Home › The Principles of Cookery › ROLLS, MILK (to be eaten either hot or cold)
ROLLS, MILK (to be eaten either hot or cold)
Put a pound of fine flour into a bowl. Scoop a hole out in the centre, and sprinkle round the edge a tea-spoonful of salt and two tea-spoonfuls of powdered sugar. Dissolve two ounces of butter in half a pint of tepid milk, add an ounce of German yeast, and work the whole gradually to a stiff paste, adding a little more flour if necessary. Cover the bowl with a cloth, and put it on the hearth for the dough to rise. When it is light, which will be in about three-quarters of an hour, divide it into small balls the size of an orange, rub these between the hands into rolls, brush over with milk or with beaten egg, and bake in a moderate oven. Time to bake, ten to fifteen minutes.
A plain enriched dinner roll, and one of the more workable yeast recipes in Cassell's — the only real translation needed is the yeast and the oven.
- German yeast"German yeast" is fresh compressed baker's yeast, sold in blocks. An ounce (28 g) to a pound of flour is a very heavy dose by modern standards, meant to force a rise in three-quarters of an hour on a warm hearth. Use about 15 g fresh, 7 g active dry, or 5 g instant, and give the dough an hour to ninety minutes.
- Half a pint of milkAn imperial half pint is 10 fl oz, about 285 ml. With a pound (450 g) of flour that gives a soft dough rather than the "stiff paste" described; hold back 50 ml and add it as needed.
- Tepid, not warmThe milk should be blood temperature at most, around 100F. Melt the butter into it and let it cool before the yeast goes in, or the yeast is damaged before it starts.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperatures; "moderate" is conventionally rendered today as somewhere around 350F, which will give the stated ten to fifteen minutes only if the rolls are small. For a browner crust and better spring, 400-425F for 12-15 minutes suits enriched rolls of this size better.
- The hearthSubstitute any draught-free spot at 75-80F. A turned-off oven with the light on works; the point is steady gentle warmth, not heat.
- Size of an orangeThat is roughly 120-130 g of dough per roll, so the batch yields six or seven. Rubbing between the hands to a roll means shaping into a short oval or finger, not a round bun.
- Milk or egg washMilk gives a soft matte crust, beaten egg a shiny deeper-browned one. Egg-washed rolls colour faster, so check them at ten minutes.
- Second riseThe recipe sends the shaped rolls straight to the oven, which the heavy yeasting made possible. With reduced yeast, let the shaped rolls prove 20-30 minutes until visibly puffed before baking.
Cassell's belongs to the era when English domestic bakers bought yeast rather than kept a barm, and the phrase "German yeast" is generally taken to reflect where the best of it was thought to come from: compressed cake yeast pressed from brewery or distillery ferments, associated with German and Austrian producers from the middle of the nineteenth century and sold fresh by the ounce at the grocer or baker. Its arrival is what makes a recipe like this possible at all — a roll that rises in forty-five minutes and can be mixed after breakfast for the same day's tea. The enrichment here is modest, butter, sugar and milk in small proportion, which places these squarely as table rolls for a household breakfast or supper rather than anything sweet; the note that they may be eaten hot or cold is a practical one, since a roll this lean stales within the day.