I tried to make German style breakfast rolls for brunch tomorrow. To put it nicely, I fucked them up. The key ingredient to failure in this case was covering the rolls with cling wrap on their second rise after shaping. The cling wrap pretty much mangled all of them. Beyond that, I don’t know how to correctly shape this kind of roll, while trying to create a steam bath for a nice shiny crust I sprayed the sides of my oven with a squirt bottle, this dislodged flakes of black stuff which is now embeded in the crust of the bread, I forgot to do the egg wash, and to top it all off I forgot to add salt, so they taste like shit too!

This is a comparison, the one on the right is closer but still not quite right.

Recipe

Brotchen (German Breakfast Rolls)

2 1/2 – 3 cups flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 package active dry yeast
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup warm water
1 egg white

Pour 2 1/2 cups flour into a large bowl and make a well. Pour yeast, sugar, and two tablespoons of warm water (the water comes from the 1 cup listed above) in the well. Mix yeast, sugar and water carefully within the well. Do not mix with the flour at this time. Cover the bowl with a cloth and set it in a warm place for 15 minutes. Add the remaining water and oil and beat until mixed.

Turn out on counter top and knead until smooth. Add the remaining 1/2 cup flour as needed. Put dough in a bowl, cover, and let it rise until double in size.

Punch down and divide the dough into 12 parts. Shape into oval rolls and place 3 inches apart on a greased and floured cookie sheet. Cover and let rise until double in size.

Beat egg white and 1 teaspoon water with a fork until frothy and brush on the rolls. Bake in a preheated oven at 450 for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.

Source: “Authentic German Home Style Recipes” by Gini Youngkrantz

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More info: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%B6tchen

Pretty… pretty shitty.

I already twittered about my tuscan bread failure so this is a little late. Over the weekend I made my first loaf of bread. I followed the recipe in Bread Bakers Apprentice (Google has the full recipe). I made a paste. Let it sit over night. The next day I mixed up the yeast, water, flour etc. Let the machine knead the life out of the dough. Then I let it rise (ferment). Punched it down. Let it rise some more. I rolled it out into two boules. Then Rachel and I had to run out to dinner so I decided to let it proof in the fridge over night. I don’t know where I went wrong (probably using AP flour for a recipe that said bread flour). End result the bread tasted kind of yeasty and bland and really just didn’t have the right texture. At least it looks like bread though.

To be continued…