Parker House Rolls - Plain Rolls #2

Recipe tried out in Oct 2011

Wait.... you must be thinking these look like clams... LOL.
Cute and very delicious! 

Why?
1. It has a beautiful crisp but tender crust but once u bite into you, you are welcomed with soft bread. It's like having a micro thin shortbread as crust, get what I mean?
2. It is very buttery, and I didn’t even slather on more butter. Yummy!

Parker house rolls are characterized as buttered twice, once on the inside and once on the outside before it’s being baked, which explains the crispy tender crust and its buttery flavor. And they come folded! It is invented by the Parker House Hotel in Boston and is still served today.

These rolls are made using all purpose flour and the texture is different from those made from bread flour, the gluten strands don’t look that long but it’s soft when warm. I’ve seen some recipes using half bread flour but I just want to try out this recipe with all all-purpose flour as per the recipe to see how it’ll fare. After eating these rolls, I think bread flour should never be used in this recipe, if not it'll lose that shortbread crust. The long kneading with bread flour will not give you this type of mouthfeel. So, I'll still stick to 100% all purpose if I'm making these again

I chose a flour with a higher protein content. Nowadays all purpose flours comes in packages with nutritional value and you can see the protein content. Some comes with 9% protein, some 9.5% some 9.8%. And I have all 3 at home. Hahah! I use 9% for cakes n pastries, and 9.5% above for bread/pau. And for general flour dusting either one goes. Which explains why some say, this flour is nicer for cake, that not nice for cake. Although all are all-purpose flour or plain flour that you can get from any grocery shop. So, maybe now you’d know why. Whether the flour is nutritionally enriched or not… Frankly I don’t bother to pay double for the minor “human added” enrichment. I can easily enrich it with eggs and milk and all other natural sources of good nutrients. I just look at the protein content and price. But I won’t mind paying for organic flour, because if it has goodness in it, it’s not added by humans on purpose.

Best eaten when warm to enjoy the special crust. It's ok, eaten after cooled down for few hours, but the special crust is gone by then due to moisture from within the bread. Just reheat in a hot oven to enjoy the crust again. These rolls didn't last any longer than 18 hours in the house. Gone!

Although this recipe is good, but I already have plans in my head for minor twitching, haha..
Oh yes, if you don't mind the tackiness, you hand manually knead it. Don't be tempted to add more flour.

Parker House Rolls

Source: Martha Stewart
Recipe converted to metric with minor adaptations : Wendyywy

450gm all purpose flour (select those with protein levels 9.5% above)
50gm sugar
5gm salt
250gm milk
1 large egg
75gm butter
10gm instant yeast

50gm butter, melted and left to cool to room temperature(still liquidy, but thick)

1. Combine everything except butter and form a dough. Put in butter and knead on speed 2 for 10 minutes (if manually kneading, knead until it is longer sticky, but the dough is a bit tacky)
2. Cover and let dough proof until double. (Mine took 1 hour 45 minutes because my milk, butter and egg are all cold)
3. Divide dough into 24 pieces (about 36-38gm each) or 16 pieces (about 55gm each) roll them into round balls.
4. Lightly flatten them and brush surface with butter. Fold into half. Arrange on baking tray. Repeat with all the dough balls.
5. Brush remaining butter onto folded dough. Finish up the butter, be generous.(need that butter to create that "shortbread" crust)
6. Let dough proof for 30 minutes and bake them for 15 minutes in a preheated oven 150/170C.

And I had a helper

She loves baking bread.. or let's say, play with dough.

But she eats whatever she makes. So, it's ok.

And she demands to eat her own products, even though it's deformed, to her, that's art.