Snowflake Rolls
Yield = 20 rolls
4 Tablespoons 50 grams Powdered Buttermilk
1 cup 227 grams Water
1 stick 113 grams Unsalted Butter
½ cup 113 grams Water
3½ cups 518 grams Unbleached Bread Flour
1 teaspoon 3 grams Salt
3 Tablespoon 41 grams Sugar
4 ½ teaspoons 16 grams Instant Yeast
1. Place 4 tablespoons of powdered buttermilk into a small sauce pan. Add one cup of room temperature water to the pan. Stir the ingredients with a whisk to dissolve the buttermilk powder.
2. Add another ½ cup of water and one stick of butter to the pot. Heat on a low heat until the butter is melted. Set aside to cool. Wait for this mixture to cool to around 90 to 100 degrees.
3. In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the flour and the yeast. Using a hand-held whisk, disperse the yeast into the flour. Now add the salt and sugar to the mixture and whisk again to disperse.
4. Add the warm liquid to the dry ingredients that are in the bowl of your mixer. Use your paddle attachment and mix on a slow speed for 3 minutes. At the end of the three minutes all of the ingredients should be combined into very loose dough.
After mixing for 3 minutes dough is very loose and shaggy
5. Switch to the dough hook attachment on your mixer and using speed four, knead the dough for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. You should also scrape the bottom of the mixer to make sure there is no dry flour hiding on the bottom. Continue to knead the dough with the dough hook on speed 4 for an additional 3 minutes.
This is the dough after kneading for a total of 5 minutes - Smooth and Silky
6. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
7. While the dough is rising, preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
8. Cover a cookie sheet or sheet pan with parchment paper.
9. You are now going to divide the dough into 20 pieces. Weigh the dough on a digital scale if available and divide the total weight by 20. You should end up with a number of about 50 grams if you made a single batch of these rolls.
10. You are now going to shape the 20 pieces of dough into balls. Take one of the pieces of dough and place it into the palm of your hand. With your other hand, lift the corners of the dough up towards the middle and squeeze them together. The end result will be a ball of dough that resembles a head of garlic. You now want to stretch the surface of the ball that is facing the palm of your hand so that it gets smooth. You can do this by placing your fingers on the sides of the dough ball, pull up on the dough and again squeeze it towards the middle. Now turn the ball over and make sure the side that was facing the palm of your hand is smooth. If smooth, then place the ball on the prepared cookie sheet or sheet pan.
Shaping the dough pieces into dough balls with a smooth surface for the top of the roll
11. Continue to shape the remainder of the dough pieces and place the rounded dough balls on the parchment paper seam side facing down leaving space between each ball for expansion. You should leave about 1 to 1 ½ inches between the balls in each direction. Cover the balls lightly with plastic wrap allow the dough to rise for 20 minutes.
12. After the 20 minutes of rise time, remove the plastic wrap and give the balls a light dusting of fresh flour (snowflakes). You should use a fine mesh strainer for the dusting.
13. After dusting with flour, place the cookie sheet or sheet pan in the oven on the middle rack. Bake the rolls for 15 minutes until the rolls have a nice golden color. Remove the cookie sheet or sheet pan from the oven and cool on a cooling rack until the rolls can be handled. Serve the rolls warm if possible.