Every once in a while, someone creates a recipe that not only becomes popular but also creates a cult following around it. Claire Saffitz sour cream and chive rolls are the perfect example. Ever since Claire released her cookbook “Dessert Person”, her sour cream and chive rolls have taken over the world by storm. Everybody from the South West to Timbuktu wants to eat these rolls. But what makes it so sought after? What did she mix that the result was such a savoury and admired dish? We hate to break it to you, but it’s nothing special. All she did was create a recipe and stick to it.
You can do it too, given you follow the recipe to the T. Or else, what you will make will be a sour cream and a chive roll, not the legendary Claire Saffitz sour cream and chive rolls.
Ingredients You Need!
We are not such hypocrites as to say that this is a very simple recipe that requires only a few ingredients. On the contrary, it requires a bunch of ingredients to get it right. The recipe, on the other hand, is truly not that tough. Just needs to be followed properly. Here is all you need to make these pull-apart sour cream-and-chive rolls.
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons of whole milk
- 5⅓ cups (667 g) bread flour, divided (keep a little extra handy for dusting)
- 1½ teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
- ¼ cup (50 g) sugar
- 4 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt or 2¼ teaspoons Morton kosher salt
- 3 large eggs
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces, divided
- ½ cup finely chopped fresh chives
- Flaky sea salt, for garnish
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Recipe
The Claire Saffitz sour cream and chive rolls recipe doesn’t have a lot of complex steps. That being said, it does have very little margin for error if you want the rolls to be exactly like hers. Also, this recipe and the ingredients we mentioned are enough to make 24 chive rolls.
Step 1-
Start by whisking half a cup of milk with ⅓ cup of flour or 42g, and half a cup of water in a small saucepan until smooth and lump free. Now, place the saucepan on your stove and cook over medium heat, while whisking it constantly until a very stiff paste forms, with a similar consistency to mashed potatoes. This is the consistency we want. Once you achieve it, pour the paste into a pan.
Step 2-
Once we have nailed the first step.
Next up is preparing the yeast. To do this, pour the remaining 2 Tbsp of milk in the same saucepan and heat it until it becomes lukewarm.
Once it is a little warm, remove it from the stove and add yeast. Now, whisk for as long as it takes to dissolve the yeast. Let it rest for 5 minutes while it becomes foamy.
Step 3-
After completing both previous steps, add sour cream, sugar, salt, 2 eggs, 4 Tbsp butter and the remaining 5 cups of flour to the paste we made earlier. Now, add the yeast we activated earlier and mix the whole mixture softly until a shaggy dough forms. Increase the speed of your dough mixer.
Add extra flour by the Tbsp if the dough becomes a little sticky. This whole process should take around 8 to 10 minutes. Why a time period, you might ask? Well, baking is a very temperature-sensitive process, even during the kneading of dough.
Step 4-
Now that we have made the dough, the next step is to let it rise.
Place the dough on your workstation and roll it into a ball. Once rolled, place it in a bowl with a plastic or silicone lid and let it rest in a warm place until the dough doubles in size.
This is a very important step, as we don’t want the flour to rise too much. It should take around 1-1.5 hours to get the rise we are looking for.
Step 5-
While the dough rises, take a 13×9-inch pan and brush it with 2 Tbsp of butter. The coat might be a little thicker than you expect, but this is what we want here.
Uncover the dough and give it a light punch to expel all the excess air in the dough.
Step 6-
We have reached the latter steps of the Claire Saffitz sour cream and chive rolls recipe. Now, you have to sprinkle some flour on your workstation and spread the dough into a relatively uniform square. We have seen many people using semolina, which might not be the perfect fit here.
Step 7-
This is one of the most important parts of Claire Saffitz sour cream and chive rolls.
Use a rolling pin or your hands to spread it into a 12-inch square and sprinkle chives all over it.
Step 8-
We’re almost there, people. Just start rolling the dough from end to end until it’s a flat 16×6’ rectangle.
Step 9-
Take a wheel cutter or a scraper to cut the dough into twenty-four 2-inch pieces.
Step 10-
Take one piece of dough and pull all the edges into the centre, pinching them together to create a teardrop. Turn it over so the seam rests underneath.
Now, place your hand lightly over it and move in quick circles against the surface until it firms up into a smooth, tight ball. Skip the flour here; you need that slight grip from the surface.
Set the shaped dough into your prepared pan and repeat with the rest, arranging them in a 6×4 pattern with a bit of space between each. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave it in a warm, draft-free spot.
Wait until the rolls have almost doubled in size, about 45–60 minutes.
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Step 11-
In the meantime, place a rack in your oven and preheat it to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Step 12-
This is the last step. Whisk some eggs, brush them on your rolls and bake them for about 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown on the surface. Once the baking part is done, take it out and brush the remaining 2 Tbsp butter over your rolls.
The Claire Saffitz Sour Cream and Chive Rolls Recipe You Need to Try!
See, how easy the recipe is. Ok. Jokes aside, this recipe isn’t that tough. Just follow the steps as they are and believe us, you will have a cuisine that tastes a little sweet, a little salty and is a perfect companion with a dark coffee. This is Claire Saffitz sour cream and chive rolls you always wanted to bake.
