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Brown Rolls
Mrs. Melancthon Starr.
One quart Graham flour, milk enough to make a stiff batter, one-third cup of yeast, and mix over night; in the morning add two eggs, one large tablespoon of sugar, one-fourth teaspoon of soda, piece of butter half the size of an egg, and a little salt; put in cups, and let stand twenty minutes before baking.
A sponge-and-batter roll rather than a kneaded dough, so the hinge is consistency: a "stiff batter" should be thick enough to hold a spoon upright but still drop from it, not a dough you could shape by hand. The original gives no oven temperature and no yield, so both need filling in.
- One quart of Graham flourFlour was measured by volume: a quart is 4 cups, roughly 1 lb 2 oz of whole wheat. Graham flour is coarsely ground whole wheat including the bran and germ; modern stone-ground whole wheat is the closest match, and standard whole wheat flour works with a slightly wetter batter.
- One-third cup of yeastA measure of this size points to a liquid yeast — homemade potato or hop barm, or brewer's barm — rather than a compressed cake. Substitute about 1 teaspoon of instant yeast, and add back roughly a third of a cup of the milk to make up the lost liquid.
- The overnight spongeMixed with milk and left in a cool room, this ferments slowly and turns faintly sour. In a warm modern kitchen it will over-ferment; set it in the coolest part of the house or at around 60F, or refrigerate it after a couple of hours at room temperature.
- Why the sodaThe quarter teaspoon of soda in the morning is there to neutralise the acid the sponge developed overnight, not to leaven. Keep it small — more will give a soapy taste and a grey crumb.
- Butter half the size of an eggAbout 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons. Soften it rather than melting it hot into the batter, which would slacken the eggs.
- Put in cupsGem pans, muffin tins, or individual custard cups, greased and filled about two-thirds. Batter rolls of this kind rise up rather than out and need the support of the sides.
- Twenty minutes standingTwenty minutes assumes a sponge already lively from an all-night ferment and a warm kitchen near the range. Judge by the batter: it should look visibly puffed and domed, which may take 30 to 45 minutes.
- OvenNone is given. A hot oven, 400 to 425F, for 20 to 25 minutes suits an eggy whole-wheat batter; the rolls are done when the tops are firm and a skewer comes out clean.
- YieldA quart of flour makes a large batch: expect somewhere between a dozen and eighteen standard muffin-sized rolls. They are best the day they are baked and go dry quickly, as whole-wheat batter breads do.
Graham flour takes its name from Sylvester Graham, the American temperance and dietary reformer of the 1830s and 40s who preached coarse unsifted wheat meal against the fine white flour of commercial bakers; by the time this book was compiled, "Graham" had settled into ordinary household vocabulary as a name for whole-wheat flour and for the plainer, more wholesome end of the bread table. The method here belongs to a time when packaged yeast was not yet the norm in most kitchens: a third of a cup of liquid barm kept alive at home, a sponge set at bedtime, and a pinch of soda in the morning to correct whatever sourness the night produced. The attribution to Mrs. Melancthon Starr is characteristic of the compiled community cookbook, in which recipes circulated under the name of the woman who vouched for them.