I've been looking for a decent recipe to make sub rolls, which in my opinion should be crisp or slightly crunchy on the outside and very chewy on the inside. This is in response to the lack of decent sub rolls in supermarkets and retail bakeries. The scratch recipe I provide next is excellent, but I have also figured out a lazy man's trick to have a very nice sub roll without 95% of the labor of making the scratch recipe. I provide the lazy man's variation at the end of this make it from scratch recipe. Be sure to check that out.
The recipe below is one I found on the Internet and have modified considerably ... specifically to use gluten flour to make the dough extra chewy, and steam from adding water to a very hot cast iron skillet to make certain the crust of the rolls comes out crisp/slightly crunchy. I also doubled the amount of sea salt.
Note that this recipe is similar to that for French bread in ingredients. Also for results. The difference is in loaf size. Think of four perfect loaves, each 12" long and 3" wide.
Looking at the recipe picture you will notice I used a curved, perforated, non-stick steel baking tray with curved indents for making four sub rolls ... or using more ingredients, four larger loaves of French bread. I purchased that baking tray via Amazon®. Actually, I got two trays for $16.49. What a fine purchase!
You can use instead a flat baking sheet covered with parchment paper. The loaves/rolls may spread out more in width, which is okay for bread but is not recommended for sub rolls.
Below I show the weight of bread flour per cup to be used in this recipe, as well as the total volume in cups. Different types of flour weigh different amounts per cup, and the density of the flour when you put it into a one cup container may vary (loose or packed). For these reasons the only way to be truly accurate in the amount of flour you use is to have a kitchen scale and weigh the flour. Thus, bread flour weighs 5.5 ounces per cup, all purpose flour weighs 5.0 ounces per cup, gluten flour weighs 4.0 ounces per cup, and cake flour weighs 4.5 ounces per cup. Note that the given weights per cup for all but the gluten flour come from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's excellent food science book, The Food Lab©.
Here is one additional very important learning from developing this recipe ... if you wrap a completed sub in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for two to three hours the rich combination of scents and flavors of the different ingredients merge/mix to create a super tasting and smelling sub. I was pleasantly surprised by that change of practice from the normal practice of eating a sub immediately when it is made. Now I understand why patience is a virtue!
Ingredients: (makes four 12" long 3" wide sub rolls)
4 cups of King Arthur® bread flour (one cup of bread flour equals 5.5 ounces by weight. It is more accurate to measure the flour by weight instead of volume.)
1/2 cup of gluten flour (2 ounces by weight)
2 tsp. of sea salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. of active dry bread yeast (not instant yeast)
1/2 tsp. of sugar
2 cups of warm (110 degrees F) water (if your tap water is treated chemically then use bottled water)
1 extra large or jumbo egg whisked with 1 tsp. of water
1/3 cup of raw sesame seeds
1/2 cup of water for steaming the dough in the oven
Directions:
Turn the oven on to a proofing cycle (100 degrees F). If your oven lacks a proofing cycle you can let the dough rise in a warm area of the kitchen, but for roughly twice the amount of recommended rising time shown below.
Line a flat baking sheet without raised sides with parchment paper. Alternatively, use a special perforated curved loaf type steel nonstick baking sheet with four loaf positions instead of the baking sheet with parchment paper.
Put two cups of water and the 1/2 tsp. of sugar into a one quart Pyrex® measuring container. Heat the water in the microwave oven for about 30 seconds, until the temperature is 110 degrees F (use an instant read thermometer). Delay using the water if it is hotter than 110 degrees F or you will likely kill the yeast. Simply stir the water/sugar mixture and wait for a minute or two until the temperature drops to 110 degrees F.
Add the yeast to the water/sugar mixture and stir until all of the yeast is moistened/mixed in. Let the yeast proof for 10 minutes. It should be noticeably foamy. If not it is bad yeast or the water you used was too hot.
Combine 3 cups of the bread flour (16.5 ounces by weight) and the 1/2 cup of the gluten flour (2.0 ounces by weight) and the salt in a large electric mixer bowl. Mix briefly on low speed to combine those ingredients.
Pour the yeast and water mixture into the flour and salt mixture and mix using the electric mixer on low to medium speed until the ingredients are combined.
The dough should look shaggy at this point. Add the final cup of bread flour (5.5 ounces by weight) and mix on medium speed for a minute or two until the dough begins to be less sticky and more smooth. You may need to use a soft spatula to get all the flour from the inside surface of the bowl to mix into the dough.
Use a dough hook with the electric mixer and knead the dough on medium speed for about three to four minutes.
Divide the dough into four parts on a lightly floured wood cutting board. A pastry cutter is a great tool to use for that task. Roll each part with a rolling pin into a rectangle, about 6″ x 10″. Use flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin.
Tightly roll up each rectangle with light squeezing to form a 10" long log. Pinch the seam closed along the length and also on the ends of the log, then place each log onto the parchment paper covered baking sheet, seam-side down with 1 1/2" spacing between the rolls. Or, simply put each log into the center of a curved loaf baking sheet position, seam-side down.
