5. Pour/scrape batter equally into muffin cups. (about 4 to 4.5 tsp each).
6. Spray tops with cooking spray.
7. Place in very warm spot (90-110°F). (I usually turn my oven to lowest setting and then turn if off before placing the rolls inside.)
8. Let rise until near or at tin top, about 50 minutes. (It is very important to not let them rise any longer than 50 minutes, because they will quickly fall.).
9. Bake Method #1 - (Start with slightly warm oven without removing the risen rolls.).
10. 1. Leave rolls in oven from previous step.
11. 2. Set oven temp to 450°F and allow to cook for approximately 17 minutes. (Time may vary due to your oven and elevation.).
12. Bake Method #2 - (Preheated Oven.).
13. 1. Remove rolls in oven after previous step and then preheat oven to 450°F .
14. 2. Place rolls in oven for 12-14 minutes. (Time may vary due to your oven and elevation.).