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Luncheon Rolls
Make a sponge of one and one-half cups lukewarm milk (which has been brought to the point of scalding), three tablespoons butter, two tablespoons sugar, three-quarters teaspoon salt, one yeast cake dissolved thoroughly in three tablespoons lukewarm water, and two and one-half cups flour; let it rise and then add the beaten white of one egg and enough flour to knead; let it rise again and then shape into small rolls, after rolling it out about one-quarter inch thick and cutting out with a biscuit cutter; brush each roll over lightly with soft butter, crease through the center with a dull knife and fold over; place in a greased pan and let rise until very light; bake about fifteen minutes in a rather hot oven.
— Mrs. Chas. E. Nichols
A straightforward enriched dinner roll, folded in the Parker House style. The recipe assumes a cook who knows what a risen sponge looks like, so the quantities are loose in one place and specific in another.
- The yeast cakeA yeast cake of this period was a cake of compressed fresh yeast; sizes varied, but the small cake still sold today is about 0.6 oz. Substitute one packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry yeast, dissolved in the three tablespoons of warm water as directed; instant yeast can be stirred straight into the flour.
- Scalding the milkMilk was scalded because something in unheated milk was found to weaken the dough; it is usually credited to whey proteins that interfere with gluten. With pasteurized milk it is generally treated as unnecessary, but heating and cooling to lukewarm (about 105-110F) is still the fastest way to get the butter melted and the temperature right. Do not add yeast to milk above 115F.
- "Rather hot oven"400-425F. Fifteen minutes at that heat is about right for small rolls; they should be deep gold and sound hollow underneath.
- Total flourThe sponge takes 2 1/2 cups; "enough flour to knead" will be another 1 to 1 1/2 cups, for roughly 3 1/2 to 4 cups in all. Add it gradually — an enriched dough this soft should stay slightly tacky rather than stiff.
- The egg whiteOnly the beaten white goes in, which lightens the crumb without the richness or color of the yolk. Beat it to soft peaks and fold it into the sponge rather than stirring it flat.
- Rising timesThe recipe gives none. Expect about an hour for the sponge, 45-60 minutes for the second rise, and 30-45 minutes for the shaped rolls in the pan — "very light" means nearly doubled and slow to spring back when pressed.
- ShapingRoll a quarter inch thick, cut rounds with a biscuit cutter, butter, and crease through the center with the back of a dull knife as directed, then fold over. (Some versions of the folded roll crease slightly off-center so the smaller half folds over the larger.) The buttered crease is what lets the roll open cleanly at the table.
- YieldRoughly a couple of dozen small rolls, depending on the cutter. They are best within a few hours of baking and reheat well wrapped in foil.
The buttered, creased, folded roll is generally traced to the Parker House hotel in Boston in the second half of the nineteenth century; here it is simply a luncheon roll. The sponge method, in which part of the flour and all the liquid are fermented first, was standard in home baking before reliable dry yeast, since it gave a sluggish cake yeast a head start and let the cook judge its vigor before committing the whole batch of flour. That the recipe carries a contributor's name is typical of village church-and-society cookbooks like this one.