Sesame seed hero rolls

Combine all ingredients into the bowl of your stand mixer. Using your dough hook, mix on medium speed for 8 minutes or until the dough pulls away from the bowl.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and knead with your hands until you have a nice smooth dough - one or two minutes. Shape it into a ball and place it in a lightly greased/oiled bowl in a warm place for 1 to 1.5 hours. 

After the dough has almost doubled in size, turn it onto a lightly floured or oiled surface. Divide into three equal pieces (use a scale if you want perfect sizes). 

Press each dough piece with your fingers until you have a rectangle of about the length that you want (in this case, around 11 inches) and about 3 inches wide. Roll the flattened rectangle up from the long side to the other long side until you have a log that is about 11  or 12 inches long and 1.5 to 2 inches around. When you're done rolling, you need to focus on sealing the seam. I pinch it and close it very well from one end of the seam to the other. This is important and helps the top of your dough log to stay tight. 

After I seal the seam, I roll the log again and taper each end a little. 

Sprinkle a liberal amount of sesame seeds in a large sheet pan or platter and roll each dough log through the seeds, ensuring an even coating on all sides.

Do this for each of your 3 dough portions and place them on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Place each dough log pinched seam side down. You can also use a silicone sub roll mold or even a metal baguette mold if you have one and want to give your rolls a bit more structure. 

Flatten each dough log slightly with your fingers so that it doesn't rise into quite a round cylinder. This will help the roll to be shaped better for sandwiches. 

Cover your sheet pan with a lightly oiled/greased plastic wrap and place it in a warm area for 1 hour or until the dough logs have doubled in size. 

Preheat the oven to 400F (205C). 

At this point, you can score your rolls with a very sharp knife if you want. I usually do three diagonal slashes across each roll, but you can also do one long slash from end to end. Or you can choose not to score the rolls at all. They should bake the same no matter which you choose. 

Right before you add the dough to the oven, I like to spray each roll with warm water. If you do not have a plastic squirt bottle that you can use for spraying water, you can get a measuring cup full of water and dip your fingers into it, and flick water on the top of each piece of dough. This extra moisture should turn to steam in the oven and help the exterior of the roll bake until slightly crispy.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan 180 degrees at the halfway point. (Note: this time is for non-convection ovens. If I use the convection setting it will cut as much as 8 minutes off the bake time.) Just take a peek at it when you turn the bread at the halfway point, and if it's already fairly tan, you might want to keep an eye on it. Your rolls need an internal temperature of 190 F (88 C) to be fully cooked. 

Allow the rolls to cool before slicing.