Home › Frozen Desserts › Lunch Rolls
Lunch Rolls
1 cake compressed yeast 1¼ cups milk, scalded and cooled 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon salt 4 cups sifted flour 1 egg 2 level tablespoons lard Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm milk; add lard (or butter) and two cups of flour. Beat thoroughly; then add egg well beaten, balance of flour gradually, and salt. When all of the flour is added, or enough to make a moderately soft dough, turn on board and knead lightly and thoroughly, using as little flour in the kneading as possible, keeping dough soft. Place in well-greased bowl. Cover and set aside in a warm place, free from draft, to rise about two hours. When light, form into small biscuits, the size of a walnut. Place one inch apart, in shallow pans, well greased. Let rise until double in bulk-about half an hour. Brush with egg and milk, and bake ten minutes in hot oven.
A straightforward enriched dinner roll, of the kind that once got mixed in the morning and baked for the noon meal. Two things need translating: the yeast and the oven.
- Compressed yeastOne cake of compressed (fresh) yeast in a book of this period is about 0.6 oz. Substitute one packet of active dry or instant yeast, 2 1/4 teaspoons. Instant can go straight into the flour; active dry benefits from the five minutes in the sweetened milk the recipe already calls for.
- Hot ovenA "hot oven" here means 425-450F. Ten minutes is right for walnut-sized rolls at that heat; pull them when the tops are glossy brown and the bottoms sound hollow.
- Scalded milkScalding raw milk served as a safety step, and is also said to neutralize a component of milk (usually identified as a whey protein) that weakens gluten. With pasteurized milk it is generally considered unnecessary. Warm the milk to about 100F and proceed.
- LardTwo level tablespoons of lard gives a tender, slightly savoury crumb. Butter works, as the recipe allows, though it browns faster; shortening is the closest neutral stand-in.
- Keep the dough softThis is the hinge. The instruction to use as little flour as possible during kneading is not a throwaway line. Four cups is the outer limit; a sticky dough handled with a bench scraper and lightly oiled hands gives a far lighter roll than one floured into submission.
- Rising timesTwo hours is a guide, not a rule. In a modern room at 70F or warmer, judge by volume rather than the clock and check at 75 minutes. The dough is ready when a floured finger leaves a dent that fills back slowly.
- Egg wash"Brush with egg and milk" means one egg beaten with a tablespoon or two of milk. Apply lightly after the second rise, taking care not to deflate the rolls or let wash pool between them and glue them together.
- YieldWalnut-sized pieces from this dough give roughly 30 to 36 small rolls, enough for eight to ten at table. They stale quickly, as all lean-to-moderate enriched breads do, and are best the day they are baked.
Loose-leaf cook books like this one were sold as a system rather than a volume: printed sheets in a ring or post binder, meant to be shuffled, expanded and interleaved with a cook's own clippings and cards. The recipe itself belongs to the era before packaged dry yeast took over the American kitchen, when a cake of compressed yeast was bought fresh and kept only a few days; recipes accordingly specify "one cake" as if it were as standard a unit as an egg. The dough is a basic sweet-milk roll -- milk, egg, a little fat and sugar -- the same basic mixture behind Parker House rolls, cloverleafs and pan rolls alike, differing mainly in how the risen dough is shaped.