Pain Viennois

Ah! Mon Dieu! Mon pain viennois etait brule! (Oh! My God! My Viennese Bread burned!)

Except for the thicker than desired crust, the bread turned out quite well. I used Richard Bertinet’s recipe for Sweet Dough in Gourmet Magazine and came up with dough that was, as promised, ‘full of life’. I left it to rise overnight in the fridge and was hoping for a fresh selection of perfect ham and cheese rolls and almond-crusted bread in the morning; but alas! The journey to a basket of hot rolls has been fraught with unforeseen obstacles; number one of which being my surly landlord, who lives two floors below me, came knocking at 10:30 in the evening demanding that I cease slapping my dough. Secondly, my utter lack of timidity pushed the limits on the rolls’ stay in the oven! Boo hoo! Anyway, learn from this and don’t leave your rolls in the oven for more than 35 minutes.

You can find how to manipulate the sticky mess into strong, bouncy dough on this video, Le Technique


Sweet Dough
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1/2 oz fresh (cake) yeast or 1 (1/4-oz) package active dry yeast (preferably Red Star or Saf; not rapid-rise)
• 1 lb 2 oz bread flour (about 3 3/4 cups)
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons superfine granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 large eggs
• If using fresh yeast, heat milk until just warm. If using dry yeast, heat milk to 120 to 130°F.
• Rub yeast into flour in a large bowl, then rub in butter. Stir in sugar and salt. Fold in milk and eggs with bowl scraper, rotating bowl, until liquid is absorbed and a wet, sticky dough forms. (Dough will be wetter than most you’ve encountered.) Scrape dough out onto an unfloured surface. (Dough will be a sticky mess. Don’t be tempted to add more flour. By working the dough through a process of repeatedly stretching and folding it over onto itself, trapping air, dough will become cohesive and supple.).
• Slide your fingers underneath both sides of dough with your thumbs on top. Lift dough up (to about chest level) with your thumbs toward you, letting dough hang slightly. In a continuous motion, swing dough down, slapping bottom of dough onto surface, then stretch dough up and back over itself in an arc to trap in air. Repeat lifting, slapping, and stretching, scraping surface with flat side of bowl scraper as needed, until dough is supple, cohesive, and starts to bounce slightly off of surface without sticking, about 8 minutes.
• Transfer dough to a lightly floured clean surface. Form into a ball by folding each edge, in turn, into center of dough and pressing down well with your thumb, rotating ball as you go. Turn ball over and transfer to a lightly floured bowl and cover with a kitchen towel (not terry cloth). Let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, about 1 hour.



Gently flatten the risen dough and roll up into a log (like a jelly roll). Cut portions large enough for your rolls. I was able to make 3 medium-sized and 1 large loaves of bread. Some of them I filled with ham and cheese and there’s this one I left unfilled. Let them rise, covered, in a draft-free place until double in size, about 1 hour. Brush the filled rolls with an egg wash made of a beaten egg + 1 T. water.

At this point, you may wish to top the unfilled loaf with an almond crust, as I did. The recipe:





Almond Crust

½ Egg white, beaten until very frothy
1 c. Almond flakes, lightly toasted
1 c. Sugar

Fold almonds into the frothy egg whites. Roll the coated almonds in sugar.

Bake the risen rolls in a preheated oven at 200C for 30 minutes. Test for doneness. They can be left 5 minutes longer, if they have not achieved the desired golden color.