Buttermilk Pretzel Rolls

Baking books can be dangerous for me. Dangerous in that I’m tempted to bake my way through them, marking more pages than I leave unmarked and wanting to start multiple recipes at the same time. Little Flower Baking was definitely in this category. It’s the latest from Christine Moore of LA’s Little Flower Cafe, and I received a review copy. The style of baking here is familiar and comforting with a few surprising flavors and twists. The scones include versions like Peach Ricotta, Plum Ginger, Strawberry Basil, and Curry Pineapple. I was dizzy from the pies, fruit-filled tarts, layer cakes and simpler cakes, muffins, vegan and gluten-free options, and then came the cookies chapter. I absolutely have to try the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies made with two different types of dough that get smooshed together to form each cookie. And, the Chai Sugar Cookies and White Chocolate Chai Cookies have my complete attention as well. I actually went straight to the kitchen when I saw the Pink Peppercorn Hibiscus Shortbread and made these lovely wedges cut from a round that was topped with a mix of sanding sugar and ground dried hibiscus flowers. They were so pretty with the sparkling, red-pink sugar on top. I haven’t even started telling you about the Savories chapter yet. The Savory Muffins each have a whole egg baked into them and cheddar melted on top, and the Potato Tart looks delicious with the slices circling the top and baked until golden. But my weakness for all things pretzel could not be overcome when I saw the Buttermilk Pretzel Rolls. 

This was the puffiest, funnest dough to work with, quite possibly, that I’ve ever encountered. At first, I worried that the amount of yeast in the recipe was a typo because two tablespoons for this quantity of dough seemed like a lot, but the result was just as it should be. The dough was made with the yeast, buttermilk, vegetable oil, water, bread flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and salt. There’s not enough sugar for the dough to be truly sweet, but there is a hint of sweetness and the sugar adds to the browning of the rolls. The dough was mixed in a stand mixer for almost 20 minutes until smooth. It is a sticky dough that requires a bowl scraper to transfer it to an oiled bowl to rise. It was left to rest for about an hour. Now, in addition to the pretzel roll recipe in the book, there’s also a pretzel dog recipe. It’s kind of like a pig in blanket with pretzel dough criss-crossed around a hot dog. I had to try a few of those too. I divided the dough to make several plain rolls, and then I used some remaining dough to blanket little chicken breakfast sausages for mini chicks in blankets. There’s one of those in the photo below. For the rolls, the dough was portioned, rolled into six-inch long pieces, and then knotted into a round shape. Both the rolls and chicks in blankets were then poached in boiling water mixed with baking soda and brown sugar. After a few seconds of poaching, the rolls were placed on baking sheets, brushed with vegetable oil, and sprinkled with extra coarse salt. They were baked for about 24 minutes total. 

The rolls emerged from the oven a deep, golden, pretzel-brown, and the texture was delightfully tender. And, the chicks in blankets? They couldn’t have been more fun to dip into grainy mustard before biting into the salt-topped blankets. I may need to step away from the kitchen before every surface is covered with scones and cookies, but I’ll be back to bake more from this book soon. 

Buttermilk Pretzel Rolls 
Recipe reprinted with publisher's permission from Little Flower Baking.
 
The aroma of soft pretzels and roasting chestnuts from a street cart in New York City meant a great day at Central Park or a museum visit. Memories from childhood are so powerful and comforting. Making these pretzel rolls every day in the cafe keeps those memories alive. 

Makes 16 

Dough 
2 tablespoons (18g) active dry yeast 
1 1⁄2 cups (333g) warm water, 95 to 110 degrees F 
1⁄2 cup + 2 tablespoons (140g) buttermilk 
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon grapeseed oil 
5 cups (600g) bread flour, plus more for dusting 
1⁄3 cup (71g) golden brown sugar, packed 
2 teaspoons granulated sugar 
1 tablespoon sea salt 
1⁄2 cup (100g) grapeseed oil, plus more to coat bowl 
3 tablespoons pretzel salt or coarse sea salt 

Poaching Liquid 
6 tablespoons (108g) baking soda 
1 cup (213g) golden brown sugar, packed 
3 cups (666g) water 

Place yeast and warm water in a small bowl and whisk until yeast dissolves. Set aside until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add buttermilk and oil. Set wet mixture aside. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine flour, sugars, and salt on lowest speed for 15 seconds. Add wet mixture all at once and mix on lowest speed until dough is smooth and tacky, 15 to 20 minutes. 

Lightly coat a medium bowl with grapeseed oil. Transfer dough to the oiled bowl. Flip the dough so it is coated with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. 

Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper and brush paper with oil. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. 

Divide dough into 16 even portions, each about the size of a tennis ball. Roll each portion into a 6- to 7-inch rope. Tie each rope into a simple knot. Set pretzel rolls onto the sheet pans. 

Preheat oven to 375°. To make poaching liquid, combine baking soda, brown sugar, and water in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil. 

