Soft & Buttery Sourdough Dinner Rolls
Buttery and fluffy homemade sourdough dinner rolls made with active sourdough starter. No stretching and folding, and an overnight rise makes this recipe a breeze!
Yield: 8 rolls
Ingredients
- 195 grams organic bread flour
- 65 grams organic all-purpose flour
- 100 grams active sourdough starter, at peak
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- 115 grams lukewarm milk
- 10 grams honey
- 6 grams fine sea salt
- 45 grams softened unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
- 1 teaspoon (3 grams) Watkins Organic Garlic Powder (optional)
- 1 teaspoons (3 grams) Watkins Organic Rosemary (optional)
- extra butter for brushing
Instructions
- Around 8:30pm, add the flours to the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Add the milk, starter, honey, and egg to a large bowl. Whisk until combined.
- With hook attachment, set mixer on low speed (speed 2 of my Kitchenaid) and pour in the liquid in 3 additions, waiting about 20 seconds before each addition. Increase speed to medium (speed 4 of my Kitchenaid), for 30 seconds. Dough will be somewhat lumpy, but that’s okay.
- Bring together into a ball using your hands, and let dough rest, covered for 30 minutes.
- Adding salt and butter: Turn on mixer to low (speed 2 of my Kitchenaid) and add salt. Then add one piece of butter at a time, waiting until butter is dissolved into dough to add the next. Don’t be worried if your dough still looks a little bumpy and lumpy. It will come together! When all butter is added, turn mixer to medium (speed 4) and mix for 7 minutes. This will strengthen the dough and it will pull away from the sides of the mixer. *If you are adding the dried herbs, do so in the last one minute of mixing.
- Cover the dough with a very damp tea towel and plastic grocery bag if you have, and let rise overnight on the counter in a cool spot, around 65-68 degrees F.
- In the morning around 7am, your dough should look doubled or just short of doubling, and smooth on the top. If not doubled, wait for it to do so. You will now shape the dough, into 8 equal pieces. Lightly flour a clean surface and turn the proofed dough out onto it. Separate the dough into 8 pieces, using a scale to weigh them so that they are nearly equal. Generously grease an 8 or 9 inch round baking pan, with butter.
- Shaping: Take each piece of dough and gently pull each side outwards, then bring together in the middle, and start to roll the dough onto itself, making a ball. Rotate, repeating the motion, until a ball has formed. Pull the dough across the surface to create some tension, and cup the ball with your hands. Using floured hands, use the outer edge of both little fingers to rotate the ball counterclockwise. This will help the roll to form a skin on the outer layer so that it keeps a nice shape when rising and baking. Repeat this until all of the rolls are shaped, placing each roll into the baking dish as you go.
- Cover the rolls with a damp tea towel and set them aside to rise at room temperature for 2ish hours, or until risen another 50%, puffy and light to the poke. The dough balls should be touching other.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brush rolls with milk or egg wash, and when oven is preheated add pan to oven. Bake for 23 to 26 minutes, until rolls are golden brown. Brush generously with about 2 tablespoons of melted butter when rolls are done, and serve warm.
- Best eaten day of making. If you have leftovers, store in a plastic bag on counter. You must warm up the roll in microwave before eating, for 10-12 seconds to soften it.
Notes
You can also time these so that the dough goes through its bulk fermentation during the day, then the rolls are shaped and refrigerated overnight, baked the next day. Here's that schedule:
All times are approximate.
- 1pm: Mix dough.
- Sometime between 7 and 9pm, your dough should have finished its bulk fermentation. Bulk fermentation is finished when the dough has risen about 80%, a bit short of doubling, is smooth on top, and is a bit domed.
- Shape the rolls and place into your greased pan. Cover with shower cap or plastic bag. Let sit on your counter for 30 minutes. Then place in refrigerator.
- The next day, take your rolls out about 3 hours before you want to eat them. They'll need to come to room temperature which takes at least an hour, and then rise a bit so that they are puffy and soft when you touch them. Reference the photos in the post. When they look ready, preheat your oven.
- Brush with milk or egg wash and bake.