Ladi Pav Recipe (Eggless Dinner Rolls) (2024)

This ladi pav aka Indian dinner rolls are amazingly soft, feathery light, and fluffy. Learn how to make these at home with all the possible tips and tricks!

I never imagined I would be baking bread at home. But then as you know things happen and you end up doing things you never dreamt about doing in the first place.

As intimidating as baking bread seem, it really isn’t, once you get past that initial fear! I still consider myself an amateur in this area, and still have a long way to go!

The different kinds of flour, bakers percentage, hydration, bulk ferment, sourdough, artisan, Polish, biga to name a few are words that I’ve probably never ever come across before! Now I know the words, but still, have to know how to work with a couple of them. For today let’s see how to make these basic egglessladi pav bread recipe.

What is it about a home-baked bread, when it’s available commercially?

If you do make bread at home, you would agree with me on the following points:

1. Baking is therapeutic. The whole process of kneading the dough and seeing it rise and transform to the finished product fills one with a lot of satisfaction.
2. The aroma of freshly baked bread wafting through the kitchen is simply divine!
3. When you bake your own bread you know what goes into it and are assured of the quality.
4. Finally the joy of biting into a piece of that bread, slathered with some butter !! Heaven! The simple joys in life!!

I began my bread baking journey immediately after moving here to the US almost 3 years ago. I missed the ladi pav that we would get in Mumbai and so had to try making them at home.

When I think of pav, a number of dishes come to mind, like pav bhaji, cheese pav bhaji, misal pav, masala pav, vada pav,omelette pav, maska pav and the list goes on! In order to enjoy these dishes, you seriously need some good pav bread!

My first attempt at making bread was a disastrous whole wheat sandwich loaf bread until I realized and came across another word in the bread dictionary – ‘ gluten’!

Ingredients needed

To make these easy Bombay ladi pav, you will require the following;

• All-purpose flour: I’ve used regular all-purpose flour for this recipe. You can also use bread flour. I do not recommended using 100% whole wheat flour as the rolls will be dense, unless you add gluten in this recipe. Also, the liquid proportions will change.
• Yeast: I’ve used active dry yeast, which needs to be activated before using it. You can also use rapid rise yeast or instant yeast, these don’t need to be activated and can be added directly with the dry ingredients.
• Sugar: This is need to activate the yeast.
• Kosher salt: to flavor up the bread. You can also use regular table salt or sea salt.
• Lukewarm milk: Milk adds richness to the dough, the resulting pav buns are tender, have a soft crumb and a golden crust.
• Butter: also adds richness to the dough. Adding a little fat in the form of butter or oil helps preserve the bread for longer.

The best pav recipe, adapted from my Mother’s recipe book

As I’ve mentioned before I got my hands on my mum’s age-old recipe book, and was elated to find this pav bread recipe.

I made the following changes;

• Instead of 450 grams flour, I’ve used 4 cups of flour (approx 575 grams flour).
• Also, the recipe calls for block yeast, I’ve used the same quantity of active dry yeast. If you buy yeast in packets, then one packet (2 & 1/4 teaspoons) is more than sufficient to rise this quantity of flour.
  I’ve increased the salt to 1.5 teaspoons for more flavor.
• The recipe doesn’t specify the quantity of the liquid. I chose to use milk instead of water for reasons mentioned above in the detailed ingredients list. Thequantity of milk is something that I have experimented with a lot in terms of hydration and for me, 1 & 2/3 cups liquid yields the best results. You may require anywhere between 1 & 1/2 to 1 & 2/3 cups depending on climatic conditions.

This ladi pav bun is feather light, fluffy and extremely delicious 🙂 This is a fail-proof recipe that I have tried and tested many times. It is guaranteed to give you the perfect dinner rolls if you follow all the steps correctly.

With experience and practice, you will get a hang of how the dough should feel and everything else that comes along with bread baking, so it will only get better with time 🙂

Important pointers to keep in mind while making this recipe

I havetried to cover as many details as possible in the stepwise pictorials, keeping in mind all the experiences I have dealt with in making ladi pav rolls. Sometimes they would turn out hard, sometimes soft. Keep in mind the following tips and you will be making endless batches of these dinner rolls like a pro!

