Mike, Your description of the ideal brotchen sounds a lot like the NY City
hardrolls that I have been pursuing, unsuccessfully, for several
years. Most responders equate NY hardrolls with "Kaiser rolls". I'm not
sure that they are the same but nearly every recipe I get on hardrolls is
for kaiser rolls. The most referenced recipe is from Joe Ortiz' "The
Village Baker". That recipe starts with a 2 hour very wet sponge and
includes barley malt syrup, scalded milk, and sugar in the dough
recipe. The text includes a detailed discussion on folding the dough to
get the traditional petal shape. I have tried this recipe several times
with variations. In general, the crumb is always too dense, the crust is
very chewy but tough (eating a sandwich made with the roll can be hard
work) but the flavor does seem familiar, suggesting that the ingredients
are close but there is something wrong with the procedure or
proportions. I have been baking European style breads at home for several
years and I can usually get results that are representative of the original
in a few tries, but the NY Hardrolls are still a mystery.
The flavoring and sweetening of the malt syrup seems to be authentic. I'm
not sure about the sugar. Certainly it helps to brown the crust but
putting the dough in fridge overnight will produce the natural sugars that
will do the same thing. (If the Ortiz recipe is derived from a commercial
recipe the sugar may be a substitute for time.) Does your recipe include
milk? Milk usually softens a crust so I'm surprised that is would be in
roll that is prized for its crust. I tried using powdered milk and it made
the crust a little less chewy but even softer, almost like a Parker
roll. I have not yet gotten the textures right. It seems that the open
light crumb these rolls should have would come from using a very wet
dough. Unfortunately the wet doughs I've tried lose their "petals" during
the final rise under a weighted cookie sheet. I don't know of any other
way to get the squashed disk shape that the roll requires.
This can't be that hard to do. Hardrolls were available by the millions
every morning almost anywhere in the NYC area during the 50's and
60's. Someone out there must have baked them.
Good luck in your quest and please keep us posted on your results.
Werner