Light, fluffy, pull-apart dinner rolls with a sourdough tang. Equally at home on a Sunday roast table or as burger buns. The enriched dough gives them a soft, pillowy texture.
Ingredients
- 500g bread flour
- 280g whole milk (warmed to 30°C)
- 100g active starter
- 50g unsalted butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 20g sugar
- 9g salt
Method
- Whisk starter into warm milk. Add egg and sugar, mix well. Add flour and salt, mix until combined.
- Knead 8–10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes in a stand mixer on medium. Add butter in three additions, kneading until fully incorporated and dough is smooth and elastic.
- Bulk ferment 3–4 hours at room temperature until doubled. Alternatively, leave overnight in the fridge.
- Divide dough into 12 equal pieces (~80g each). Shape each into a tight round ball by rolling under your cupped palm.
- Arrange in a greased 23x33cm (9x13 inch) baking dish. Cover and proof 1.5–2 hours until puffy and touching each other.
- Brush with egg wash. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 20–22 minutes until golden. Brush with melted butter while hot.
Allergens: contains wheat (gluten), milk and egg.
Make them ahead
The dough is built to wait, which is the whole point of a roll you want on the table at the same moment as the roast. For rolls at one o'clock, mix the evening before, let the dough bulk for an hour at room temperature so fermentation is properly under way, then cover and refrigerate overnight — up to fourteen hours.
Next morning, divide and shape straight from the fridge. Cold enriched dough is much easier to roll into tight balls than warm dough, which drags and tears. Allow two and a half to three hours for the final proof rather than the hour and a half the room-temperature route needs: the dough has to come up to temperature before it will rise at all, and that warming time is not proving time.
Shaped rolls freeze well too. Freeze them on a tray, bag once solid, then thaw overnight in the baking dish in the fridge followed by three to four hours at room temperature before baking as written.
Storing and reheating
Baked rolls keep for two days in a paper bag or wrapped in a tea towel. An airtight box traps steam and turns the crust soft and slightly damp within hours, so avoid it unless you are freezing them. To revive day-old rolls, flick them with a little water and warm the whole dish at 160°C for five or six minutes — they come back close to fresh. They freeze for three months and reheat from frozen at 170°C in ten to twelve minutes.
Troubleshooting
Dense, heavy rolls are nearly always under-proofed. Butter, sugar and milk all slow fermentation, so enriched dough takes noticeably longer than a plain loaf at the same temperature. Judge by the dough, not the clock: the rolls should look visibly puffy, be just touching their neighbours, and spring back slowly rather than instantly when pressed.
Butter that refuses to go in means it was too firm or the dough too cold. Soften it to the point where it takes a fingerprint without effort, and add it in three stages, waiting for each to disappear before the next.
Pale tops with dark bottoms point to an oven running hot from below. Move the dish up a shelf, and if your oven has a fan setting, drop the fan or lower the temperature by 10°C and give them a couple of minutes longer.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make these without a stand mixer?
Yes. Knead by hand for eight to ten minutes before the butter goes in, then work the butter through in three additions using a slap-and-fold motion on an unfloured worktop. It is messy for the first few minutes and then suddenly comes together. Allow around fifteen minutes in total.
Egg wash or milk — what is the difference?
Egg wash gives a glossy, deep golden top. Whole milk gives a softer, paler, more matt finish and a slightly tenderer crust, which is the better choice if the rolls are going to be split and buttered. Neither changes the crumb.
Can I use discard instead of active starter?
Not as written. The 100g of active starter is the only leavening in the recipe, and enriched dough is heavy work for a culture even at full strength. Discard has very little rising power left, so the rolls would stay dense. Feed your starter and use it at peak.
How do I get proper pull-apart rolls?
Space them so they have room to grow into each other rather than starting out crowded. In a 23x33cm dish, twelve 80g balls in a three-by-four grid will just meet during the final proof and knit together in the oven, which is what gives you soft sides and a crisp top.
Bake this with our shelf-stable San Francisco sourdough starter — activates in 2 hours, so you can bake your first loaf the same day.
Buy the Live Starter →