Lye rolls are a very well known in Austria. As baking rolls in my oven is a pain (I don’t get the required temperatures for a good oven spring) I adapted the recipe a bit to get a decent looking result. Using a cake spring form allows for an easy process but still ends up in a beautiful shape.

Ingredients

Using a 1/2 sized cake spring form.

Dough:

• 500g fine wheat flour
• 5g fresh yeast
• 75g rye sourdough starter
• 10g salt
• 300g water
• 20g sugar

Lye:

• 1tbsp water
• 1tsp baking soda

Instructions

Mix the fresh yeast, water and sugar together. Afterward mix in the other ingredients.

Let the dough rest for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size (My sourdough starter was not on its peak, I only added it for the taste, so maybe 2h is too long with a fresh one). In a small bowl mix the water and the baking soda. Split the dough in 8 parts. Form little doughlings and roll them in the lye. Place them in an oiled cake spring form. Let them rest covered again for 1 hour.

Bake the rolls at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. If you have an additional baking form, let it preheat in the oven and add some boiling water to it when placing the rolls in the oven. The steam will allow them to rise without breaking. Afterward reduce the heat to 200 degrees. Remove the water from the stove and let them bake for another 10–15 minutes.

Let them cool down before ripping them apart.

Next Time…

• don’t bake it on the middle trail but the lower one
• 10 minutes full heat should be enough
• afterward bake it at 200 degrees and potentially cover it with baking paper
• oil the cake form and use bread crumbs to ensure the dough does not stick
• reducing the second fermentation a bit might keep the original shape of the little doughlings better

First Attempts

During the first attempts I noticed that getting a good spring was a real pain as my stove just did not get to the right temperature. For loafs the Dutch oven solves the issue, but with rolls like this the Dutch oven just does not work.

They look ok, but the result is not satisfying enough to go through the process again. Rather try a different approach that takes less time.