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French Dough Rolls
Sponge Formula Hard wheat flour, 7 lbs.
Water, 2 lbs. (variable).
Yeast, 3 ozs.
Method Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour and mix until smooth. This sponge should have a temperature of about 80 degrees when mixed. Allow the sponge to ferment until it comes to the second rising.
Dough Formula Hard wheat flour, 7 lbs.
Water, 2 qts. (variable).
Sugar, 2 ozs.
Salt, 3½ ozs.
Method Pour two quarts of water, sugar and salt on the sponge and break it up. Now add the balance of the flour and mix very thoroughly until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. The French baker pounds and stretches the dough until it becomes elastic and will not adhere to the pans or vessel in which it is being mixed.
Fermentation Allow the dough to come to one rising, cut it over and allow it to rise 15 minutes, when it can be divided into pieces of the desired weight.
Making the Rolls The dough should be divided into pieces of the required size, rounded up and allowed to proof until it becomes twice its original size. The dough should be covered up well while it is proofing to prevent it from crusting. After the rounded pieces have received enough proof they should be folded up in the same manner as long bread is folded and then rolled out into long strips usually the length of the square proofing boxes. Line the proofing boxes with a heavy piece of cloth and dust the cloth very slightly. Put the long strips into the boxes and draw up the cloth on the sides so as to create a groove. Fill the boxes with these strips and cover them up. After these strips have received about one-quarter of the required proofing they should be drawn out and cut into pieces 4 to 5 inches in length and allowed to continue rising until they become of the required size. After they have become large enough take a long strip of wood, usually a piece of wood from an egg crate is chosen. By quickly pulling one side of the cloth another strip may be rolled to the board. Slightly dust the large peel with a little corn meal and place the rolls on to it. Cut each individual roll in the same manner as Vienna bread is cut and shoot into the oven, which should be saturated with steam. If no steam is available, it is advisable to wash the rolls before they are cut. These rolls should be baked quickly in a brick oven, which will produce a glossy crisp roll.
This is a bakery formula written for a professional shop: 14 lbs of flour in total, hand-shaped in cloth-lined proofing boxes and baked on the hearth of a brick oven. It scales down cleanly, but several of the instructions assume equipment and vocabulary that have since dropped out of use.
- Scale it downThe full formula uses 14 lbs of flour; the recipe gives no yield, since pieces are divided to whatever weight is wanted. Divide everything by 14 for a 1 lb flour batch: 8 oz flour, about 2¼ oz water and 6 g yeast in the sponge; 8 oz flour, about 4½ oz water, 4 g sugar and 7 g salt in the dough.
- The yeast is compressed, not dryThree ounces of yeast in a commercial bakery formula of this period means fresh compressed yeast. For instant dry yeast use roughly one third the weight; for active dry, about 40 percent, dissolved in the sponge water as written.
- Hydration is genuinely lowAs given, the water totals about 6¼ lbs against 14 lbs of flour — around 45 percent, a very stiff dough even by French standards of the day. Both water quantities are marked "variable" for a reason; expect to add more to reach a dough that is smooth and elastic rather than crumbly, and treat 60-65 percent as the modern working range for a lean roll dough.
- "The second rising" of the spongeA sponge rises, collapses, and rises again; the second rising is generally understood as the point just before it drops for a second time, when it is domed, webbed inside and smelling sharply alcoholic. At 80F this may take a few hours, though with this much yeast it can be quicker -- judge by the sponge rather than the clock. Going past it gives slack, sour dough.
- Proofing boxes and the clothThe cloth-lined boxes with the sides drawn up into grooves work on the same principle as the linen couche. A heavy floured tea towel laid in a shallow tray, pleated between each piece, does the same job. The recipe asks for the cloth to be dusted "very slightly".
- The egg-crate slatThe strip of wood is a transfer board: the cloth is pulled so the dough rolls onto it, and from the board onto the peel. A thin cutting board or a piece of stiff card works, and a piece of parchment on a peel is easier still.
- Oven and steamThe book gives no temperature; "baked quickly" in a brick oven corresponds roughly to 450-475F in a modern oven. Bake on a preheated stone or steel with steam for the first 5-6 minutes -- a covered pan of boiling water, or ice cubes in a preheated tray. The "wash" recommended when no steam is available is most likely plain water brushed on just before slashing.
- Cutting and timing"Cut in the same manner as Vienna bread" is usually taken to mean a single shallow lengthwise slash down each roll, made immediately before loading. Rolls 4 to 5 inches long should bake in roughly 12-18 minutes; pull them when the crust is deep gold and they sound hollow.
Baker's Weekly was a New York trade paper, and formulas like this one were written for shop foremen rather than housewives o yield, and the assumption that the reader owns a peel and a hearth oven. What the piece calls French dough is the sponge-and-dough method applied to a lean formula: flour, water, yeast, salt and a token two ounces of sugar, with no fat or milk, which is why the crust can be thin and glossy. The comparison to Vienna bread is telling. Steam-injected "Vienna" ovens, generally traced to the Austrian bakers who exhibited at the international fairs of the 1860s and 1870s, gave American bakeries the ability to produce a crackling crust, and by the time this was printed the technique had been absorbed into the trade so thoroughly that a writer could simply say "cut as Vienna bread is cut" and expect to be understood. The note that the French baker "pounds and stretches the dough" is a glimpse of pre-mixer practice, when developing a stiff dough by hand was the whole labor of the job.