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French Boule Rolls

Ingredients

  • 3 cups warm water
  • 1 ½ heaping Tablespoons of dry active yeast
  • 1 ½ Tablespoons coarse salt
  • 6 cups flour I used half bread flour, half whole wheat
  • 1 TBS sugar or honey

Instructions

  1. NOTE: It's preferable to make these using a baking stone in the oven.
  2. In a large bowl, combine your flour and salt. Set aside.
  3. In a smaller bowl, combine the warm water, sugar, and yeast. Stir and let rest for a couple minutes.
  4. Pour the warm water mixture in the middle of the flour mixture and mix together with your hands, until there are no dry spots. Remember, no kneading!! It will be super-duper sticky...and, that's good. After it's mixed, loosely cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until about double in size.
  5. After it's risen, plop the dough out onto a floured surface. Split the dough into quarters and then split each of the quarters into quarters. Does that make sense? So, you'll have 16 pieces of dough.
  6. Take a flat cookie sheet (or sheet pan, flipped upside-down) and place a sheet of parchment on top. Form the rolls and place on the parchment paper. To form the rolls, just fold all the edges under to make a ball shape. Don't over-do it...just quickly shape and set down. Sprinkle with more flour, if desired. Loosely cover, and again let rise for about 30 minutes.
  7. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, with your baking stone on one rack, and on the very bottom of your oven, place a metal baking pan (such as a pie pan or a 9x13 pan). Once the oven is ready and the rolls have sat for about 30 minutes, carefully slide the rolls and the parchment paper right onto the baking stone. Take about a cup or two of cold water and pour it in the pan underneath. Be careful, it might spit a little bit! But, the water will create a steam that helps make the outside of the rolls crispy.
  8. Bake for about 20 minutes.