The Fresh Loaf

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Has Anyone Heard of the Elusive Club Roll?

TastefulLee's picture
TastefulLee

Has Anyone Heard of the Elusive Club Roll?

Hi. I am dealing with a dilemma and wanted to know if anyone could help. I’ll do my best to describe the recipe I am looking for and hope that anyone will even know what I’m talking about!

My family loves sandwiches on a certain type of long roll we purchase locally. The name of the bakery is DeFilippi’s and it’s in Middletown, NY. They sell this particular sub style roll called a ‘club roll’. It’s a long, rectangular shaped roll that’s apparently is specific to this region or maybe even to the bakery itself, because I’ve found precious little with that name on the internet, and even on the rare occasion I find info  on something called a ‘club roll’, the description and photo ultimately look and sound nothing like what I’m seeking.

This bread is about 6-7 inches in length, and is almost a perfect rectangular shape. They come connected to each other from the oven- the girl behind the counter has to pull them apart and put them in the bins. These rolls have a very thin, crisp crust and a fluffy, spongy, light as air interior. They make delicious hoagies and fantastic meatball/chicken or eggplant parm subs.

I would love to be able to duplicate them at home and wondered if anyone had heard of such a delicacy and had any idea how to make them. Any advice/suggestions/recipes are warmly and gratefully welcomed. Thanks - Lisa

dwfender's picture
dwfender

They are a regional thing. I grew up working in NY deli's and most all of them have club rolls. Probably something similar to : 

 

 

I have a recipe you can try for them. I've never baked it myself but the recipe book is solid. It is from the French Culinary Institute's bread program. The type of bread I'm thinking would be pretty good is baguettebrotchen. Its an enriched bread...if you bake, let me know I'm curious as to how this recipe works out. I'm going to give you everything in baker's percentages. If you need help converting let me know.

Bread Flour          95
Rye Flour               5
Water                    63
Malt Syrup              2
Butter                      2
Salt                          2
Yeast                       1

The receipe has the following guidelines but does not provide instructions.

Desired dough temperature is 75F
Intensive Mix
Bulk Fermentation: 1 Hour, No Fold.
Divide to 60 gram pieces. Preshape round. Bench rest 10-15 minutes.
Final Shape can be round or batard.
Final Proof 1 to 1.5 hours.
Bake at 450, batard rolls for 20 minutes; round for 22 minutes.  

Just for your notes...

Intensive mix means you mix on low for 2-3 minutes and then pick the speed up to medium until the gluten is developed. Should be around 5 minutes. This will help create a smaller crumb, similar to a sandwich loaf. 


This is a low percentage of butter so I am assuming that you can add it to the rest of the ingredients at room temperature and mix away. Generally I would add fat after the gluten has begun to develop, probably wont matter in this instance.

60 gram pieces may be a little small for the shape you are looking for. I'm thinking 90-125g would be a decent sandwich sized loaf. 

Good Luck!

 

dwcoleman's picture
dwcoleman

Thanks dwfender, I'm going to try this out tonight too.  I want a copy of your FCI textbook :)

I scaled a small batch for myself, I'll save you the work Lee.

570g bread flour

30g rye flour

378g water

12g malt syrup(I'll be using malt powder at a 1:1 ratio, may need to adjust water slightly)

12g butter

12g salt

6g instant yeast(assuming it's instant given the timing involved)

1020g total dough, scales to 17 rolls @ 60g, or 8.5 rolls @ 120g

 

dwfender's picture
dwfender

Did you bake? 

Check your PM 

TastefulLee's picture
TastefulLee

Between work, my son's marathon baseball game, an hour round-trip to pick up a freezer, and dinner on the way home I didn't even walk in the door until 9 pm. I'm thinking tomorrow (my day off).

In the meantime I have to confess that, as a novice bread baker of less than a year's experience I'm intimidated by the baker's percentages and the somewhat vague instructions. Don't get me wrong - I TRULY APPRECIATE your kind suggestion and that you went over and above by providing a recipe--I just dont' know if I can do it without details.

However--I am reminded that the worst loaf I ever made was consumed gratefully by my family, and the best way to figure it out is to GET BAKING - so with that in mind I may just buck up my courage and GO FOR IT!!! Thanks again!

CaseyM's picture
CaseyM

Thank you dwfender and dwcoleman!  I've been looking for a good all-purpose subroll to no avail.  I baked a double batch of these rolls on Tuesday (using the measurements from dwcoleman, but at 128g/roll).  We used them for meatball subs.  Everyone loved them.  The few leftover worked great as a dipping roll for vegetable soup.  Next weekend I'm going to do a test freeze/thaw and try a few other shapes (dinner rolls and a round club roll).  I've added them to my weekly bake list.

Casey

dwcoleman's picture
dwcoleman

Baked it but I was in a hurry so my shaping was awful, I forgot to score the tops, and I bagged them when they were a bit too warm.

Despite all of those problems they tasted great last night and this morning.  I'll take a picture tonight if my wife/kids don't eat them all.

TastefulLee's picture
TastefulLee

did you bake the rolls pictured, dwfender? They look so beautiful - just what I am looking for! Lisa

dwfender's picture
dwfender

No, unfortunatelly I didnt! Although Maybe I'll try out the recipe this coming week. 

Did anyone end up baking the recipe? 

dwfender's picture
dwfender

so I finally got around to baking the recipe I posted at the heros came out pretty great. They had a very neutral flavor. A slight tang a very slight depth from the rye flour. The texture was absolutely perfected for sandwich bread. Not overly chewy but it definitely held its own. I just made a nice italian hero and it was a great vessel. Highly recommend the recipe. 

 

I made an 8 loaf batch at 165g per loaf and they came out to about an 8-9 inch samich loaf. Because of the size of the dough I didn't want to use my mixer to bring it together so I did everything by hand. I "autolysed" but I added the yeast to give the flour as much of a chance to develop the flavor. After the gluten was developed I added the butter and mixed by hand. it came together in about 10-12 minutes of kneading. The dough was quite supple and very easy to work with. 

 

dwfender's picture
dwfender

I forgot to mention...The dough tasted salty. I would cut back slightly. I put in 16.5 grams and would bring it down to 13. That drops the salt down to somewhere around 1.75%