Instructions
Ingredients
DOUGH
- 1 cup ripe (fed) sourdough starter
- 3 1/2 cups Artisan Bread Flour or King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 2 tablespoons non-diastatic malt powder or 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 to 1 1/8 cups lukewarm water
- 1 teaspoon instant yeast
TOPPING
- 1 tablespoon non-diastatic malt powder or brown sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon warm water
- Everything Bagel Topping, or your favorite blend of seeds and seasonings
Procedure
- Weigh your flour; you’ll find its weight by toggling to “ounces” at the top of the ingredient section above. Or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess.
- Combine all the dough ingredients and mix and knead them together — by hand, mixer or bread machine — to make a somewhat tacky, elastic dough; it should be relatively smooth and soft.
- Allow the dough to rise, covered, until almost doubled, about 60 to 90 minutes.
- Gently deflate the dough on a lightly floured work surface, divide it into eight equal pieces, and shape the pieces into tight balls.
- Place the balls in a lightly-greased large Dutch oven or other oven-safe, lidded pan; we recommend our Emile Henry crown bread pan.
- Cover the rolls with the pan’s lid, and let them rise for about 1 hour until they're puffy but not necessarily doubled in size.
- About 30 minutes into the rise, preheat the oven to 500°F.
- Just before baking, whisk together the malt powder and water and brush it onto the risen rolls.
- Sprinkle the Everything Bagel Topping onto the rolls and cover the pan with its lid.
- Put the rolls into the oven, reduce the temperature to 450°, and bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes.
- Remove the lid from the pan and continue to bake the rolls about 5 minutes longer, until they’re a deep golden brown and a digital thermometer inserted into the center of one reads at least 205°F.
- Remove the rolls from the oven and cool them on a rack. Alternatively, for crustier rolls, open the oven door and allow the uncovered rolls to cool in the turned-off, open-door oven.
- Store leftover rolls in plastic at room temperature for up to three days. Freeze the rolls, wrapped airtight, for up to three months.