Set up a small bowl with 1⁄2 cup grapeseed oil, a pastry brush, and a small bowl of pretzel salt. 

Once poaching liquid foams, begin poaching. Use a slotted or perforated spoon to submerge 3 pretzel rolls for 8 seconds. Remove from saucepan and place onto sheet pan, leaving at least 1 1⁄2 inches of space between each roll. Brush each roll with oil and sprinkle with a pinch of pretzel salt. Continue to poach the remaining pretzel rolls in same manner. 

Bake poached pretzel rolls until golden, about 12 minutes. Rotate pan and continue baking until darker golden brown, about 12 more minutes. 

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Benne-Buttermilk Rolls

“I believe that both professional chefs and home cooks can move their cuisine forward by understanding the past and knowing where their food comes from. I hope that my experiences will move more people to research their heritage and find inspiration from the food and traditions they grew up with.” In a nutshell, that’s what Sean Brock’s new book Heritage is about, and I received a review copy. He finds inspiration in the foods from southwest Virginia where he was born as well as those from the South Carolina Lowcountry where he has lived and worked more recently. He writes: “Cook as if every day you were cooking for your grandmother. If your grandmother is still alive, cook with her as much as possible, and write everything down.” The book includes dishes from his restaurants, Husk and McCrady’s, as well as family favorites like some of his grandmother’s recipes. It offers an interesting spectrum from simple, comforting options like Chicken Simply Roasted in a Skillet to Grouper with Pan-Roasted and Pickled Butternut Squash, Nasturtium Jus, and Hazelnuts. But, regardless of the level of difficulty, each dish is part of a story about a local producer or a discovery in the garden or a traditional technique. I want to try the Grilled Chicken Wings with Burnt-Scallion Barbeque Sauce and the Husk BBQ Sauce that’s used to make it and the Cornmeal-Dusted Snapper with Bread-and-Butter Courgettes and Red Pepper Butter Sauce. There are also great-looking vegetable dishes like the Beet and Strawberry Salad with Sorrel and Rhubarb Vinaigrette as well as recipes for pickles, jams, and sauces. In the desserts chapter, the Buttermilk Pie with Cornmeal Crust keeps catching my eye. But, I couldn’t get through the chapter about grains without trying the Benne-Buttermilk Rolls. 

After reading Dan Barber’s The Third Plate, I was informed about what Glenn Roberts and his company Anson Mills are doing to preserve or rediscover heirloom grains. In Heritage, he’s mentioned regarding his work with the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation and his preservation of other antebellum crops. I previously knew that benne is another name for sesame seeds. What I didn’t know was that older varieties of West African benne have a slightly different flavor than our contemporary sesame seeds. I ordered some of these traditional benne seeds and two varieties of bread flour from Anson Mills for these rolls. The rolls are made with bread flour and all-purpose flour, and the Ble Marquis flour from Anson Mills is suggested for the all-purpose. That one is currently only available for wholesale purchases, so I ordered two different varieties of bread flour instead. I used a little of the red fife whole wheat bread flour in addition to white bread flour which is an “organic new crop 18th-century style heirloom wheat French Mediterranean, hand bolted” flour. To start, a paste was made with sugar, local honey, and salt. The bread flour and some all-purpose flour were added to the paste. Fresh yeast was called for in the recipe, but it isn’t easy to find here so I used active dried yeast instead. Two teaspoons of dried yeast was substituted for the quarter cup of fresh yeast. The yeast was mixed with buttermilk and added to the flour mixture. The dough was stirred together and then kneaded before being left to rise for an hour. It was punched down and folded and left to rise for an additional 45 minutes. Then, the rolls were formed and placed in a cast-iron skillet. I used a larger skillet than the nine-inch size suggest, so mine fit more than half the rolls. I baked the remaining rolls in a smaller baking dish. The rolls were left to rise for a couple of hours, and then were brushed with an egg wash and sprinkled with fleur de sel and benne seeds before baking. 

These little rolls were tender and nutty tasting, and they’re fun to pull apart from the skillet. The benne seeds taste like amped up sesame seeds. The flavor is more pronounced with a little bitterness that makes them get noticed. The flours added more subtle flavor of toasty wheat, and I look forward to baking more things with them. This book has been an inspiration to preserve, to keep traditions alive, and to maybe make a few jars of pickles before the fall vegetables disappear for the winter.

Benne-Buttermilk Rolls 
Excerpted with publisher's permission from Heritage by Sean Brock (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2014. 
Makes 44 rolls 

I could eat my weight in these tasty little rolls. We serve them every day at Husk. They are the first things that hit the table when guests arrive, so they have to be special. Bread should make everyone feel comfortable before a meal starts, whether it’s in a restaurant or at home. I like the food at Husk to tell a story, so we make these using Blé Marquis flour, which is a specialty wheat flour from Anson Mills. I want our guests to taste how older varieties of wheat pack so much more flavor. You can substitute all-purpose flour, if you must. A sprinkling of crunchy salt and benne seeds at the end makes the rolls irresistible. 

