blespoon of water.

A Kaiser Roll is merely a lean roll, specially shaped, and baked in a steamy oven to make it crusty. Choose a recipe or mix for a lean bread dough—or leave the butter or oil out of the recipe. Make per the directions for rolls including letting the dough rise the first time.

Here’s how to shape the rolls:

Step 1: 
Cut a piece of dough off about twice what you would use for a dinner roll. (We scale the dough at 3.5 ounces for our sandwich rolls.) Roll the dough out into a rope about eight inches long.

Step 2: 
Form a simple over-hand knot in the center of the dough. Leave the knot loose; do not try to draw it tight. You will have two protruding ends a couple inches long.

Step 3: 
Take one of the ends and continue it around the rope and push it down through the center hole. It should look like the picture to the right.

Step 4:
Take the other end of the dough, go around the rope, and push the end up through the center hole. The finished roll should look like the one to the right.

It’s more complicated to try to describe the forming process than it is to form the rolls. After the first couple, you’ll breeze right through without even thinking.

Now let the formed rolls rise covered on a baking sheet. When they are ready to bake, brush them with a whisked egg and one