Success at last – Grinder Hoagie Rolls
For quite some time I’d been trying to figure out the trick to good hoagie rolls for making subs. I had asked many pizza shop owners and most of them said they used the same dough for rolls that they do for their pizza. Taking after them, I had tried several times to make rolls from my dough. Each time, I got lumps of very dense bread which I would place in the “not-the-best” category for sure.
Finally, I read an article by Tom Lehman about grinder rolls at the PMQ recipe bank. I followed his instructions for mixing, proofing and baking the rolls and it worked!
The main difference was not in the dough recipe, but rather the preparation. Previously, I had allowed the dough to rise as a ball overnight then simply scaled out lumps of dough that went straight into the oven for baking. Tom’s instructions involved two proofing steps and a rolling out of the dough balls.
First, I mixed the dough for only 10 minutes. Next, I scaled small 3.5 oz balls of dough and let them rest on the counter for 20 minutes (first rise). Then, each ball was rolled out flat and then rolled up jelly roll style forming long skinny rolls. Those were all placed on a baking sheet and proofed in the oven for about 40 minutes (the temperature was supposed to be 100 degrees and my oven only goes down to 150 – so I preheated it to 150 then turned it off while they proofed). This second rise made the skinny logs turn into nice looking loaves. When they had risen, the oven was turned up to 425 degrees and they were baked to a golden brown color!
The result was delicious hoagies topped with ham, salami, pepperoni, provolone, mozzarella, lettuce tomato and mayo. I am so happy!
July 30th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
I’m wondering if there is a scaled down version of the dough recipe availible? Maybe enough for 4 or 5 rolls.
August 2nd, 2005 at 11:18 pm
Luke, I haven’t seen a smaller version, but this recipe really only makes about 7 rolls. I think you could probably make them a bit larger and end up with 5 using the same portions.