Olive Oil Rolls

If you've ever been to the far east you'll know people tend to like their breads light and fluffy as opposed to the hard-crusted loaves favoured by westerners. I like a bit of both. There are occasions where only one will do. Crusty bread has its deserved spot next to a nice warm bowl of soup. Most HK restaurants serve butter rolls with soup and as nice as they are they can never beat a crusty roll in my eyes. It's all about the contrast of textures...

Today I have are recipe for a olive oil roll. I like browsing through Japanese websites to find recipes and this is adapted from a recipe I found on Cookpad. Cookpad is a website where users submit their own recipes and other users can in turn upload photos of how their dishes/baked goods turn out. It's a clever idea of filtering out the bad recipes. As this is a Japanese-inspired bread it is of course a soft textured bread - great for a lunch roll (or for dunking in soup if that is your preference).

This recipe makes 10 medium sized rolls.
Ingredients:
540g white bread flour
60g rye bread flour
350ml warm water
50g soft brown sugar
12g fast action dried yeast
6g salt
60ml olive oil (I've used a light olive oil but obviously you can use extra virgin if you want a much stronger taste)
1 egg, for glazing

Method:

1. Put all ingredients, except the egg, into a bowl and combine.
2. Knead for about 10mins until the dough is smooth and elastic. The dough is wetter than previous recipes I've posted but it will form into a nice ball eventually so be patient.
3. Leave to rise until doubled in size.
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and divide the dough into 10 balls. You may need a good dusting of flour when shaping each roll as the dough is very soft.
5. Leave to prove until doubled in size.
6. Lightly beat the egg and brush a thin coating over each roll.
7. Bake in a 220C/200C fan oven for 20mins.

The egg glaze gives the rolls an extra glossy sheen, like its been hit by a spotlight.

-Aubergine