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Rolls, Brentford
With two pounds of flour mix two ounces of sifted sugar, four ounces of butter, two eggs beaten with a table-spoonful of yeast, a pint of milk, and salt to taste. Make into a dough, and knead it well; set it to rise before the fire. Make twelve rolls of this, lay them on buttered tin plates, and set them before the fire to rise till they become of a proper size, then bake half an hour.
A plain enriched breakfast roll, hearth-proofed and baked in a coal oven. Everything here works in a modern kitchen once the yeast quantity and the baking time are read correctly.
- The yeast is the hingeA tablespoon of yeast in this period means liquid brewer's barm or a soft, wet compressed yeast, not modern dried granules. Use about 2 teaspoons of instant dried yeast, or roughly 20 g fresh, for 2 lb of flour; a tablespoon of instant would be a gross overdose and would give a sour, collapsing dough.
- Quantities in modern termsTwo pounds of flour is about 7 to 7 1/2 cups (900 g); a pint of milk in an English book of this date is 20 fl oz (570 ml). Plain white bread flour is the right choice. Be ready to hold back some of the milk and judge the dough by feel.
- Two eggs and 4 oz butterThis is a lightly enriched dough, closer to a milk roll than a brioche. Soften the butter and work it in after the flour and milk have come together, or the fat will slow the gluten.
- "Set it to rise before the fire"The hearth gave a warm, drafty spot of perhaps 80-85F. A turned-off oven with the light on, or any draught-free corner, does the same. First rise until doubled, roughly an hour; the shaped rolls need a second rise of 30 to 45 minutes.
- Buttered tin platesThese were shallow tinned-iron plates set close to the fire. Greased or parchment-lined baking sheets are the equivalent. Leave a good inch between rolls so they crust on all sides rather than joining.
- Oven heat, which the recipe omitsNo temperature is given, as is usual in books of this date. Bake at 400F. The rolls are done when deep gold and hollow-sounding, with an internal temperature near 195F.
- Half an hour is too longTwelve rolls from 2 lb of flour weigh about 5 oz each, and at 400F they will be baked in 20 to 25 minutes. In a steady modern oven the full half-hour dries the crumb.
- Yield and servingTwelve substantial breakfast rolls. They are best within hours of baking, split and buttered while still warm.
Cassell's catalogued breads and buns by the towns that were thought to have produced them: Bath buns, Chelsea buns, Sally Lunns from Bath again, and Brentford rolls from the Middlesex market town on the Thames west of London. Brentford was a busy coaching and market stop on the Great West Road, and the attribution is traditional rather than documented; by the time this book appeared the name signified a type of roll far more than a place of origin. What the recipe records reliably is the domestic bread of a household with a cook and an open fire: yeast, a pint of milk, a little sugar and butter, and two proofs judged entirely by eye in the warmth of the hearth. No oven temperature is given at all.