Hi guys! Sorry it’s taken me a while to post another entry! I’m hoping to post couple of recipes this week to make up for it. This recipe for bread rolls isn’t mine, it’s actually a River Cottage recipe. If you’re anything like me, sandwiches are a staple diet, especially at lunch time. I wanted to share this because it’s a great, easy recipe which you can prepare and bake in the morning for the perfect lunch.

Makes 6 rolls

Difficulty: Easy

Prep Time: 2 hrs 30 mins

Bake Time: 15-20 mins

Ingredients

300 ml water (cold)

500g strong white flour

5g yeast

10g salt

35g butter (slightly softened)

First in a large bowl, add water to the flour and mix into a rough dough.

Once this has been done, add the salt, yeast and butter and knead in the bowl to bring all of the ingredients together.

Once that is done, tip the dough onto a clean work surface.

Now we start the second part of the kneading process. When kneading on the surface, hold half the dough back whilst pushing the other half away, roll back and repeat. Initially the dough will seem sticky but as we knead the elasticity of the dough will increase and it won’t be so sticky. I have created a video displaying (as best as I could!) the kneading process. You don’t have to watch it all the way through (It’s a little over 7 minutes) but if you skip through you can see the dough changing as we create more elasticity by kneading. This part of the kneading process should be done for about 5-10 minutes. Also please ignore the initial song in the video, I hadn’t really cottoned on until I watched the video back. The puns are strong within this blog!

I had already started kneading before making this video so my dough doesn’t look as sticky as it initially did. So if you are worried about the stickiness, don’t, it’s absolutely fine! However you can add a little bit of flour if you would like.

Once you’ve kneaded the dough, mould into a ball and place into a lightly greased bowl and cover. Place somewhere warm to prove for about 1 hr – 1 1/2 hrs.

I left my dough to prove for 1 1/2 hours so it should be double its original size. Then I turned it out on to the clean work surface and knocked it back so that it’s ready to shape. First you need to half the dough and then split each half into three. Try to keep each dough ball equal to the others because we want them to cook evenly. If one is bigger than the others just take some of the dough from the bigger one and add small bits to the others.

Now we need to shape the dough balls to make them into rolls. Stamp each dough ball out with your fingers.

Bring in the edges to create a ball.

Flip it over and then using your hand and the work surface, mould it into a ball.

I have made a second video to show this process as it’s hard to describe in words.

As you may have noticed I have not floured my work surface at all during this whole process and it is key if you do flour your work surface, to use very little flour during this process as you won’t get the traction you need to shape these dough balls.

Once you have shaped all of the dough balls, place them on a greased baking tray leaving a little room between them for room to rise. I used a baking sheet (which I greased) on top of my tray but this is not necessary.

Then generously flour them. It’s also important to flour around them to stop the rolls from sticking as they rise and expand.

After flouring we must leave them for another 30 minutes in a warm place to rise. Five minutes before they are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 210C, 425F , gas mark 7. Once times up, place them in the oven for around 15-20 minutes (check after 15). Once baked they should be lovely and golden on top and should produce a hollow sound when you tap the bottom.

Leave to cool a little and then serve however you wish! When you break into the bread it should be light a fluffy.

And there you have it, simple bread rolls to make the perfect sandwiches, accompany some soup or just to be enjoyed with butter. So incredibly easy, cheap and most importantly… tasty!