Hoagie Rolls
I love sandwiches, and I could probably eat one for lunch every day without getting tired of them. I’ve always thought Jimmy John’s has some of the best sandwich bread around, so I started experimenting with making my own at home. After a lot of trial and error, this is the closest I’ve been able to get to that soft, airy bread with just the right amount of chew. I also like knowing exactly what goes into my bread, and because you’re making it yourself, you can skip the preservatives and additives found in some store-bought rolls. It’s a little more work than grabbing a bag of rolls from the store, but a great sandwich deserves great bread.
Ingredients:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
2.5 teaspoons dry active yeast
2 tablespoons of sugar
1.5 cups of water at 95-100 degrees
3-4 tablespoons of butter, cut into small cubes
1.5-2 teaspoons salt
Corn meal
Olive Oil
Recipe:
Start by adding your flour, salt, and butter to the bowl of your stand mixer.
In water at 95-100 degrees, add sugar and mix until dissolved, then add the yeast and let it proof for about 5 minutes. I’ve found that anything hotter than that risks killing the yeast, resulting in a less airy final product.
Add the proofed yeast to your stand mixer fitted with a bread hook attachment on low speed (I typically stay between 2-3) for 3-4 minutes, until the dough is smooth and almost shiny.
Put a little bit of olive oil in a large bowl, then add the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or press-and-seal, and then proof it in the oven for 1.5 hours.
While the dough proofs, grab your hoagie molds and place them on a lined sheet pan. Then dust the inside of each mold with cornmeal to prevent sticking.
When you take the dough out of the oven, it should have doubled or tripled in size. Punch it down, then roll it all together into a ball.
Take a handful of dough (slightly smaller than a baseball), roll it into logs by hand, and add them to the hoagie molds. If the dough sticks to your hands, grab a pinch of flour and rub it between your hands.
Cover your hoagie molds with a light dish towel and return them to the oven to proof for another 30 minutes. Be careful not to overproof, or the hoagies may deflate.
Take the molds out of the oven and preheat it to 375. I like to put a loaf pan half-filled with water on a large sheet pan on the lower rack while preheating for two reasons. First, the water will create steam, giving you a better crust without an egg wash while your bread bakes. Second, the sheet pan will help catch any cornmeal that falls out of the molds, keeping your oven cleaner.
Once the oven has finished preheating, put the molds back in the oven without the sheet pans underneath and bake for 25 minutes.
When cooking is complete, remove the hoagie rolls from the molds and transfer them to a wire baking sheet to cool.