Roll Call - Recap

Alton opens the episode speaking of the “maelstrom of mediocrity” that currently envelops our culture – a misfortune he says originated at the epicenter of our culture, the dinner table. The scene enlarges to reveal Alton sitting at just such a table, surrounded by plastic representations of a traditional nuclear family: mother, father, son and daughter.

Alton envisions a scene where the boy asks his sister for a roll revealing that there aren't any rolls! It seems that Dad got his hours cut, forcing Mom to work, and now she hasn't got the time to bake rolls. Dad suddenly seems interesting in going out to eat, an idea met with enthusiasm from the children. And that is how the disappearance of the dinner roll led to the disappearance of family dinner itself, and the beginning of civilization's quiet destruction. But is it too late to get our rolls back? Perhaps not, but it will require that everyone answer the roll call of... Good Eats!

Every culture that bakes, bakes small breads. Some bake small breads in hundreds of varieties. In America such breads became known as rolls because bakers usually roll the dough to shape it. A century ago rolls counted as fast food because they were quicker to make than larger loaves which needed much longer rising and baking times.

Rolls and buns (except for hamburger buns – they are a different show), are different from muffins and biscuits because rolls use yeast for leavening. Once again Alton's sock puppet yeast appear, complete with their signature belching meant to illustrate the production and emission of gaseous carbon dioxide. Rolls fall into one of two categories: rich, and lean. Our English forebears favored lean, hard rolls. But in America, German influence steered preferences toward the rich end of the spectrum, introducing milk, butter, and small amounts of sugar to recipes.

With a flourish, Alton removes the top of a loaf of bread to reveal cups inset into the bottom of the loaf, and in these the fantastic four of bread dough: yeast, water, salt and flour. Without these ingredients, bread simply isn't bread. Flour provides structure, through its starch and protein. Those making very crusty, rustic styled loaves benefit from the extra protein in specialty bread flours, but for other kinds of loaves, all-purpose flour works just fine. Water hydrates the flour, and provides moisture the yeast need (more yeast sock puppets pop into view) to digest the starch and produce carbon dioxide.

Now Alton has a sad conversation with his yeast sock puppets. It seems there have been complaints about their realism, and it is time for Good Eats to make a change to a more realistic depiction. Real yeast do not have eyes or mouths or antennae. They're just kind of blobs, an example of which Alton pulls from beneath the counter. He must, reluctantly, let his sock puppets go. No severance package, but he'll give them excellent references. He opens the door and watches as they trundle off, bindles over their shoulders, to whatever awaits them.

Back at the counter, Alton notes that in past shows he has suggested rapid rise yeast. This product's granules contain more living yeast, as well as stimulants like Vitamin C to help them grow. But recently he has discovered that with the proper care active dry yeast can do just as good a job – and when sugar and fat a present, it can do a better job.

That brings him to the last of the four: salt. Many writers claim one can do without salt, but Alton believes this is not true. Without salt, bread tastes dead and unpalatable. Salt also strengthens gluten and helps preserve freshness. Alton prefers kosher salt, but sea salt or table salt work just as well.

These four ingredients can combine to produce a basic, lean roll. But for a rich, soft, American style dinner roll they need help in the form of modifiers: milk, sugar, butter and eggs. Sugars caramelize to produce complex flavors, and are hygroscopic, helping keep the bread moist. Fat, such as butter and egg yolks, lubricates gluten structures and adds flavor. Egg yolks also contain emulsifiers that help integrate fat. It doesn't take much of any of these ingredients to do these jobs.

Having discussed the software, Alton wheels out a (creaky) black board on which he presents his method of assembly: mix, rest, knead, rise, punch, shape, proof, bake and cool. He calls this straight dough method. On the flip side of the board Alton has a different list of terms. These, he has selected to closely describe the goals of each step of roll production rather than the actions: integrate (alpha), hydrate, integrate (beta), stretch, align, double, redistribute, portion, configure, double, bake, cure. Alton uses a mnemonic phrase he's sure will help cooks remember: I have imagined seeing a demented rabid platypus carelessly drinking blue cocktails!

Alton's dough begins with some whole milk, heated to 100° F. He pours that into his mixer's work bowl and follows it with sugar, active dry yeast, adds egg yolks and flour (which he weighs, rather than measures by volume). On top of that pile he pours the last ingredient, salt. About a minute of low speed mixing using the paddle mixing brings the dough together (the integrate (alpha) action, which corresponds to “I” in the mnemomic). Using a latex glove, Alton removes the dough from the paddle. Hydration (“have”) is the next phase and takes about ten minutes. It moistens the dough so that later kneading is easier. More importantly, it allows the proteins of the flour to unite as gluten structures. Alton covers his mixer with a cloth and leaves it for ten minutes.

Ten minutes passing quickly in the television work, Alton returns to the mixer and uncovers it. He replaces the paddle with the dough hook. With the mixer on low, he works in some butter. Fat interrupts gluten formation, so adding the fat at this second (beta) integration step (“imagine”) gives gluten a head start. When the dough has integrated the butter, Alton turns up the speed and works the dough for eight minutes.

In regular bread making, this is called kneading. But Alton refers to it as stretching and aligning (“seeing” and “a”), because that's what it's doing: stretching the gluten structure and aligning it into sheets that will capture carbon dioxide produced by the yeast. To test his dough, Alton breaks off a small piece. Rotating and stretching it, he tries to form a “window pane” - a translucent sheet of dough of uniform thickness that does not have holes in it. When he can do this, he knows his dough is ready for the next step.

