Plain Sandwich Roll
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, sugar, lard, and coarse sea salt to make a slack dough.
Knead the dough well until smooth.
Shape and proof
Divide the dough into 2-ounce pieces and shape them into rounds.
Place the rounds on baking pans, spaced apart.
Allow the rolls to proof until doubled in size.
Bake and finish
Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C) and bake the rolls until golden.
While hot, wash the rolls with water or brush with lard.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Yeast
- Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the rolls rise.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and helps the crust turn golden in the oven.
- Lard
- Adds fat that softens the crumb and tenderizes the texture.
- Water
- Hydrates the dough so gluten can form an elastic structure.
The step that matters
Proofing until doubled. Proofing is when yeast gas inflates the dough. Stop when the rolls have doubled; underproofed rolls bake up dense, while overproofed rolls can collapse or taste sour.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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