These rustic rolls have a thin crispy outer crust with a soft, pillowy and chewy interior. If you've never worked with Poolish, it's a pre-ferment bread similar to sourdough, but without having to maintain the sourdough starter.
Poolish is a portion of the bread, yeast and flour combined and fermented overnight to develop deep flavors and great digestive enzymes.
Poolish Ingredients:
500 Grams Bread Flour
500 Grams Lukewarm Water 80F to 90F
1/8th Teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
Remaining Ingredients:
100 Grams Bread Flour
400 Grams All Purpose Flour
250 Grams Water 100F to 110F
Remaining yeast from packet
Poolish
Tools:
Large bowls
Towels
Ceramic or Steel Pizza Stone*
Lava Rocks and pan*
Dutch Oven*
*Using a dutch oven to create the steam is fine, but since we are working with four rolls, this will make it more time consuming.
*Lava rocks in a pan are used to create steam during the baking process. You can spray the oven with water if you choose not to use the lava rocks to create steam, but the rocks will do a better job. You can find lava rocks on amazon.
Step 1: Create the Poolish
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients for the poolish and mix until combined. This will be a sticky shaggy dough. Cover with a damp towel and store in a warm place for eight to twenty-four hours. I recommend twenty-four hours if you can since the longer you let it ferment, the more flavor you'll get.
Step 2: Start the dough
Combine the poolish and all remaining ingredients. Combine by hand, pinching and squeezing the dough until everything is will incorporated. If you don't like using your hands, you can use a wooden spoon or a stand mixer, but if you use a stand mixer, only mix until everything is combined. You don't want to kneed this. Cover with a damp towel and let sit for thirty minutes.
Step 3: Stretch and Fold
After sitting for thirty minutes, you're going to begin a series of three stretch and folds. You can watch my video to see how to stretch and fold, but what you're doing is grabbing an edge of the dough, pulling/stretching it upwards then folding it over itself to the other side. You'll do this with every edge until you have a round-ish shape. One set every thirty minutes. After the final stretch and fold, let the dough sit for around two to three hours or doubled in size; this will largely depend on the temperature in your home. If you keep it colder, it will take longer to rise.
Step 4: Shaping
Once the dough is ready, lightly punch it down to knock out some of the air. Dump the dough onto a very lightly floured surface. You don't want too much flour because once we divide the dough, we want a dryer surface to create tension.
Divide the dough into four even pieces. Sprinkle the top of each dough lightly with flour and stretch into a rectangle-ish shape. Start by folding the bottom part of the dough in to the center. Fold the left side into the center and repeat with the right side. Fold the top side into the center and then tightly roll it downward into itself.
Using both hands, primarily focusing on your pinkies, you will surround the dough and drag it towards yourself while slightly rotating it as you drag. Keep doing this until you have a nice clean seem underneath. Repeat this for each dough piece.
Line a banneton or bowl with a tea towel. Sprinkle the towel with flour as well as the top of the dough and place the dough topside down into the bowl. Sprinkle the bottom dough as well then fold the towel lightly over and let rise for one hour. While it's rising, place the lava rocks into a pan, place in the oven and preheat the oven to 475F. We want this oven to heat for an hour before baking.
Step 4: Baking
You can score the tops of the rolls if you like, but I found it didn't make a huge different in how the bread rose.
Using Pizza Stone:
Place rolls on the stone. You may need to do two rounds of baking depending on the size of your stone. Be sure not to crowd the stone. Pour a cup of ice cubes in the pan with the lava rocks and bake for around 25 minutes or until you get a deep brown color. You'll know the rolls are ready when you knock on the bottom of the roll and it sounds hollow.
Using Dutch Oven:
Place roll in dutch oven and cover. After fifteen minutes, remove lid and continue baking for around ten to fifteen minutes or until you reach a deep brown color.
Allow rolls to cool for half an hour before eating.
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