Hi all.
So, I've been baking rustic sourdough bread for a year and a half by now.
My loafs (recipe included below for 'debugging' purposes) turn out great. I'm very happy with the results. Texture and flavour are great. Looks are acceptable :-)
Now. I really want to make rolls. They're easier to freeze and reheat as needed. Also on weekend mornings, freshly baked (or reheated) rolls are awesome.
For a while I've been trying to make decent rolls based on my loaf recipe.
And that does not work.
When shaping the dough into rolls instead of loafs it's like it changes completely.
Rolls don't rise as much and become dense.
It's not that the rolls are bad-bad...they're just not good - you probably know what I mean :-)
I have tried a number of different things;
dding oil or butter to the dough, increasing (albeit not much) the water content, kneading less, adding more active yeast, warm rise, cold rise. Nothing seems to make much of a difference, and my results are consistently bad.
What is the key to making my rolls rise too?
A few weeks back I experienced a couple of bad loafs too, but quickly realized that my experimental shaping technique did not work. As soon as I returned to my proved shaping method, the loafs where good again.
Could this have something to do with shaping?
I'm doing it like this guy
https://youtu.be/Gx2Sf3XqkhQ?t=127
Images of unimpressive rolls and almost perfect loafs below.
The loaf recipe (largely the same for rolls except for trial/errors mentioned):
Levain - mix 360 grams all-purpose wheat flour and 270 grams water. Mix quickly, cover with towel, leave at room temp for three hours.
Add 50 grams water, 150 grams 50/50 wholegrain wheat sourdough starter, 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast.
Combine 130 grams of all-purpose wheat flour with 2.1 teaspoons of salt (top photo includes 0.75 teaspoons of dark malt flour - highly recommended).
Knead everything in mixer until bowl is clean and the dough is almost entirely wrapped around the dough hook.
Cover with towel, leave for four hours at room temp (22-25 C).
Pre-shape. Rest for 10 minutes.
Final shape. Transfer to proofing basket.
Place bread and basket inside plastic bag.
Leave to final proof in fridge for anywhere from 10 to 18 hours (usually just 10 hours overnight).
Pre-heat oven to 230 C. Place tray with 0.25 L water in bottom. Bake for 27 minutes.
Succesful loafs:
Unimpressive rolls - 80 grams /pcs:
...and so do the loaves!
What is not to like?
What I'm unhappy with is the denser crumb of the rolls.
The "target crumb" is something like the one on the first loaf picture.
I'm baking the loafs at 230 C and rolls at 200 C.
Maybe I could try lowering the temp even further to delay the forming of crust?
faster than loaves. So a tray of rolls will cool down faster and slow down faster when put into the fridge or cellar and warm up faster in a warm room. Play around with letting the rolls proof longer before chilling and see if it helps. Sometimes dropping the hydration and letting the rolls final proof longer helps.