Dinner Rolls

I am really beginning to see the use in a blog about ‘whatever’ rather than one with the specifics of pastry and what I’ve been reading. This is because I’ve only been caught up with other things (ie Thanksgiving, my Grandma’s 94th Birthday, new job, and thinking about how yet another old love has found a new love) this last week and haven’t posted anything.

I’m going to ameliorate that with a description of what I baked for Thanksgiving! My mom and sister made pies, and I was happy to provide vegetables. But I knocked it up another notch with some whole wheat dinner rolls made from hard winter wheat flour that was in my CSA box in preparation for Thanksgiving.

So, the night before Thanksgiving I made a starter with some all purpose flour, stuck it in the fridge, and went to bed. I slept until an early morning text from my cousin and my mom’s presence in the kitchen could not be ignored and went to get the bread going.

I took my scale and my French bread cookbook for company, but really, bread making is a touch and feel kind of adventure. My starter was young, but so what. My dough was a tiny bit soft, but I figured that was just as well considering that it was such high gluten flour that might seize up too much if overly firm. I made the dough, really just yeast, warm water, flour, salt and the white starter from the night before, then I let it rise. It was turning out just right.

Once it rose I measured the dough out into 60g dough clumps, rolled them up, set them on baking trays with plenty of space, and shuttled them downstairs to the wine cellar to wait awhile. Just before heading out on a hike I looked in on my rolls. This was probably the poorer decision as I thought they were perfectly ready for baking and wanted to put them in the oven. Some discussion ensued on how long they would take to bake.

Interestingly, although I was right (20min at 400*F) our walk was modified into two 10min quick-loops for those who worried that those beautiful rolls would get over baked. Before popping them into the oven, I dusted them with all purpose flour and made slices in them with a razor so that they would be particularly pretty.

Besides how they look? Well, they were delicious, even the ones that lasted until the turkey was ready!