Crusty white breakfast rolls, bakery-style
Ten rolls from a simple wheat dough, kneaded long and shaped into taut balls, baked in a very hot oven with steam. The steam gives a thin, crackling crust; the long kneading, a fluffy crumb. With poppy seeds, sesame or plain.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Kneading 15 min
- Rising 60 min
- Shaping 15 min
- Rising 40 min
- Baking 18 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneKnead the dough
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water with the sugar. Pour into the flour and salt, mix and knead 8 minutes with dough hooks or 12 by hand. Add the butter and knead another 4 minutes, until smooth, elastic and stretchable into a thin membrane without tearing.
Ingredients: 500 g strong bread flour · 300 ml water · 15 g fresh yeast · 1 tsp sugar · 1½ tsp salt · 30 g butter
TipThe windowpane test: a piece of dough stretched between your fingers should be translucent like paper, not tear. If it tears, keep kneading.
A translucent windowpane, no tearsFirst rise
Shape the dough into a ball, put it in a bowl, cover and leave 60 minutes somewhere warm, until doubled.
Doubled, a smooth domeDivide and round
Knock back and divide into 10 equal pieces of about 85 g, ideally on a scale. Round each: fold the edges to the centre, turn seam down and roll under a cupped hand on the counter in circles until the skin tightens. A taut ball rises up, not out.
Roll under the hand until the skin tightensTopping and second rise
Set the balls on a lined tray 5 cm apart. Brush with water, dip some in poppy seeds, some in sesame. Cover and leave 40 minutes. Meanwhile heat the oven to 220 °C with an empty tray on the bottom shelf.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp poppy seeds · 2 tbsp sesame seeds
Water, poppy, sesame, then risingSlash and bake with steam
Slash the risen rolls with a razor in a cross or a single line, 5 mm deep. Put them in the oven, pour a cup of boiling water onto the bottom tray, close the door. Bake 16–18 minutes, until golden and hollow-sounding underneath.
TipSteam for the first 10 minutes is the secret of a thin, crackling crust. Without it the crust is thick and dull.
Steam below, 220 °C, golden in 18 minutesCool and eat
Cool on a rack 15 minutes. Best the same day; the next day sprinkle with water and refresh 5 minutes at 200 °C. They freeze perfectly.
Warm, with butter
Before you start
Tonight for tomorrow
Cut the yeast to 10 g. Cover the shaped rolls on the tray with film and refrigerate overnight. In the morning straight from the fridge into the hot oven, 2 minutes longer.
With milk
Swap the water for milk: softer, less crusty rolls, like butter rolls. No steam needed then.
Flat rolls
Balls not taut enough, or the second rise too long. Shape tighter and bake when they have grown by half, not doubled.
