I often hear people talk about how much they love bread and how bad it is for them. I find this strange because bread has been a staple of working families for centuries and has been considered the foundation of a healthy western diet. However the nature of bread has changed to increase production, reduce price and increase shelf life bread. Homemade bread did not need preservatives, and does not have to be processed to the point where the ‘dough’ can be passed through pipes. Homemade bread and factory bread are different products all together.
I was looking for a sandwich roll, to me the perfect sandwich roll is crusty on the outside and very light on the inside. In my search I came across a recipe for a Mexican Teleras. I have made this recipe a few times and have made some alterations. I have cut the batch down to make it fit into a standard Kitchen Aid Mixer, traded lard for butter, used whole white flour and cut back on the salt.
No while white flour was not a typo, it is a produce produced by Speerville Flour Mill http://www.speervilleflourmill.ca/ in Speerville New Brunswick. This Atlantic Canadian (thus local for me) mill produces a nice variety of high quality flours. They describe their whole white flour as follows:
” Whole White Flour: Exclusive to Speerville Mill! This Whole White Flour is a little darker in
colour than commercial unbleached fl ours because it is 85% of the original wheat kernel
and still contains wheat germ so is also more nutritious. This is a good fl our to use for any
baking and cooking.
This flour is an ideal replacement for bleached white flour in most baking applications. It makes your baked goods more nutritious and filling without making it heavy. Please check out Speerville products if you are in an area lucky enough to carry them.
If you don’t think you can bake your own bread this is a great recipe to try. I believe that using some useful kitchen toys we can cook a lot of food that we have been told by marketers are to burdensome to bother with. This is a great example. I have scaled this recipe to use only a KitchenAid Mixer and though the total time is close to three hours, your hands on time is about only a half hour of that total, including cleanup.
Crusty Sandwich Rolls
Ingredients
2 ¼ tsp of dry active yeast
1.5 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1.5 Cups warm water (110 degrees)
4 ½ Cups Whole White Flour (you can use White Flour)
3 Tbsp butter at room temperature
1 Egg White for an egg wash
Step 1: Proof the Yeast
Place the warm water into the steel bowl of your mixer. Sprinkle the sugar and yeast over the surface and leave it for about 5 to 10 minutes until it turns foamy. This activates the yeast which is what will make your bread rise and be light and fluffy. If it does not proof your yeast is dead. Buy new yeast and start again.
Step 2: Make the Sponge
This is a step that is not as common now as it used to be and it is what will lead to a light texture on these rolls. Add 2 cups of flour to the bowl and attaching the whisk attachment to your mixer whisk the mixture for about 2 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Remove and rinse the whisk attachment (I’m a guy so I tried the let the mixture dry on your whisk method .. sucks for clean up) Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and sit in a warm dry place for about 45 minutes. The sponge will be bubbly and double in size. It might take as long as an hour in a cool house.
Step 3: Make the Dough
Cut the butter into little cubes and add into the sponge, sprinkle in salt and ¼ cup of flour. Add the paddle attachment to your mixer and on low speed (ladies will get this, guys you don’t want a flour cloud, trust me low speed, I did the high speed experiment for all of us). As the flour gets incorporated add the flour ¼ cup at a time until the dough wraps around the paddle and stops sticking to the side of the bowl. At this point change over to the dough hook.
With the dough hook attachment in place turn on the mixer on low speed and add another ¼ cup of flour. When this flour is incorporate turn up the speed one notch and allow it to kneed for 4 to 5 min. The dough will be shiny and elastic. Again rinse the dough hook and paddle.
Remove the dough from the hook and place in the mixing bowl, spray with no stick spray and flip the dough coating in oil. Cover and let sit for about an hour until doubled in size.
Step 4: Shape the Rolls
Gently deflate the dough, it is called punching down but this is not an aggressive process. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide into about a dozen 3 oz pieces. A kitchen scale will help you get similar sized rolls. Press each piece of dough into a flat 3 inch square and roll up corner to corner. This will form a nice cylindrical roll. Don’t worry if the shape is not perfect, I suck at this part and the rolls still taste good.
Place on a baking sheet if possible on a silicon mat (I love these things), best use for silicon yet!! Place a little slice along the top of each roll and allow to rise for about an hour, again until doubled in size. (Preheat the oven to 425 degrees)
Step 5: Bake
Before placing in the oven brush the top of each roll with beaten egg whites to help develop the crust. Place into a preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. (If you have 2 trays in switch bottom to top and top to bottom after 10 min.) After 10 minutes brush again with egg wash, reduce the temp to 350 (the crust has developed) and bake for another 10 to 15 min.
When removed from the oven place the rolls on a wire cooling rack right away. You don’t want the bottom of the rolls to get soft by cooling on the baking sheet.
Step 6: Enjoy
Tim's Kitchen Table 
Thank you! Found you while googling “crusty sandwich roll recipe”… I enjoyed reading your manly musings on bread, and I’m keen to try this one out. Great post 🙂