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Luncheon Rolls
1/2 cup scalded milk 2 tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 yeast cake dissolved in 2 tablespoons lukewarm water 2 tablespoons melted butter 1 egg Few gratings from rind of lemon Flour Add sugar and salt to milk; when lukewarm, add dissolved yeast cake and three-fourths cup flour. Cover and let rise; then add butter, egg well beaten, grated rind of lemon, and one and one-fourth cups flour. Let rise again, roll to one-half inch thickness, shape with small biscuit-cutter, place in buttered pan close together, let rise again, and bake. These rolls may be ready to serve in three hours if one and one-half yeast cakes are used.
A straightforward enriched sponge-and-dough roll, lightly sweetened and scented with lemon. The original assumes you know your own oven, so the two things needing filling in are the yeast conversion and the bake.
- Yeast cakesA yeast cake here is compressed fresh yeast, roughly 0.6 oz. Half a cake is about 1 teaspoon of instant or active dry yeast; the faster three-hour version calls for one and a half cakes, or about 1 tablespoon dry.
- Scalding the milkScalding was standard practice with raw milk, and is commonly said to deactivate substances in the whey that weaken gluten. With pasteurised milk, warming to about 110F is enough, though a brief scald and cool does no harm.
- Flour totalThree-quarters cup in the sponge plus one and a quarter cups after gives 2 cups, about 9 oz. The dough should be soft but rollable; hold back a tablespoon or two if it feels stiff.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Bake at 400F for 15 to 20 minutes, until the tops are deep gold and a roll sounds hollow when tapped underneath.
- The sponge stageLetting the yeast, milk and a small quantity of flour rise before the fat and egg go in is the point of the method. Butter and egg slow fermentation, so the sponge gives the yeast a head start; do not skip it and mix everything at once.
- ShapingRolled and cut with a small biscuit cutter, packed close in the pan, these bake into pull-apart rolls with soft sides. A 2-inch cutter on half-inch dough gives about 15 rolls; scraps can be re-rolled once.
- Lemon rindUse only the yellow zest of an unwaxed lemon; the white pith is bitter. The recipe asks for no more than a few gratings.
- Timing and yieldThree risings on the smaller quantity of yeast will take considerably longer than the three hours the recipe quotes for one and a half cakes; allow most of an afternoon. Yield is about a dozen to fifteen small rolls, enough for six at table.
Rolls of this kind belong to the turn-of-the-century American luncheon table, where a small hot bread was a common expectation. A sponge-set dough enriched with butter, egg and sugar sits halfway between plain bread and cake. The closing note about using one and a half yeast cakes to finish in three hours reflects a real shift of the era, as reliable commercial compressed yeast displaced homemade barm and salt-rising starters and let a cook plan a rise by the clock rather than by the day.