Italian shaped dinner rolls

You know what comes to mind? Puff the magic dragon! Do you think magic dragons were born out of dough? Let's make some.

You start by making a biga, I used Beth Henspergers two-week biga by mixing:
1.2/3 cups warm water (360 gr)
1/3 ts yeast
3.3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour (490 gr broodbloem) and let it rest for at least 6 hrs on your countertop. Make sure you use a big enough pot, it will easily triple/quadruple. Store in refrigerator for at least 24 hours.

I didn't use it as planned (it was out, untouched for four days in my cool kitchen annex) and so refreshed it with 3 heaped tbs flour and 3 tbs water, stirred this in and used the next day to make a

Dough using:
400 gr flour
180 gr biga
130 gr milk
100 gr water
2 ts salt
1 ts yeast


This dough is very supple and elastic, wonderfully soft like a baby's bottom. First rise 1.1/2 to 2 hours. Turn the dough out onto your floured work surface and divide into 2 equal pieces. Deflate with very gentle hands and pat into a rectangle. Make a log by rolling/folding the dough onto itself, make sure you create surface tension. Seam side down, cover with teatowel and let rest for another 30-45 min.


Sprinkle with some more flour, you will want your dough to be more or less covered in flour







All puffy and floury. Start cutting the dough with a sharp knife (not on your Silpat mat!!) or like I did with a stopping-knife. Don't slice or saw, just press down making clean cuts. These cuts will open up and give your rolls a real upward push. (Like English muffins)



Try to make your rolls not too thin, aim for kind of square instead, they will get so much oven spring that they are likely to keel over on their sides if too small.
This amount of dough will give you approx. 10 rolls.


Bake in a preheated oven (425F or 220C) until gold and crusty for about 22-28 minutes. I baked mine on a baking sheet with lining but I can imagine the effect when baked on a baking stone.
Please mind: always check on your dough, given amounts of liquid may vary according to the flour used.