Right Buddy Bakes Brötchen

Everyone was home for the holidays, so I decided to make an attempt at baking German brötchen. I found a recipe on YouTube that looked like it was pretty authentic, so I tried to follow it as best I could.

I started at 9 am and the ten rolls were ready to eat by 2 pm. It was quite a five hour process, with several hour wait requirements between steps. If we want them for breakfast or lunch next time, I'm not quite willing to get up at some ungodly hour to start them. However, I think it would not hurt the recipe much and might improve the flavor if I start them the night before and, at the step where you wait an hour for the large ball of dough to rise in the bowl, I put the bowl of dough in the fridge overnight and continue with the remaining steps in the morning. That still leaves about two hours of remaining steps in the morning, but that is a lot better than five!

The texture of the rolls were spot on, chewy and somewhat crispy crusts with soft and doughy innards. However, the taste wasn't quite the same as we remembered them. I don't know if they tasted differently because of the flour, yeast or water I used, or the combination of all three. I used King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour, Fleischmann's bread machine instant yeast (yes, I know this is considered a rapid rise yeast and not an active dry yeast) and Denver city tap water. Don't get me wrong, the rolls tasted fantastic; the four of us managed to devour eight of the ten rolls while they were still warm from the oven, after a filling lunch and everyone requested that I bake them again on New Year's Day. But, since I probably won't be importing those ingredients from Europe, I'll either have to live with what I have or search for another recipe.

I guess we'll just have to go back to Germany to get our fix of authentic brötchen. Hopefully we won't wait another thirty years before making the next trip to Germany!

(RB)