June 28, 2008 - 9:17am
problems with rolls
Hi there, I'm a little frustrated. My rolls went out small, hard and dense again. Made from pr basic sourdough bread the boule (from the same batch of dough) is great, has good oven spring and a light interior. The rolls are dense as my rolls are always. Unfortunately I happen to like rolls better than bread and it really bothers me I never get them right. What do I have to take care of? Any help on what distinguishes roll making and proofing from bread making would make me extremly happy!!!
Thanks in advance!
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Sannimiti,
There are a few things that can account for the difference between rolls and loaves made from the same dough. Sometimes people end up overworking them, degassing them too much and making them tough in the process. This video deals with that issue: http://thebackhomebakery.com/Tutorials/Rolls.html
Another cause might be they were underproofed- it's much more difficult to overproof rolls, so you might want to add more time (30 min.+ ) to your proofing. Because of the extended time, it's important that they proof in a covered environment (humid is even better) so they don't get dried out.
Lastly, if you can afford the time and oven space, I sometimes cook them at a higher temperature than the loaves (+25 degrees) so they gain color before they get overcooked.
Softer doughs (sweet breads) don't have as many issues as hearty (sourdough) breads.
-Mark
http://thebackhomebakery.com
Mark,
It's good to hear from you. Hope all is going well with your "launch". Just made your sticky buns yesterday and they came out great. Best of luck with your bakery.
Howard - St. Augustine, FL
Hi Sanni.
Maybe if you layed out the process you use for these rolls in as much detail as you can, it would be easier to comment, for the gurus around here. ;) :) I'm thinking the more details you offer the better advice you are likely to get.
Rudy
It's very easy to underproof rolls. They should look quite puffy before you put them in to bake.
because i really feel this weekend's brought me a big step in the right direction and that's due to your help. They did look a little underproofed to me but I'm always so scared of overproofing things and loose oven spring that I put them in anyway. I was also wondering how the first fermentation could take only 2 hrs. and they've been rising 4 hours and not be okay yet. But I didn't know rolls take longer to proove than loaves...anyone know why that's the case? Simply less bulk=less yeast? Another thing I need to do is - just guesswork - keep my doughs drier. Seems living in a seaside area and not having high gluten flour affects the amount of liquid much more than I thought. Usually I need only about half the water given in the recipe. But that gives you something to work with and really motivates me to fix the problems. Anyway, before I get too much in psychologies here I better stop.
sannimiti commented:
You got some good roll advice, but your comment, above, concerns me.
There are differences between living at high and low altitudes, and differences between wet and dry areas. I used to live in Beaumont, Texas where a dry day was 85% humidity, less than 10 miles from the Gulf Coast. Then I moved to Gunnison, CO at 7,700 feet above sea level where 30% relative humidity was a wet day. So, I've been to the extremes and back.
I haven't seen you here before, so I don't know how experienced a baker. If what I'm about to say is old news, I hope you'll smile and say, "well, I'm sure that will help someone else."
I am concerned when you say you use 1/2 the water the recipe calls for. There are lots of things that could explain that, but I don't think altitude and humidity are the issue. By weight, I adjust the amount of flour by around 5% and the yeast by about 30% o adjust between the extremes.
There are two usual reasons why I see such a wide variation between what is in cookbooks and what a baker does.
The first is the inconsistency of the flour cup. A few years back some people in one of the usenet baking newsgroups were talking about how useless cups are for measuring flour. The people with both scales and cups were asked to measure a few cups of all purpose flour. The range of weights was from less than 100 to more than 200 grams. The less than 100 crowd sifted their flour twice, spooned it into a cup, then leveled the cup with a straight edge. The over 200 crowd used a cup measure to scoop flour out of the sack, compressing it, and then not leveling their cup. Worse, the scoopers had a 25% cup to cup variation. The flour companies tell you a cup should weigh about 120 grams. You get there by sifting the flour once, using a spoon or scoop to fill the cup without compacting the flour, and then leveling the cup with a straight edge such as the side of a knife.
A cup of water is quite consistent. Water doesn't compress or compact. A cup is a cup within a few grams.
If you and the recipe author have different ideas about how to fill a cup, the result could be using a lot less water than they do to make dough. I tend to use all the water the recipe calls for and adjust the flour as needed when facing recipes in cookbooks.
The next question we face is how a baker thinks dough should look and feel When I was starting out, I was convinced that when I was done kneading the dough should be as smooth as satin, that it should feel like a baby's bottom, and that it shouldn't be sticky or tacky. Somewhere along the years, someone told me that biscuit dough should feel like "a young woman's breast.'
I've made many, many thousands of loaves since. None have been as smooth as satin. None have felt like any human body part I remember touching. (If any young - but of legal age - women in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area would like to help me with a scientific baking experiment to improve my baking skills, please drop me a note off-line.)
In all those many thousands of loaves, the ones that had been developed to the point of being non-sticky were the ones that didn't rise too well. Beatrice Ojakangas summed it up when she said, "Dough would rather be a little too wet than a little too dry." Wetter dough rises well (up to a point), drier dough tends to not rise well. I shoot for dough that is tacky rather than sticky, dough that would rather stick to itself than to the work table or my hands.
