Soft Dinner Rolls for Dinner.....

I’m a weekend bread baker, or so my husband would like me to be, but with a full time job and a house to manage, bread baking at times can get a little demanding (of time). However the baker in me wins more often than not and my kitchen smells of fresh oven baked dinner rolls.

A perfect Sunday evening when KJ is busy following the F1, I had all the time I wanted to be alone in my kitchen talking to my oven with Gulzar sahib’s poetry in the background. Today it had to be bread and nothing else.

The first bread I’d baked was nothing but a Big Disaster!!! KJ teased me that it would be a good weapon to clobber someone.
 But I did not give up just yet and eventually with some guidance and understanding of all the basic ingredients and the roles that they play I got my first perfect loaf. There has been no stopping ever since.

The trickiest ingredient in the bread is the yeast. With Instant Yeast not readily available in India bread baking is all the more challenging for a home baker, but I guess that’s what makes it fun.

Will talk about Yeast in my coming posts, till then here is a basic dinner roll recipe.

Dinner Rolls

Makes 20 Buns

Ingredients

250 g (2 Cups) All Purpose Flour

10g (1 tbsp) Fresh Yeast 

5 g (1 tsp) Sugar

5g (1 tsp) Salt

25 ml (2 tbsp) Oil

1/4 cup Milk

3/4 cup Warm Water

For Milk Wash

1/2 cup Milk

2 tbsp Butter

1/4 tsp Salt

2 tbsp Sugar

For the Egg Wash

2 tbsp Eggs

1tbsp Water

Mix them together.

Directions:

1. Put warm milk in a bowl. Add sugar and yeast and mix. Cover the bowl and keep aside in a warm place for about 5-10 minutes or till it turns frothy and rises. DO NOT keep for more than 15 minutes.


2. Sift the flour and salt together.


3. Once the yeast froths up, add it to the flour. Add the oil and mix it well so that the mixture looks crumbly.


4. Now start adding warm water gradually and knead the dough till it is smooth and no longer sticky.


5. to make it smooth and elastic push the dough forward with your palms and pull it back towards yourself with your fingers and then push again with your palms. Give the dough a turn and knead again till smooth. this should take about 10-15 minutes.


6. To check if the dough is well kneaded, roll it into a ball and press it gently, if the springs back, the dough is ready. If not, knead it a little more.


7. Rest the dough in a big bowl and cover with cling wrap. Keep it to prove for 1.5-2 hours, till it doubles in size.


8. After 1.5 hours punch down the dough and divide it in 4 equal portions. From each portion make 5 lemon size balls. In all this dough makes 20 balls


9. place them on a well greased baking tray with 2" space in between.


10. Keep it to prove in a warm place for about 30 minutes, till it becomes almost double in size.


11. Just before you put it to bake brush it with either milk wash or egg wash. Sprinkle the buns with poppy or onion seeds.


12. Bake in a preheated oven at 200degree C for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Serve.....