Olive oil bread rolls

Olive oil bread rolls

I remember that, when I was a child, my group of then friends and I were experimenting the first moments of independence. In the summer, soon after the end of the school, we used to meet in the mornings in the communal courtyard and we went all together to the baker’s on the top of the street to buy the bread for the day,
There ten girls of approximately the same age, between the end of elementary school and the first years of junior high.
Every family had its own bread, every day the same.
One of these families used to buy bananas, which is not the fruit as you may have thought, but a shape of olive oil bread which vaguely bore a resemblance to a banana. I remembered this when I was preparing these olive oil bread rolls from the well-known Roman baker Gabriele Bonci, who first prepared them live during a TV show on the national broadcasting television, and ever since they have been a popular hit in every Italian household.
These bread rolls have a nice little crust and a lot of soft white part, and they are a hit when stuffed with salami or cheese, but they go as well with butter and jam. Honestly, I have them plain, they’re so delicious!
The preparation is quite simple, if you have a kneading machine it’ll do the work for you.
Are you ready to taste this bakery Italian delicacy?

Ingredients:
500 gr bread flour
275 gr lukewarm water
10 gr sugar
10 gr salt
5 gr fresh brewer’s yeast
35 ml olive oil

Preparation
Dissolve the yeast in the water with the sugar. Stir well.
Put the sifter flour into the kneading machine bowl, or on a working surface if you haven’t the machine, e pour the water with the yeast little by little, and start to knead. It will take about ten minutes to have a nice dough. Then add the salt, and the oil as final ingredient. Pour it into the dough little by little, allow it to absorb pretty well- you will need another 10 minutes of kneading for this. The dough will be slightly sticky, but it was to be.
Oil a clean bowl and put the dough in it covered with cling foil, and let it double (when it is warm it should take two hours, if it is colder you may allow it 3 hours to rest).
Take the dough and using a rolling pin roll it out about half a centimetre thick. Cut then even stripes of dough (I got away with 8 stripes), lightly wet them with water and roll them up, forming little cute bread rolls.
Put the bread rolls onto the baking tray covered with parchment paper, cover them with cling foil again and let them rise for another 90 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees; put the bread roll into the oven, spray their surface before with some water (if you cannot spray them, pass a moist finger on the bread surface) and bake them for the first 10 minutes in the high part of the oven.
Then turn the oven down to 180 degrees and complete baking (approximately 15 minutes)
Let the bread rolls cool down on a grate before serving.