I'll make the same suggestions I make to all beginning bakers. There are four tools that help a beginning baker learn about their craft very quickly. I don't know which is most important. They are a notebook (which can be in a computer rather than a paper and pen notebook) to track your progress. When you make a batch of bread, make notes. So you'll remember that the last time you made this you thought maybe you should do this instead of that next time.
An oven thermometer. Many oven thermostats are off. Significantly. A reasonable oven thermometer will cost you less than $5 at most grocery stores.
A chef's thermometer so you can see how done your bread is in a consistent and repeatable way. Depending on the bread and where I am, I shoot for an internal temperature of between 185 and 205F.
A good set of kitchen scales. Many of the inconsistencies bakers experience go away when they weigh ingredients. I've talked to frustrated bakers who wanted to make a wetter dough and used less flour. Only to find that the dough was drier. Even though they'd used fewer cups of flour. And vice versa. This all but goes away when you weigh. Yes, there are differences between flours, but these differences are very, very small compared to the errors introduced by cups. Scales are a great tool to aid learning how dough should feel. If I tell you to use 4 cups of flour, I know I mean 480 grams. However, I don't know if you'll use 400, 480 or 800 grams. If I tell you to use 480 grams, I know that if you know how to use scales, you'll get it right. Every time. The hardest thing to learn as a new baker is what dough should feel like. It's easy to teach in a hands on class. Students make dough, they feel it change as it develops. The instructor feels the dough and says things like, "more water" "more flour" or "it's on track, but you need to knead it some more." Your hands learn what the dough should feel like. It doesn't come through the printed page well. However, if you follow a recipe that uses 200 grams of this and 300 grams of that and so on, you will be very close to what the author had intended.
You can get a number of good scales for less than $40 . I like the My Weigh brand, others like Salter. Look for a set of scales that can weigh up to 12 pounds or so, is accurate within a couple of grams, has a tare function and a nice big platform so you can put a mixing bowl on it.
Hope this helps,
Mike
...i found your advice very helpful. some things i do, e.g. i always weigh and my scale is allright. i have quite some practice, baking bread ( learned from crust&crumb and bba) for about 7 years now, lots of trial and error as well...still the moisture of the dough is what really makes me curious. i've read that your climate influences the moisture of the flour many times so thanks for clearing that up! i always keep in mind that a dough should be err on the wet side but this is something you'd have to see in my mixing bowl i guess, lots of the times when i use the amount of water given in the recipe it looks like pancake batter...i've also tried using the autolyse method but it didn't really make a difference. anyway, with the great help here i'm sure I'll be able to fix that problem as well!
goodday, sanni
Sanni,
Thanks for your post. Glad to be helpful. Re; working with slack or wet dough. One thing that works well for me when working with high hydration/wet doughs is to lightly wet your counter on the area where you will be dumping your dough for your "stretch and fold" and also dip you hands into a bowl of water before working with the dough. The water on your hands helps keep the dough from sticking to your hands. I think you will find using the water on counter and hands will help a great deal with handling the dough.
And yes, wetter is better. You can always add a bit more flour and knead it into the dough to tighten up the dough a bit...but I have found adding water into an already kneaded ball of dough is very difficult and creates a major problem and mess.
Best of luck in your baking adventures,
Howard - St. Augustine, FL
...just wanted to thank you for your great site. i spend almost all of yesterday "there", watching the stretch and fold videos and out of an impuls i decided to knead completely by hand. usually i've got quite some elbow grease but i'm a little sick so i felt powerless but because you mentioned the s&f also works for people with arm problems i decided to try. used your flax seed bread bcs i had quite some sourdough leftover and a couple almost used up packages of flax and sunflower seeds.what can i say? it worked awesome. especially the trick with the dough scraper. i don't own one but i used my dough knife, it's a bit tricky but practice will do that i suppose. i made two loaves the other batch into rolls and the rolls where BEAUTIFUL!!! light and fluffy and tasty and all. reading all your input (from all of you) i decided not to be scared to overrise them and they came out just great! thank you thank you thank you, your site and videos are so helpful.
can absolutely recommend them for anybody who doesn't have an idea what stretch and fold really is.
goodday from a happy german baker!
Ho Sannimiti,
Thanks for the kind words and follup! I sure wish you could post some pictures of the rolls!
Mike
...to handle the camera's program i would. suppose i'm better with plants and bread than with technics:-) still it bothers me and was going to ask a computer-junkie colleague of mine tomorrow anyway.
If you still encounter problems, check to make sure that they are not drying out and forming a crust in the final proof stage. I had some do that once, and they oven sprang down -- in other words, they poofed up in the oven like they were mushrooms, while the crusted over tops just rode along. Very odd looking rolls -- almost pointed on the bottoms. Now I am very careful to make sure they have a damp covering over them while they proof, to prevent a crust from forming.
Mary