1/4 cup sugar 
1/4 cup local honey 
1 teaspoon kosher salt 
3 cups all-purpose bread flour 
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, preferably Ble Marquis flour 
1/4 cup crumbled fresh yeast 
2 cups whole-milk buttermilk 
1 large egg 
1 tablespoon water 
2 tablespoons Anson Mills Antebellum Benne Seeds 
Fleur de sel 

1. Make a paste with the sugar, honey, and salt in a large bowl. Add both the flours and stir them in with a wooden spoon. In a small bowl, mix the yeast with the buttermilk, then add this to the flour mixture all at once and stir in. 

2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it until smooth, 5 to 6 minutes. 

3. Lightly spray a large bowl with a nonstick spray and place the dough in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and put it in a warm place. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in size, about 1 hour. 

4. Remove the towel and gently punch the dough down. Cover the bowl again with the kitchen towel and let the dough rise again until doubled in size, about 45 minutes. 

5. Spray two round 9-inch cast-iron skillets with nonstick spray. Portion the dough into 1-ounce rolls: divide the dough in half and then in half again, and divide each portion into 11 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and carefully place 22 rolls in each pan; they should fit snugly. Cover the pans lightly with kitchen towels, put them in a warm place, and let the rolls rise until they have doubled in size, about 2 hours. 

6. About 20 minutes before the rolls have finished rising, preheat the oven to 400°F. 

7. Whisk together the egg and water to make an egg wash. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the tops of the rolls with the wash. Sprinkle the rolls with the benne seeds and lightly with fleur de sel. Bake the rolls for about 25 minutes, rotating the pans once halfway through. Test the rolls using a thermometer: the internal temperature should read 195°F. Cool the rolls in the pans on a rack. 

8. The rolls are best served as soon as they have cooled, but they can be kept covered in the pans for up to 1 day and reheated in a 350°F oven for 10 minutes. 

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Hot Cross Buns

This year, for a sweet breakfast bread for Easter, I turned to tradition, sort of. I had made hot cross buns once before, but that first time I didn’t choose well among recipes. That was a few years ago when I set out to make proper hot cross buns as they were originally intended to be made. The dough wasn’t particularly sweet or rich; there weren’t very many currants in the buns; and the flavor and texture were lacking in every way. What I learned was that the cross on each bun was traditionally made by piping a simple flour paste on top which baked into a white cross shape. Eventually, that white cross on each bun came to be embellished with icing after the buns baked and cooled. I learned something, but I didn’t especially enjoy those traditional buns. This time, I followed a new-fangled recipe from the Bouchon Bakery book. This dough was very rich, with plenty of sweetness, and it was filled with both currants and dried cranberries. The buns were brushed with egg wash before the final rising and again before going into the oven, and that produced glossy, browned tops. The white cross on these buns was made with a very thick icing flavored with cinnamon and cardamom. They were as delightful as I expected them to be considering the source. 

Like all the recipes in this book, the one for the brioche dough for these buns is very precise. There’s a page devoted to brioche with four variations one of which is brioche for hot cross buns. In the ingredient list, you’ll find 186 grams or one-half cup plus three and a half tablespoons of eggs and 167 grams or 5.8 ounces of butter. I broke eggs into a measuring pitcher and determined that three of the size of eggs I had that day was close enough, and just under eight tablespoons of butter is pretty much 5.8 ounces. Weighing flour, yeast, sugar, and salt and measuring milk was easy enough. The rich brioche was made in a stand mixer, and the recipe suggests a rather long mixing time for the ingredients before the butter was added. I left the machine turning until it really seemed like it had been quite long enough, and then I started adding pieces of butter. I was sure there was more butter than dough, but eventually, it was all incorporated. Dried currants and cranberries were plumped in boiling water for a few minutes before being drained and dried, and then they were spread into a layer on the dough which had been stretched into a rectangle. The dough was folded up and around the dried fruit, and it was placed in a bowl to rise for 45 minutes. The stretching and folding of the dough was repeated, and it was placed back in the bowl for another 45 minutes. After the second rise, the dough was divided into twelve rolls which were placed on a baking sheet, brushed with egg wash, covered with plastic wrap, and left to rise for an hour. Rich, buttery dough like this does need lots of time to rise. Before baking, the buns were brushed with egg wash again. They baked for about 30 minutes and were left to cool. The icing was made with confectioners’ sugar, a bit of cinnamon and cardamom, and just a dribble or two of milk. Thick stripes were piped across the buns. 

I snickered a little at the precision of the recipe, but I can't argue with the results. Unlike my first foray into hot cross buns, this is a version I’ll make again. And, I’ll happily, meticulously measure my eggs and butter for lots of other things from this book too. 

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