Charlotte Hamrick, at Zouxzoux: Poetry, Prose, Photography, has added a series on writers who bake. And since this recipe’s mine, I’m just vain enough to reblog it.
The site’s well worth exploring.
Pretty Damn Good White Rolls
The rule of internet recipes is that you blither for 500 words before you get to the recipe. Also that you claim it makes the greatest whatever ever. This one doesn’t–someone somewhere has a better recipe using a trick I don’t know–but it will give you rolls with a damn good texture. The trick is to let the yeast get to work before you mix in the salt and to give it plenty of time.
Start the rolls several hours–or better yet the night before–you plan to make the dough.
White Rolls
500 grams bread flour *
2 tsp dry yeast
200 ml water or sourdough starter
1½ tsp salt
Up to 500 ml water
* In American, 500 grams of flour is 3 cups plus 2 Tbsp, or so Lord Google tells me. I bake bilingually, but do not, under any circumstances, trust me…
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Notes from the U.K. 
Yummy. When you started talking about “make a well” I was immediately transported to my grandmother’s directions for making her hot water cornbread.
Sigh. On so many levels.
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Oh, cornbread. I haven’t been able to make a decent batch since we moved here. I can’t explain it, but it’s true. Varying recipes, including a couple that worked well in MN. Disasters.
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My paternal grandmother made cornbread every other day. We either had cornbread cooked in a black skillet in the oven or my personal favorite, the fried hot water cornbread. I am unable to replicate either one and I don’t have any excuse for it. We get cornbread with takeout meals from a local restaurant called Lizard’s Thicket here in Columbia, but it’s not the same. Go figure.
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Fried hot water cornbread? Now that I’ve never heard of–although of course Lord Google has. Not that any of the recipes would be likely to match your grandmother’s. Some things just take a certain touch, I think.
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Fried hot water cornbread, fried pineapple pies, fried chicken, fried okra, fried…well, you get the picture.
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Fried coffee. Deep-fried orange juice. Yup. I do understand.
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It’s the flour. I couln’t do it here either until mom started bringing me the one she buys from village people back home. Now that’s the real thing and it’s yummy each and every time.
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Some things can’t be industrialized. Many of them, I guess.
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I’m confused. Do you tsp not come in grams? I’m American so don’t bother converting to grams for me. Thanks for the tip about waiting to add the salt.
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Recipes here tend to still use teaspoons and tablespoons, although I’ve seen a few that ask for 7 grams of yeast, or something like that. Getting that right depends on your scale being accurate enough to pick up 7 grams.
For whatever the information’s worth (not much, I suspect, but it’s interesting), measuring spoons here are either bigger or smaller than the American ones. By now I’ve forgotten which. I have a few of each, can’t remember which is which, and have given up caring. Nothing I make is so finally tuned that it can’t survive a bit of slippage in one direction or another.
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That’s good. Baking is tricky. Pie crust for example. btw I would be unhappy if I couldn’t make corn bread. Are the ingredients also different?
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I wasn’t happy about it either but discovered that life is possible anyway. The cornmeal is different–ground smoother, I think–but I had a package from the US, so that wasn’t the problem. I wish I knew what was. One recipe didn’t rise. Another, with more baking powder (or possibly soda–it’s been a long time) was bitter (too much baking soda/powder will do that) but it did rise nicely. Some ingredient is clearly different, but I don’t know what it is. Except for baking soda being called bicarbonate of soda, everything has the same names, but something must be formulated differently. Or–well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the accent.
Any theories?
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I think it is the bicarbonate (really? aluminium much?) and you should import baking powder and baking soda from the states.
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Hang on. How did we get to the point where we’re talking about aluminum? Or aluminium. Or am I missing a pun here? How embarrassing if I am.
You could well be right about the raising agents. (I’m too lazy to type them out, which leave me typing this much longer explanation.) Although they don’t give me trouble in any other recipes I’ve imported.
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“you blither for 500 words before getting into recipe”, this line got me 😂😂😂
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Thanks, Priya. I get so impatient with recipes that leave you scrolling through looking for the actual recipe….
My revenge.
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That looks so good. I try so hard to be gluten free as much as possible, but OMG warm fluffy white rolls out of one’s own oven… 😍😍😍
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Gluten-free baking is a tough order. But if you’re not dealing with outright celiac disease, I’m told that slow-rise, homemade bread is a lot easier to digest than the more commercial stuff, which tends to add gluten so they can make it faster.
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I make sth similar. It’s just that I never know how much flour or anything else I add. I’ve learned to feel it in my figers and know when it’s right.
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That’s the sign of a real baker, I think. I have half the feel, but I’m still recipe bound. A friend’s once mother started to give me her pancake recipe. She started with, “You take enough milk for pancakes,” and I had to say, “Edith, it’s not going to work.”
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Sounds like my mom. Now I’m doing the same, except with some cakes like chocolate souffle and alike, when I need to be in control.
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[ ] That’s the sound of me controlling my envy. I’d love to bake that way, but honestly I’m grateful that I can bake at all. There’s something magical about it.
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I’ll show you the all the tricks one day. Actually it’s quite simple.
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I would love it. I’m not sure whether to quote the line from a World War II song (“We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,” even though we’ve never met) or from the Passover Haggadeh (if I’m spelling that right: “Next year in Jerusalem,” not that I want to go to Jerusalem, with all the toxic politics involved there). But I’m reaching for something that says yes, this moment is not humanity’s entire history. May we have a chance for me to take you up on that offer someday.
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Sounds like a great idea to me. I actually met up with a blogger friend in Athens last year and we had so much fun.
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It does.
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Hangs head in shame- I cheat and use a bread machine to make the dough.
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Whatever works.
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Don’t be ashamed. My mom is a wonderful baker, or used to be, and she loved her bread machine, but she would use it as a mixer and first rise, then take it out and separate into tins for the second rise.
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A neighbor of ours does the same thing.
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I will try that for rolls :)
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They’re great (she said modestly).
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