Kaiser Rolls

For my birthday last year, I got Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" and have been meaning to make my way through the book. I unpacked it the other day and thought I'd give some of the recipes a spin.

I made these kaiser rolls yesterday. My first try at sandwich rolls. The recipe was kind of what I expected, but it did call for pate fermentee, something I'd never heard of before. It sounded a little intimidating, but it wasn't. Pate fermentee is, essentially, a bit of bread dough made ahead of time. It rises once at room temperature, then sits in the refrigerator overnight. The dough, then cut into bits, is added to the regular kaiser roll dough to give it a more mature, "aged" flavor.

I cheated and only let the pate fermentee sit for two hours (the recipe said I could, so I don't really feel that bad about it). Then I made the kaiser dough, let that rise for two hours (a lot of fermenting going on in this recipe!) and rolled the dough in balls.

I lost the sun before I could take pictures of the rolls cut and ready to pop into the oven (they proof for another hour and a half after the dough is ready to shape into rolls), but, I can assure you, these were well worth the wait! Next time, I'll plan better and let the pate fermentee mature. The rolls are really, really good now (BF did the happy dance when he ate one!). I suspect letting the first dough reach full maturity will give them that extra push over the cliff! (A Spinal Tap reference there). These are definitely an "eleven."

Cheers!--Janyce