Acme in San Francisco makes a lot of different breads. I often pick up their sourdough cheese rolls, and finally decided to attempt them myself. Hamelman has a cheese bread with 60% hydration stiff levain. It got very active and stickier than I expected, never having made a stiff levain before. The dough itself was 60% hydration, considerably lower than I ever make.
Before baking I called Acme to see if I could find anything out about their method, and to my surprise they were an open book. It seemed that their process is similar to what I was going to do, and they told me what cheeses they use. The result was mixed. The rolls overcooked on the bottom, and the dough was drier than Acme's. Otherwise, the crumb was decent and the flavor quite similar to the model.
They were shaped and cold retarded overnight, and cooked on a sheet pan on parchment at 460 F for about 30 minutes. Clearly the heat was too high. If I make these again I'd lower the heat to 400 or 375, up the hydration a bit and the olive oil more than a bit, and possibly add more cheese. Please let me know your thoughts.
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These look very nice to me. Crumb looks good. Adding more cheese is never a bad thing in my book :).
Thanks, but those scamps at Acme know something I don't--how to get them moister, softer, and darker, while not making the bottoms hard. Any thoughts?
ones at 425 for 8 minutes and then turn down the heat to 375 F till they brown about another 8to10 minutes. I also like to brush with egg yolk before going in and milk when coming out. 460 is too hit for these little gems. They sure look good inside and out
Thanks for your advice. I can't believe I tried to cook these at such a high temp. I should make another batch. Have you ever seen Acme's? The outside is all brown with a paper thin crispy-flakiness.