Do you ever wake up and think of bread? Well I do... frequently. Especially since I have just returned from a holiday in France where their bread is magical beyond belief. The smell, the texture, the taste, all so sensual and mouth wateringly good.
If I could I would build a house out of bread and then live in it forever. Or for as long as I could before it began to mold. I would have the peanut butter and jelly room, with white bread walls- The American Room. The wheaten bread room with Irish butter- The Irish room. The scone topped with jam then cream room (feel free to debate this, but I can't see how one would spread jam onto cream)- The English High Tea Room. The Focaccia with rock salt and rosemary room- The Italian Room. With a bread stick fence and flat bread garden and cracker patio. That would be my dream house. It would smell amazing.
Anyway, to continue with this slightly weird fantasy, I decided to make bread rolls. But told myself to be slightly healthier as on holiday I basically spent my days eating baguettes and drinking tea and cider. So I made wholemeal bread rolls.
See the nice thing about baking, is that it is super creative. If something doesn't turn out well- it's frustrating, but happens to all. And this is a prime example. I was going to make scones, but used white bread flour instead- as what I was craving was that wheaten bread taste, without having to make wheaten bread as I didn't have all the ingredients. So, I ended up making bread rolls. And you know something, they taste like bread rolls, look like bread rolls and have that wheaten bread taste and smell- so in my mind that is a success, even if it wasn't what I had intended to bake. Creative- what did I tell ya! :)
This is how it went;
Firstly you need to measure out your ingredients. I based my recipe on Paul Hollywood's recipe with a few changes (being that I didn't use plain flour, I actually used strong white flour). The ingredients are;
- 250g Wholemeal Flour
- 250g Strong White Flour
- 2 tsp (tea spoons) of Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt- I used a few twists on my salt dispenser thingy
- 400ml Milk
- 1 beaten Egg
220C for around 15 minutes. Again depending on your oven, whether it is old and slow (and beautifully in sync with you) or new and way too eager and fast, the time to bake may vary. Just keep checking and all will be fine.
What I did first was put the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and mixed them all up until combined. I don't know why I do this, personally it just feels more organised. Then I added the milk- now this recipe said it was a sticky dough, that is an understatement. This dough is like a leach sucking on for dear life. Don't get me wrong, it is a lovely dough and tastes fantastic, but it is really sticky, so have a spatula and some extra flour handy.
Once the dough was combined and resembled a ball shape, I put it out onto a floured surface and began to knead it. Kneading is where you are stretching the gluten in the bread to make it come together more smoothly. Whereas, in yeast based breads, it does the same thing, but it is also to activate the yeast.
This took around 10 minutes. The extra flour came in handy as at one point it felt like the dough was all on my hand and all I was doing was massaging the kitchen counter. :) But persevere and it will all come together.
This was basically it. I then got a glass and floured the end of it.This was so that the glass wouldn't stick to the dough. I used this to cut out my roll shapes. I then placed them onto a floured baking tray and egg washed them. To flour the baking tray all I did was butter the whole of the tray, sprinkle a little flour onto the surface and then tap it at each end to get it to cover the whole surface.
I put the egg washed rolls into the pre-heated oven and left them to expand and bake to their hearts content. After around 15 minutes they were golden on the top and hollow sounding on the bottom. I then let them cool and served them with butter, strawberries and bananas.
And that was it! Wholemeal Buttery Bread Rolls. YUM! :D
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