Whole Wheat Eggless Dinner Rolls / Laadi Pav

The best yeast bread I bake is one leavened with wild yeast. It has nothing but flour, water and salt and tastes great. However, dinner rolls and buns can be a little different. Most recipes call for an egg or egg yolk, butter or oil and some sugar. These dinner rolls use flax seed instead of an egg and a little oil and sugar. The rolls were soft and fluffy and browned very well. I used King Arthur whole wheat flour and that gave the buns a lovely dark color. The dark specks are from the crushed flax seed. Though visible they do not alter the taste at all.

This recipe is the latest in the taming the yeast challenge where one member of our group presents a recipe that we all try to replicate. This recipe was shared by Priya of Priya's Versatile Recipes. Priya is an expert baker and has a large collection of baked goods on her blog. You should check it out. Thanks Priya for this awesome recipe.

Some changes I made - The dough was very wet. I like wet dough but this one needed more flour. I added about a 1/4 cup of additional flour. The original recipe called for 2 1/2 teaspoon of yeast. I reduced the amount to a scant teaspoon and increased the rise times. If I had mixed the dough in the morning instead of early afternoon I would have added no more than a 1/2 teaspoon. The long rise time allowed the flavors to develop making the rolls delicious on their own.

I have flax seed in my pantry that I run through a blender before I use it. Humans lack the enzymes needed to digest whole flax seed but it stores better as seed than powder. Running it through the blender crushes the seed making it possible to digest and absorb the nutrients.

You will need
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 scant tsp. yeast
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 cup lukewarm milk
1 tbsp milk for brushing the rolls
oil to grease the dough while rising

Sift the flours in a large mixing bowl. Add the ground flax seed, sugar, salt and yeast. Heat the milk in a microwave and add it to the flour along with the oil. Mix together to form a dough. Knead for a few minutes until smooth and elastic. Put a few drops of oil on the palm of your hand and rub around the dough. Place the ball of dough in the bowl, cover and allow to rise for 3-4 hours until it doubles in volumes. On a hot day this process might go faster.

Flour your hands and your working surface and transfer the dough on to it. Do not punch it. Be gentle as you work the dough into a rectangle. Using a pastry cutter cut equal portions of the dough. I got 9 rolls of ~95 gm each and one tiny tester roll.

Place the rolls a half inch apart on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Sprinkle a little flour on the top of the rolls and cover loosely. Allow the rolls to rise for 20-30 minutes.

In the last 10 minutes preheat the oven to 350 F. Brush the tops of the rolls with a little warm milk.

Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the tops are brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack for a couple minutes.

You can have them hot with a stuffing/ filling or sides of your choice.

This is my entry for week four, day one of BM #45 for the theme Taming the yeast. Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#45.