Cover the four sub rolls loosely with a damp (moist but not wet) dish towel and place the baking sheet into the proofing oven (or on a warm kitchen counter).
Set a timer for 30 minutes if you are using a proofing oven. Otherwise let the dough rise for 45 to 60 minutes, until it is doubled in volume.
Remove the baking sheet with the raised rolls from the oven, and remove the damp dish towel from the rolls, then set the oven temperature to 425 degrees F.
Place a cast iron skillet on the lowest oven shelf. Be sure to have flat baking stones (about 12" by 20" total area) on a higher shelf.
Brush the tops of the raised unbaked sub rolls lightly with the whisked egg wash, then sprinkle them generously with the raw sesame seeds.
Gently place only the sub rolls on the parchment paper into the oven onto the baking stones when the oven is completely preheated (Allow an extra five minutes of heating after the oven indicates a temperature of 425 degrees F to assure the cast iron skillet and the baking stones have heated to that temperature). You can slide the parchment paper and rolls together from the baking sheet onto the stones surface if you have used a baking sheet without raised sides.
Alternatively, simply place the curved baking sheet with the four sub rolls onto the hot stones surface. Note that you really want to buy this device. It works beautifully for handling the raised dough and keeping the rolls exactly 3" wide during baking.
Pour the 1/2 cup of water for steaming into the hot cast iron skillet. Then close the oven.
Bake the rolls at 425° for 20 minutes, or until the tops are browned and crusty.
Remove the rolls from the oven. Either lift out the curved baking tray or slide the parchment paper and sub rolls from the hot stone surface onto a flat baking sheet, holding on to a corner of the parchment paper to slide it and the rolls on to the baking sheet.
Allow the rolls to cool on a counter or cutting board for 20 to 30 minutes. Then use the rolls to make the subs, for wrapping and storing the rolls will result later in having a softer crust.
Note: The best way to prepare the roll when making a sub is to cut out long strips of the bread to create pockets to hold the sub contents. Otherwise the sub tends to dump out some of the ingredients when you eat it.
Make an end to end cut lengthwise on one side of a roll to a depth of about 2/3 of the width of the roll, using a serrated bread knife, then open the roll with some tearing of interior dough. Then use the bread knife to cut out a long strip of dough (roughly 1/2" deep by 1" wide by 10" long) on each side of the inside of the roll.
As for sub contents we like to use four types of meat ... domestic ham, prosciutto ham, Genoa salami and hot Capicola. For cheese we use a well flavored but soft provolone. I like to make my own mixture of olive oil, minced garlic, oregano and salt ... a pint at a time, and I use a pastry brush to spread that mixture on the inside of the sub roll before putting in the cheese and the meat. The exact olive oil mixture is shown in "The Sub" recipe in the "Sandwich Stuff" section of Food Nirvana.
When it comes to vegetables personal preference matters. I use very thin tomato slices cut in half, very thinly sliced salad onion, chopped lettuce, sweet pickle slices and sliced hot yellow banana peppers.
Enjoy! Make great subs!
Now let's do a lazy man's variation to this recipe ...
If you have loaves of frozen bread that need to thaw and rise and then be baked, like Rhode's® frozen bread, you can make a fine sub roll and eliminate 95% of the labor of the above scratch recipe.
The frozen bread requires anywhere from four to seven hours of thawing and rising time prior to baking. Typically you put a light coat of butter in a glass loaf pan and let the frozen bread loaf thaw and rise in that pan (covered with some buttered plastic wrap to avoid losing moisture), remove the plastic wrap after the rising is done and then bake the bread at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes.
I got a sneaky idea for changing that procedure, such that the end result would be a fine sub roll instead of a traditional loaf of bread.
I followed the normal procedure for thawing a frozen loaf in a glass loaf pan in a proofing oven. Done that way the bread is thawed but not risen after three hours.
Now here is the clever part ... take the thawed dough and reshape it on the piece of buttered plastic wrap into a long shape of a sub roll. Place the dough in one of the positions on a curved baking sheet (described in the scratch recipe above). Cover the dough with a moist (but not wet) dish towel (or in this instance with only one loaf to rise, a few moist paper towels) and let it rise for one hour in the proofing oven.
Remove the dish/paper towel and gently brush some egg wash onto the top and upper sides and ends of the risen dough, then sprinkle on raw sesame seeds. Cut three or four shallow diagonal slices (about 1/4" deep) into the top of the dough, spaced about 4 inches apart, so the sub roll doesn't split along the top during baking.
Set the oven at 400 degrees F and put a cast iron skillet in the oven on a low shelf. When the temperature reaches 400 degrees F put the curved baking sheet into the oven on a higher shelf, pour 1/3 cup of water into the cast iron skillet and close the oven door.
Bake the sub roll at 400 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes, until the top of the sub roll is golden brown, then remove the curved baking sheet from the oven and let the sub roll cool to room temperature.
You now have an excellent sub roll without any significant labor to make it. And I know you will smile broadly as you enjoy it!