Home › Bread and Bread Making › Coffee Rolls
Coffee Rolls
2 cups milk 1 1/2 yeast cakes Butter 1/2 cup each Lard 1/2 cup each Sugar 1/2 cup each Flour 1/2 cup each 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon salt Melted butter Confectioners' sugar Vanilla Scald milk, when lukewarm add yeast cakes, and as soon as dissolved add three and one-half cups flour. Beat thoroughly, cover, and let rise; then add butter, lard, sugar, egg unbeaten, cinnamon, salt, and flour enough to knead. Knead until well mixed, cover, and let rise. Turn mixture on a floured cloth. Roll into a long, rectangular piece one-fourth inch thick. Brush over with melted butter, fold from ends toward centre to make three layers and cut off pieces three-fourths inch wide. Cover and let rise. Take each piece separately in hands and twist from ends in opposite directions, then shape in a coil. Place in buttered pans, cover, again let rise, and bake in a moderate oven twenty minutes. Cool slightly, and brush over with confectioners' sugar moistened with boiling water and flavored with vanilla.
A sweet yeast-raised roll with a laminated twist, closer to a Danish than to a dinner roll. Nothing here is out of reach, but the yeast quantity and the oven direction both need translating.
- Yeast cakesCompressed yeast cakes were commonly around 0.6 oz, roughly equal to 2 1/4 teaspoons (one packet) of active dry or instant yeast, though cake sizes varied. On that reckoning a cake and a half is about 1 tablespoon of dry yeast, a heavy dose by modern standards; a single packet will raise this dough well, only more slowly.
- Moderate oven350F. Twenty minutes is right for coils of this size; pull them when the tops are deep gold, since the sugar in the dough browns before the crumb is fully set if the oven runs hot.
- The sponge stageMilk, yeast and 3 1/2 cups flour are set to rise first, before any fat or sugar goes in. Do not shortcut it into a single mix -- the sponge gives the dough its lift before the butter, lard and sugar slow the yeast down.
- LardLeaf lard gives the tenderest crumb and is worth seeking out; supermarket hydrogenated lard works but tastes flatter. Equal butter, or shortening, can replace it, with some loss of softness.
- Scalding milkScalding is usually explained as destroying components in raw milk that weaken gluten; with pasteurised milk it is often said to be unnecessary, though the point is debated. Either way, cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast: much above 110F is hotter than yeast likes, and it is killed around 130-140F.
- Flour "enough to knead"Flour 'enough to knead' -- the list allots 1/2 cup at this stage and the method then says 'flour enough to knead'; expect to work in perhaps a further two cups, added gradually. Stop while the dough is still slightly tacky; a stiff dough will not roll thin without tearing and the layers will be tough.
- The folding and twistingRoll to a true 1/4 inch, brush generously with melted butter, and fold in thirds so the butter sits between layers. Cutting 3/4-inch strips across the folded band, then twisting each from both ends before coiling, is what produces the visible spiral -- work quickly so the butter stays firm.
- GlazeAbout 1 cup confectioners' sugar with 1 to 2 tablespoons boiling water and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla gives a pourable icing. Brush while the rolls are warm, not hot, or it soaks in and disappears.
- YieldRoughly 18 to 24 rolls, depending on the length of the rolled sheet. The recipe calls for four separate rises -- after the sponge, after kneading, after cutting the strips, and again after shaping in the pans -- so allow a good part of a morning from start to oven.
Coffee rolls of this kind belong to the American breakfast-bread tradition that absorbed Central European baking through the late nineteenth century: a rich milk-and-egg yeast dough, buttered and folded for layers, spiced with cinnamon and finished with a thin water icing. The name refers to the occasion rather than any ingredient -- these are the rolls served with coffee, the same logic behind coffee cake, which likewise contains none. Lard alongside butter is common in household cookbooks of the period. The four separate risings reflect a kitchen where someone was at home all morning.