Removing the dough to a lightly floured counter, Alton pulls and folds it under to create a ball with a smooth skin. He stashes this in a plastic container (clear, so he can see what's going on) with a rubber band on the outside to mark the starting point. That goes into an oven (ideally at 78° F) where it remains until its size doubles.

At the “Half Bakery” Alton shows the wide variety of roll shapes possible: pan loaves, spirals, twists, cloverleafs and butter flakes (the last baked in muffin tins). And finally, the knotty parker house roll. Named for Boston's Parker House hotel where it was invented, this kind of roll may be recognized by the top crease that conceals a little pat of butter. They're delicious and handy around Halloween for Angelina Jolie or Mr. Limpet disguises, depending on how you orient the roll!

Back in the kitchen, Alton opens the oven door to discover many of his new look yeast surrounding the dough – they weren't dead after all! The dough has clearly doubled in size, bringing Alton to his redistribute (“rabid”) step. That starts with sprinkling flour on the counter top. Not too much, because the dough will absorb flour, and if it absorbs too much it will become too dry. Alton pushes his dough into a disc and rolls that into a cylinder. That's it for redistribution; now it is time for portioning (“platypus”). The easiest way to accomplish this is with a food scraper. Using this, Alton divides the dough cylinder in half, and each half in half, and continues twice more to produce sixteen portions of dough.

Configure is next (“carelessly” in the mnemonic). Alton first wants dough balls with smooth surfaces. To get them, he pushes each portion into a disc and then folds the edges to form a purse-like structure. Making a sort of ring with the index and thumb of one hand, he uses the other to push the blob through, and then puts it on the counter, where he pinches the seam side and rolls the ball along the counter a few times with his hand very loose. Done correctly, this step produces smooth-skinned balls of dough.

Next comes the Parker House part. With a 7/8” dowel (a rolling pin also works), Alton rolls each ball into a little disc, three inches in diameter (he measures them to ensure uniformity). With the same dowel, Alton makes a dimple in the middle and stashes a little pat of butter in that. He folds the disc to make a half circle, pressing lightly on the round side to seal it. He moves these half circle shaped rolls to a baking sheet, arranging them evenly with the seams down. He paints each roll with melted butter and covers the rolls and the sheet with plastic wrap while they double (“drinking”) again. That will take thirty to forty minutes. Fifteen minutes before he expects them to be ready, he slides a rack to the middle of his oven and preheats it to 400° F.

Baking (“blue”) takes about ten minutes, but Alton starts checking around eight. He also cautions those whose ovens have uneven heating properties to remove and turn the pan at around the halfway point to ensure an evenly baked batch of rolls. After ten minutes, Alton's rolls are golden brown and delicious, but to be sure he uses a probe thermometer to check the internal temperature. It is 200° F, which is the temperature he knows means the rolls are properly baked. After baking, Alton likes a curing (“cocktails”) step that permits the structures to set and a little moisture to escape. This is actually the first step towards going stale, but with the fat and salt present, it will take some time before these rolls are stale.

Butter flake rolls use the same dough. Alton's aunt introduced him to these when he was still a kid. After the first doubling, he rolls his dough into a 12” x 12” square and spreads melted butter on top for lubrication. He splits that in half with a pizza cutter, then cuts each half into thirds and each third into halves to produce twelve equal strips. He builds two stacks of six strips, lays them on their sides (being careful not to stretch them) and uses the pizza cutter to slice them into two inch chunks. Each chunk goes into a lightly lubricated muffin tin cup. A half hour should see them double in volume, after that Alton bakes them at 400° F for 8-10 minutes (200° F internal temperature), just as he did the Parker House rolls.

In Avon, Florida, during 1949, a baker named Joseph Gregor had just parked a pan of Parker House rolls in the oven to bake when a fire alarm sounded! Being a member of the volunteer fire brigade, Gregor had to respond, so he pulled his still pasty rolls from the oven and left. Hours later, he returned and found the rolls, and decided to try to bake them again. To his surprise, the resulting rolls, that he later called “pop-in”, were delicious!

Alton starts his pop-in rolls with a tray of ready to bake Parker House rolls. He's even more careful to spread melted butter on top of each roll, since this buttery coating will seal the rolls against loss of moisture.

Alton slides this pan into a lower temperature oven – 275° F – for about thirty minutes until the outside of the rolls just begins to set. These rolls will still be pale since their external temperature has not reached that required for browning. Removing them from the oven, Alton lets them cool in their pan (which he places on a cooling rack to provide air circulation) for ten minutes. Then he removes them from the pan and lets them cool to room temperature directly on the rack, which will take thirty to forty minutes. Frozen, these rolls keep for a long time. To finish, thaw them for sixty to ninety minutes and finish at 400° F for ten minutes or until they are golden brown and delicious!

Alton hopes he has inspired cooks to bring back a part of the dinner table culture that made America great. Then the phone interupts him. The caller is Sid Maxberg, agent to the food stars, and he knows Alton has a yeast problem. Alton's old yeast sock puppets have found Sid! At first Alton denies his new yeast are a problem, but then a cabinet opens and dozens fall on him. Sid knows the truth, and tells Alton he has a solution... but it will cost him. Oh, yes, it will cost him! As Sid laughs maniacally, a dismayed Alton realizes he'll probably have to pay, and bids viewers good bye until next time.

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