Rustic Carrot Herb Rolls

Bread baking is another art I want to learn/ master one day. This is my first attempt at baking bread from scratch. The minute I saw these gorgeous Carrot Herb Rolls on Nupur's blog, I wanted to give it a try. Nupur has got an interesting style of writing that would inspire anybody to immediately try out the dishes she has blogged about. I have heard some horror stories about bread baking, so I followed the recipe without making any major changes as I didn’t want to take any chances. I used some cilantro and Pizza masala that I bought from India during my last trip in place of the herbs used in the original recipe. Pizza masala has a combination of dried herbs like thyme, rosemary and oregano. The rolls turned out to be delicious. They remind me of those rustic gourmet dinner rolls that we get in Specialty stores like Trader Joes, Panera Bread, Whole foods etc.
We had the first few rolls with cream cheese while they were still warm out of the oven. The remaining were served as Pav with the spicy Pav Bhaji I made for dinner the following night.

Ingredients -
1 cup whole wheat flour (regular chapati flour)
3 cups bread flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsp butter melted
2 1/4 cups carrots finely shredded
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 tbsp Pizza Masala
2 1/2 tsp salt

Method -
1. In a large bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, bread flour, and yeast. Make a well in the center and pour in the water and melted butter. Stir until combined. Mix in the carrots, cilantro and pizza masala and stir until a soft sticky dough forms.
2. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead 5 minutes, sprinkling on a little more bread flour if necessary to keep dough from sticking to your hands and the work surface.
3. Keep the dough covered in the bowl and let it rest for 20 minutes.
4. Sprinkle the salt over the dough and knead for 5 minutes, until salt is fully incorporated and the dough is smooth and still slightly sticky, adding more flour if necessary.
5. Put the dough back in the bowl and let it rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Punch down, then let rest for 10 minutes.
6. Divide the dough into pieces of desired sizes. Shape into balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle rolls lightly with flour and cover with a tea towel. Proof until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
7. About 20 minutes before baking, heat oven to 400F.
8. Now brush the rolls with salt water. Bake in preheated oven until the tops are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped, about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
9. Store in an airtight container or freeze. If desired, reheat at 350F for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

I recently came across the 'Food Blog S'cool Calendar' and thought of participating in some of these events. This is my entry for Bread Baking Day (BBD) #28 - Bread Buns hosted by Tangerine's Kitchen for the month of March.