100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Soft Dinner Rolls

Dinner rolls or pieces of bread to accompany dinner go as far back as recorded history. In fact in a lot of countries even today people make some kind of bread to accompany dinner. Dinner rolls can be baked spaced apart from each other or placed next to each other in one pan. The latter is called laadi pav in India and is made famous by Pav Bhaji.

I have two types of dinner rolls in this space. I have the 100 % whole wheat eggless and the 50% whole wheat eggless. Both use commercial yeast. I realized I had not posted this sourdough recipe. I made these as the base for the vegetarian sliders. Though the tops of the buns did not brown visibly the texture was soft with an even crumb.

You will need
You will need for 9 pav
200 gm 80% sourdough starter
400 gm water
40 gm olive oil
660 gm bread flour
16 gm salt

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and form a soft dough. The dough will be a little sticky and wet. Cover and keep aside for half and hour.

Stretch and fold the dough to strengthen it over the next hour. Reach over the far side of the dough, pull it up and fold over the top towards you. Make a quarter and repeat until you have gone all the way around twice. This is one turn. Repeat with two more turns spacing them half an hour apart. The dough will become smooth and elastic by the time you are done. Cover and keep aside for 6 hours. Divide into 9 portions and shape each one as a ball. Place in a parchment covered baking sheet with sides. Cover and keep refrigerated overnight.

The next morning you are ready to bake at any time. Leave the dough in the refrigerator until the oven is preheated and ready. Preheat at 350 F.

Place the baking sheet into the oven straight from the refrigerator. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until cooked and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. These buns will not brown as much. Take them out of the oven and on to a cooling rack for about 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Enjoy!

Cheesy Potato Sourdough Gozleme

Gozleme or the pastry with brown eyes is a delicious Turkish dish. It can be stuffed with a sweet or savory filling. Today I made it with cheesy potato. This recipe is very similar to paratha. The difference being the paratha is rolled out after it is stuffed. Gozleme is rolled out first and then wrapped around the filling.

The thought of using potato and cheddar cheese was really last minute. I was going to make a spinach filling with feta cheese. It would have been authentic for sure. But at the last minute I felt like eating something cheesy so switched to a pirogi type filling instead.

Once I realized what gozleme was I pretty much made up the dough and filling recipes. I knew what consistency and texture of dough I was looking for and pretty much added a little of this and that until I had what I knew would work. That comes with making flat breads almost everyday and stuffed ones on a regular basis. The leavened dough added a little spring to the gozleme. Everyone in the family loved this recipe so this is one more variation of stuffed bread that I can add to my rotation.

Note: the dough does not have to be leavened. If you want to skip the sourdough replace it with another cup of flour.

You will need
For the dough
1 cup sourdough starter (hydration % is not important)
2 cups whole wheat flour (I used chapati flour, a low protein soft flour)
water as needed
1 tbsp. oil

For the filling
1 large potato, boiled
3 tbsp. shredded cheddar cheese (you could substitute any cheese you have on hand)
1/2 tsp. paprika
salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp. butter (optional)

Work in the wheat flour into the starter. Use water if needed to make a soft dough. Using oil on your fingertips knead again and keep aside for about two hours.

Mash the hot boiled potato and add the cheese. Cover and keep aside for 5-10 minutes. Let the cheese melt a little. Add the other ingredients and form a ball. Divide into 6 portions.

Divide the resting dough into 6 portions. Heat a flat griddle pan. Roll one portion of dough to at least an eighth of an inch. Place one portion of filling in the center and spread it into a rectangle.

Fold the opposite sides over the filling.

Repeat for the remaining two sides until you have a neat rectangle. Place it on the hot pan and let it cook until it has brown spots on the side.

Turn it over and cook the other side. Apply a thin layer of butter to both sides and take off heat.

Repeat with the remaining portions of dough.

Enjoy!

Foolproof Sourdough Burger Buns

The challenge this month for Sourdough Surprises was to bake a bun, any kind of bun. I have had a personal challenge baking buns. The last couple of times I tried sourdough buns the shape was all wrong. I figured I had too much liquid and tried to fix that but it did not help. I was a little skeptical about my chances of doing this right.

Then I had a brainwave. I found a sourdough bun recipe and used it to mix the dough. After that I did not follow the recipe. You see, in the last few months I have tried a few bread recipes from Flour water salt yeast written by Ken Forkish. He recommends folding instead of kneading, 5 hour bulk fermentation followed by overnight proofing in the refrigerator. I decided to follow the same steps for the buns as I had done for the bread. I have to say I really like the results. I have to thank sourdough surprises for motivating me to try baking buns again. I have baked these buns twice now with identical results.

The dough was sticky and wet when it was mixed. After the third fold it had a lot of structure and held its shape well. After the bulk fermentation it was fairly easy to handle and shape.

Dividing the dough into identical portions was easy. First I flattened the dough a little into a shape of a circle. I then cut pie shapes out of it to get identical shaped portions. It is much easier to cut a circle than a square or rectangle.

The shaping of the dough used to be a challenge for me until I found two helpful sources. The first is a video on shaping bread and the second is a visual picture guide for shaping dinner rolls. I followed the visual guide to shape the buns and then I followed the video to create surface tension in them by sliding the buns on the work surface.

The shaped buns were covered and refrigerated overnight. Next morning they went from the refrigerator to the oven with a few minutes on the kitchen counter while the oven preheated.

You will need (For 10 buns)
200 gm 80% sourdough starter
365 gm water
80 gm sugar
1 egg yolk
80 gm olive oil
660 gm bread flour
16 gm salt

sesame seeds
egg white from 1 egg

In a bowl combine the starter and water. Mix the sugar, egg yolk and olive oil. Sift the flour and salt. Add it to the wet ingredients. Mix until all the ingredients are blended in, cover and keep aside. In the next hour fold the dough 2-3 times. Bulk ferment for 4 more hours. Lightly flour a work surface and transfer the risen dough on to it. Divide into 10 equal portions. Shape each portion into a bun and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper.

Cover the baking sheet and put it in the refrigerator to proof overnight. Take the baking sheet out of the refrigerator the next morning. Preheat the oven to 375 F while the buns rest on the kitchen counter. Wash the buns with the egg white and sprinkle a few sesame seeds on each one.

Bake for 30-33 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

Cool on a rack and use as needed.