My in-laws were in town this weekend and my husband had smoked prime rib.  We thought that would make perfect dinner sandwiches.  He asked if I could try making hoagie rolls from scratch.  I figured if they turned out awful, the grocery store wasn't too far.

So I set about finding a recipe, put the yeast into proof (I am working with fast acting yeast after the last bread fiasco).  If you don't know what proofing yeast is, it's basically putting it in warm water or milk (not too warm bc it'll die) and adding sugar (it's food).  This should cause the yeast to 'grow' and become spongy.  The fear of killing the yeast causes some anxiety, but I figured at least I would know in 5 minutes if it was working, rather than 3 hours later when my bread looks and tastes like concrete.

So, yeast was proofing, next step.... 8 CUPS of flour. No problem, who doesn't have gallons of flour in their house?

PROBLEM!

I had one and a half cups with no 'extra' bag in the house!  I couldn't just run to the store because my two year old son was asleep and no one else was home...  Try again later, I guess.

A few days later, I had gone to the store - I got two bags of flour and sugar; I wasn't running out!  Then started the recipe again.  Good thing too, as the second time I read it, I realized I needed two packets of yeast not one!  (disaster averted)

I had asked Chef Sister if it was ok just to use my kitchen aid to knead the dough, as the recipe called for hang kneading, and let's be honest, that's not happening from me.  It was approved for Chef Sister, though she said the second kneading, after letting it raise, should be done by hand but that's not as strenuous as putting it together.

Kitchen Aid out, yeast proofing, plenty of flour and I had all afternoon because the boys were out doing something, the two year old was asleep (again) and his grandmother was in the house so I could even run to the store if I needed to.

Everything looked good going in.  I even got them shaped into hoagie sized rolls!  This was another anxiety filled moment, because I'm a lazy baker and shaping things makes me feel like I'm just going to have dough all over the place, like in my hair and on my clothes and the walls of the kitchen.  But mostly, it was fine.  I dropped some dough on the floor but other than that, nothing was stuck anywhere else.  There was flour EVERYWHERE, though!  After shaping, I even used kitchen scissors to 'cut' three slashes in each roll.

I was not optimistic....

But they turned out great!

As you can see, I don't have pictures....  they are literally stuck in my camera. So you'll have to take my word on this.

They were pretty perfect hoagie rolls, though they dried out pretty quickly (within two days of being in the fridge).  This recipe also made 18!  So we will probably never run out of bread.  If I do get a chance to make them again, I'll cut the recipe in half and try to have them eaten all on the day they were made.  I also wonder about using this recipe and putting it in a bread pan to make a loaf.  We love grilled cheese sandwiches so having homemade bread for those would make them extra special!