Half Hand-made Bread Rolls.

Using our fairly basic bread machine, we've been baking a nice dumpy little loaf of wholemeal bread every week for the past couple of years or so, for our church homegroup. We meet at Helen and Mike's house and before we pray or worship or bible study, we all sit down together to catch up round the table over a wonderful soup or stew cooked by Helen, with our donation of the bread.

A larger loaf than usual,which
decided to create this excellent
shape. We've had smooth, dumpy
little loaves and hedgehoggish
craggy ones. Always fun to see
what will emerge from the
machine. 

Other than that we don't eat a lot of bread, or use our machine at all. We really wanted to use it to make some dough and then shape it ourselves to bake in our oven. Some bread machines have a dough setting that stops at the dough-shaping stage automatically, but alas, ours does not.

A few weeks ago though, Andy decided he could figure out from the machine's whirrings and silences when it had finished all the mixings and kneadings and was ready to be shaped. So he set a timer and checked it regularly and was able to extract the lovely squidgy dough at just the right moment.

I particularly wanted to make tiny little wholemeal rolls to go with a soup starter for a very small dinner party I was hosting for my best friend's 30th birthday party. 

Rachael, Ally and Jodie enjoying thoop. 

Ally is vegetarian so I had planned a nice little menu that she would love, avoiding her most hated foods; mushrooms, anything sloppy, anything creamy, 'slimy' potatoes, aubergines and actually quite a lot of other quite innocently nice foods. After countless meals I have now cooked for Ally, I have a massive list of no nos to keep her tummy happy. 




Very pleasingly, the dough worked out beautifully. It was lovely to work with and I shaped each little lump into a funny mushroom, pulling the dough smooth and tight across the top and tucking the ends underneath. It proved well, in the gently warmed grill above the oven I was already using. I baked the rolls at 180C for ten minutes and they came out lightly browned, very tearable, cushiony soft inside, with a goldened bottom and hollow tap.


They were so cute, especially as they were just for the starter, with a little bowl of homemade roasted tomato and garlic soup. I finally had a reason to use my tiniest rosebud plates, that are the size of a coaster! 

The rolls worked out so well we decided we would do it again soon, and just a couple of weeks later Andy suggested doing white ones.

One warm Sunday we decided to do a lazy bbq indoors to eat outside. Andy wanted to try making hand-shaped hot-dog rolls and burger baps, so during the afternoon he got the dough started in the machine. 


If you'd like the recipes, the amounts are at the bottom of this post, but the length of times for mixing and heating will differ depending on the make and model of your bread machine. We're not quite sure how long ours does each bit for, so it might be best to just use the recipes that come with your machine. Or you could let it mix for a while with a dough hook in a stand mixer. It's all worth experimenting with. 

This time we baked them at a higher temperature, being bigger rolls, and we wanted a slightly crisper top. They went in at 210C for ten minutes and came out perfectly cooked. 

They tasted so wonderful, really yeasty, just salty enough, and not too sweet. White and fluffy inside, and deeply golden on top. The hot dog rolls were so soft, just perfect for cocooning a great sausage with mayo and tomato chutney. 

The burger baps were ideal for holding everything in; the perfect width for our burgers and yummy packaging for everything that should go into a burger, except we didn't have any lettuce. So we had smoked bacon, melted Vintage cheddar, sliced warm tomatoes, mayo, tomato and onion relish, and of course a first class beef burger.


We're not really fans of seedy tops or floury coatings, so ours were completely plain, but you can add the extras if you feel like it. We're pretty set with these now. Not sure we'll ever be buying burger baps or hot dog rolls again unless we're desperate!

White
(Put the ingredients in in this order, without mixing.)
Makes a medium 750g loaf, about 6-8 large burger baps, 8-10 hot dog rolls or approx 30 tiny rolls.

260g water (same as 260ml if you are measuring instead of weighing.)
4 tsp olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar
1.5 tbsp dried milk powder
500g strong white flour
1 and 3/4 tsp dried fast action yeast


For the wholemeal loaf, use exactly the same quantities, just substitute the white four for Stoneground Wholemeal Flour.