BBA S&S: Kaiser Rolls

It is my (very personal and by no means proven or established) belief that kaiser rolls are some seriously disingenuous little things. When I think of kaiser rolls, I think of dry, chewy (and not chewy in a good way, chewy in an onmygosh, I've been chewing for awhile now and nothing is happening way) rolls that are sold in bags in the bakery department of the grocery store. But, in those bags, they're shiny, the perfect shade of golden brown, with those cute little seeds on top, and they practically scream, "I'm going to be a fabulous base for whatever you decide to put on me!" So, if you're like I was, and you're impressionable and subject to adjectives like "cute" and "shiny" you put them in the grocery cart and bring them back home for what will eventually be a pretty silent meal because everyone is so busy chewing, and then drinking, to try to get some moisture back in their mouths. I bought the shiny and cute kaiser rolls a few times (hey, I was young and impressionable!), and each time they were dry and chewy, and I stopped buying them. Kaiser rolls were dead to me -- I could no longer be swayed by their cuteness or their ability to make my burgers look like "designer" burgers.

Until now, right? Once again, the Bread Baker's Apprentice has converted me from a non-believer to a believer. It's amazing what Peter Rheinhart can do for bread.  I was, um, not excited about making these rolls. I was prepared for a big chew-fest, a dry mouth, and a sore jaw. I knew that the rolls would probably be better than the grocery store version, I knew they'd be edible, but I was convinced that all of the things that I disliked about kaiser rolls were endemic to this bread. I was so wrong.

The dough for the rolls is actually really, really similar to Italian bread. In fact, my brother might say that "if French bread dough got busy with Italian bread dough you'd have Kaiser roll dough." I would add that you'd need to add an egg to the union of French and Italian breads to really get Kaiser rolls, but you sort of get my drift, right? On the one hand, you have half of a recipe for the pate fermentee that the French bread starts with in the kaiser rolls (if you'll recall, Italian bread starts with a biga). On the other hand, you have the malt powder (syrup, in my case) and the oil of the Italian bread. And you have an egg this time, too. It's another hearth bread, which surprised me (I wasn't expecting a hearth bread at all, the egg threw me off). I suppose that the hardest part is making the knots, but I really like making knots out of dough -- I think it's a good time. This dough is really supple, thus making the knots is even more fun. I don't know if the knots are supposed to have that little doo-dad that mine always end up having? I guess I could stretch it a little further and fold it under, but to me it looks like the center of a flower, and I think it's cute. As for the finished product? It's nothing, NOTHING, like the kaiser rolls I formerly knew. It's just like a hearth bread should be:  crisp on the outside, soft and lovely on the inside.

Kaiser rolls just aren't capable of the extreme "party animal" potential of Italian bread, but they are a close second. Really, they're begging to be made into sandwiches of all sorts, so if a Kaiser roll isn't a party animal, it's definitely a "good time guy" (or gal!). I saw this recipe for Slow Roasted Pulled Pork in the December 2009 issue of Cooking Light and I immediately wrote it on my "must make soon" list. The kaiser rolls were the perfect opportunity to make the pulled pork and indulge in a little faux barbecue. I served it with my freezer pickles that I (finally!) took out of my freezer after making them in September and my favorite cole slaw. The verdict:  this was not a chewy dinner. It was a seriously delicious dinner! I now *heart* kaiser rolls. They don't get to make my Top 3 BBA list, but they're definitely Top 10, maybe even Top 5.