Rustic Dinner Rolls

By RoketJSquerl

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon water, room temperature
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast, or 2 teaspoons active-dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 16 1/2 ounces bread flour, plus extra for dusting
• 3 tablespoons whole wheat flour (about 1 ounce)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Details

Servings 16
Adapted from abreadaday.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Whisk water, yeast, and honey in bowl of stand mixer until well combined, making sure no honey sticks to bottom of bowl. Add flours and mix on low speed with dough hook until a rough dough is formed, about 3 minutes. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature 30 minutes.

2. Remove plastic wrap and evenly sprinkle salt over dough. Knead on low speed for 5 minutes. If dough creeps up attachment, stop mixer and scrape. Increase speed to medium and continue to knead until dough is smooth and slightly tacky, about 1 minute. If dough is very sticky, add 1 to 2 tablespoons flour and continue mixing 1 minute. Transfer dough to a lightly-oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

3. Fold dough over itself in bowl, rotate bowl one quarter turn, and fold again. Rotate bowl again, and fold once more. Re-cover with plastic wrap and let rise 30 minutes. Repeat folding procedure, replace plastic wrap, and let dough rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes more. Oil two 9-inch round cake pans and set aside.

4. Transfer dough to floured work surface, sprinkle top with more flour. Cut dough in half with a bench scraper or knife, and gently stretch each half into 16-inch cylinders. Divide each cylinder into 8 pieces (you should have 16 pieces total), and dust top of each piece with more flour. With floured hands, gently pick up each piece and roll in palms to coat with flour, shaking off excess, and place 8 in each prepared pan, cut sides up. Loosely cover cake pans with plastic wrap and let rolls rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes (dough is ready when it springs back slowly when pressed lightly with finger). Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

5. Remove plastic wrap from cake pans, spray rolls lightly with water, and place in oven. Bake 10 minutes until tops of rolls are brown; remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees. Using kitchen towels or oven mitts, invert rolls from both cake pans onto rimmed baking sheet. When rolls are cool enough to handle, turn right-side up, pull apart, and space evenly on baking sheet. Continue to bake until rolls develop deep golden brown crust and sound hollow when tapped on bottom, 10 to 15 minutes; rotating baking sheet halfway through baking time. Transfer rolls to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.

Notes:
1. Make sure you turn your oven on at least 30 minutes before baking, to make sure it’s properly hot.