Buttermilk Cluster Rolls - Revisited

I made Michael Ruhlman's Buttermilk Cluster Rolls back in February 2010. This is a standard recipe in our household now and I thought I'd share the few modifications I have made to the original recipe.

Instead of baking it inside a cake pan to make that gorgeous looking cluster roll, for practicality's sake, I bake it inside an IKEA bullar loaf tin (27.5 cm x 8.5 cm x 6 cm), and make a few small buns on the side with the leftover dough. If you have a bigger bread loaf tin, you can make bigger balls of dough and bake everything in one go. Some modifications have been made in the recipe because buttermilk is difficult to obtain and expensive in Spain. I use a mixture of yogurt and whole milk.

This is Ronny's sandwich bread these days and he likes to melt Gouda or Cheddar cheese on it, but I love to have it with a generous slathering of marmalade made from bitter oranges from Seville (Mermelada de Naranja Amarga, Angel Camacho Alimentacion, S.L.).

Here's the modified recipe.

Yogurt & Milk Loaf with Blue Poppy Seeds - Adapted from Michael Ruhlman's Recipe

Ingredients

800g AP Flour

125 g Yogurt

445 g Whole Milk

5.5 g Dry Yeast

1 Tbsp Spanish Sea Salt

2 Tbsp Honey (I use Miel Multifloral de Galicia)

Butter (for greasing the tin)

Coarse Corn Flour (for sprinkling in the tin and on the oven paper)

1 Egg

1 Tsp Blue Poppy Seeds

Step 1: In a big mixing bowl, combine the flour (saving maybe 1/2 cup for the kneading), yeast and salt and give it a few whisks to make sure it is well-blended.

Step 2: Add the yogurt, milk and honey and mix and mix it until it's blended enough and you can move it to a floured kitchen surface.

Step 3: Use the remaining flour and knead the dough until smooth and resilient for about 10 minutes, gradually incorporating all of the flour.

Step 4: Put it back in the bowl and cover it with a tea towel. Let it rest for around 2 hours.

Step 5: Butter the bread loaf tin and sprinkle with coarse corn flour.

Step 5: Once the dough has risen, punch it down and knead it well releasing all the gases and then make 4 balls weighing around 300g each (the size of my fist aka the size of a 12 year old boy's fist) and put them into bread tin like you would when making a Brioche.

Step 6: Roll the remaining dough into small balls (100g x 4) and put them on oven paper that has been sprinkled with coarse corn flour.

Step 7: Cover both with tea towels and let them rise for 60 minutes.

Step 8: Beat the egg until it's a uniform smooth yellow.

Step 8: Preheat your oven to 190C (375F) and when the bread has risen, brush the surface of the loaf with the egg wash, sprinkle some blue poppy seeds on top and bake for 30 minutes, then cover with aluminum foil if the top is very brown and bake for another 10 minutes (Total Baking Time: 40 minutes).

Step 9: After removing the baked loaf from the oven, slide in the buns and bake these for 15 -20 minutes or until they are nice and brown on top.

Further Notes: My bread often cracks on top or on the sides and although this doesn't bother me I know it might bother some of you. I found this note on which is helpful.

Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

I have really been slacking off here. This is mainly due to financial constraints. It's kind of difficult to experiment with interesting ingredients when your household budget says: -3000 euros for January. Never mind 'interesting'. Even buying a few extra chocolate bars makes me cringe, so basically it's just been too restrictive to bake or cook anything that would be good enough for posting. Anyhow, now you know why I've been kind of quiet.

Well, today I was browsing through my Facebook page when I saw David Lebovitz post a link to a recipe for Buttermilk Dinner Rolls by Michael Ruhlman. I decided to give it a go even though I didn't have buttermilk and had to substitute it with a mixture of milk and yogurt. Packets of yeast are 5.5 grams, not 7 grams here and I used 1 packet. I didn't have a thermometer either, so I had use my baking instincts to know when it was ready. I baked mine for 40 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven. Other than this, I pretty much followed the recipe to a tee.

Anyway, here it is. I measured all my ingredients on the scale as stipulated in the recipe, but there is more flour in this as I kneaded the dough on a counter with flour on it. I don't have mechanical kitchen aids so I really do have to do everything with my own two hands. If I make this again I'm going to withhold putting in flour during the first stage and try to use the leftover stuff to knead the dough on the counter.

Taste wise I can't complain. I thought there was a lot of flavor. There was just the right hint of sweet and salty and the texture was a bit doughy, but I won't really count that as a negative. Some people like their bread better if it's a bit doughy, like my sister for instance. Poppy seeds complimented the rolls perfectly. I supposed white sesame seeds or nigella seeds would work, but I really loved it with poppy seeds.

In other words, I have to say that this recipe works out fine.

By the way, my electricity bill for December/January was horrendous. It has been a cold winter, but I probably have been baking way too much!