Recipe Notes: Hoagie Rolls

9 January 2019

Recipe from Bread Illustrated, America's Test Kitchen, 2016, p. 155.

After making roast beef with jus, then eating the roast beef, I was left with a bowl of jus in the refrigerator. The thing to do, in my mind, with beef jus is to have French dip sandwiches. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try this recipe for sandwich rolls from Bread Illustrated. I was reasonably certain these rolls would be good for French dip sandwiches, but how would they be with PB&J?

The dough is enriched by the addition of vegetable oil, egg, and sugar. The dry ingredients—bread flour, yeast, and salt—were whisked together. In a measuring cup the water, oil, egg, and sugar were whisked together. Using the dough hook on a stand mixer, the water mixture was slowly added to the dry ingredients then kneaded for about 8 minutes. The slightly sticky dough then rose until doubled in volume. It was shaped into 8 loaves using a technique that is apparently similar to what is used to make baguettes. Given a past experience trying to make hot dog buns this was the step I was most worried about, but it worked out okay and I was reasonably happy with the shape of the loaves. In retrospect I wish I had weighed the dough to portion it. The sticky dough was not too hard to handle with the addition of bench flour. Total time from start to taking the finished loaves from the oven was about 3¼ hours.

This is a good recipe and worth using again. The same ingredients are also used in a Bread Illustrated  recipe for Kaiser rolls so I will have to try those, too. The bread is chewy with good flavor. The crumb holds up very well to roast beef and jus and makes a very nice French dip sandwich. It keeps well in the freezer and makes a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich, too.