Dinner Rolls with Dark Tops
While a schoolboy in the 1960s-1970s, I was fortunate enough to enjoy the most excellent dinner rolls baked and served ( if you can believe it) by my school cafeteria. I have searched in vain for years for a recipe that produces rolls that resemble those that were mass produced in the school cafeteria, and wondered whether anyone here might suggest a recipe or technique to help me get close to those I so fondly remember. The rolls were yeasty tasting, with a faintly yellow, dense crumb, and a bit sweet tasting. The best part, however, were the soft, dark brown tops, which the cooks managed while keeping the rolls soft throughout, and never tasted overbaked or burned. I'm guessing the browning implies there was some form of sugar in the dough that carmelized on the top, since this didn't appear to be from the rolls being baked hard. I tried contacting the school, and the cooks told me the recipe died with one of the cooks who did the baking, and when meal planning for school kids dropped baked goods. Any suggestions or recipes would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Totally the type of thing I would become obsessed over and btw some of the best food I have had is from school cafeterias (meat pies in primary school and hamburgers in high school - I could go in forever describing each nuance) now however there so many rules that small kitchen recipes are become a thing of the past as big kitchens produce safety foods with no peanuts and gluten. This might be a very hard challenge first off which country did you experience these. It may just boil down to trying to reproduce based off of describing in more depth as you would need to get a hit where someone else here happened to have eaten these around the same time and same place ...
Thank you for replying. It was in southeastern PA. I was always amazed at the quality of the rolls given she was making them for 1000+ students probably every 10 days. I've had rolls with similar taste, but never any that had the rich brown top. It's all just a visual thing, I suppose, but the image is an essential part of the experience for me. I don't have enough experience playing with ingredients to have much confidence in experimenting on my own, so I thought I'd ask more experienced bakers for their thoughts.
Take a look at this thread
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/13907/southern-style-yeast-rolls
personal experience with (cafeteria rolls), but some things that are known to increase the darkness of a crust without over-baking are:
- adding whole eggs, especially egg yolks, to the recipe
- including dairy in the recipe, especially non-fat milk solids, and especially ones designated for baking, or ones that you've scalded after reconstituting
- including sweet dairy whey in the recipe
- adding an egg wash prior to baking, especially one made with egg yolk and cream
I'm thinking that the "School Lunchroom Rolls" from this comment in the previously linked thread (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/comment/85778#comment-85778) would be an ideal starting place, but to include the egg yolk wash. I'd also consider increasing the non-fat dry milk, and scalding it.
Good luck, and keep us posted on what you find!