Measure the ingredients accurately

I always recommend using a weighing scale to measure out the ingredients, especially the flour. If you are bake very often, I highly suggest you invest in a weighing scale.

Do not proceed without activating the yeast

If using active dry yeast, please do not proceed without activating the yeast first.

Avoid adding extra flour

Do not add more flour than that called for in the recipe. Adding more flour will result in hard dinner rolls, add few tablespoons flour at a time if it is still very sticky or simply grease your palms with more butter if required. The dough should be soft and tacky but not sticky.

The difference between sticky and tacky

The difference between sticky and tacky is crucial and an important factor to achieve soft rolls. You don’t want the dough to be over hydrated.

If you touch the dough, pull back and find some residue sticking to your finger, the dough is sticky.

If you touch the dough, pull back and find it leaves your finger easily without much residue, it is tacky and the right consistency. You can go ahead and proof the dough.

Use a bench scraper or a knife to divide the dough into equal sized rolls

Avoid tearing the dough by hand as it will tear the gluten strands which you worked so hard to develop.

Hope you find this easy ladi pav recipe withall these tips, tricks, and details useful 🙂

You may also enjoy these bread recipes

• Eggless hot cross buns
• Dutch oven bread
• Kugelhopf

How to make ladi pav at home – Step by step instructions

Step 1: Activate the yeast

Add 2.5 teaspoons of active dry yeast & 1 teaspoon sugar to 1/3 cup of lukewarm milk/water. Leave it in a warm place for about 10-15 minutes or until it is all frothy and bubbly. If the yeast is not frothy and bubbly, it means it is not activated, discard and start over again.

Step 2: Prepare the dough

Measure the flour using ameasuring cup (4 cups) or weigh the flour (575 grams), sift in a large mixing bowl, add 1.5 teaspoons of salt, activated yeast mixture, and the remaining 1 & 1/3 cup lukewarm milk/water.

Mix the contents of the bowl using a spatula/ or with your hands.

Dust your work surface with very little flour, transfer this sticky dough, add 2 tablespoons of butter, and start kneading until you get a soft & pliable dough.

This will take approximately 10-12 minutes, but the dough will definitely come together.

You can use a bench scraper to scrape the dough off the work surface and keep folding to make it easier.

Once the dough is done, poke it with your finger, if it springs back, it is ready for the next step.

If you are kneading in a stand mixer– You want the dough leaving the sides, but you still want to see a blob of dough at the bottom under the dough hook.

If it’s coming away completely from the bottom, the dough is under hydrated and dry, this will result in hard dinner rolls. Here’s a pic for reference below.

This is another batch that was kneaded in the stand mixer. It is the right consistency of the dough – a bit tacky but not sticky. Transfer it to your work surface dusted with little flour, knead for another 1-2 minutes and follow the next step.

Step 3: Proof the dough (first rise)

Tuck the edges of the dough towards the center to form a ball and transfer it to a big greased bowl.

Spray some oil spray on the dough or apply little oil over the dough. Cover with a clean kitchen napkin, and set aside in a warm place to proof or double in size.

It may take anywhere from 45 mins to 1.5 hours dependingon the climatic conditions.

Step 4: Deflate the dough and knead for few more minutes

After the dough has risen, deflate it by punching down the dough, and transfer to the working surface. Knead again for another 5 minutes at least, add very little flour if the dough is too sticky.

Step 5: Shaping and second proofing (second rise)

Cut the dough with a scraper/dough knife/ regular knife into equal portions and shape them into rolls. Tuck the edges underneath towards the center, roll the dough against your work surface or between your palms to form a smooth round ball.

If you have a weighing scale, you can divide the rolls equally. I just eyeballed it.

Place them in a greased 9 x 13 greased baking tray. Leave little space between each. Cover with a damp kitchen cloth and let it proof for the second time. This will take approximately 30 minutes depending on the weather conditions.

Step 6: Baking

Preheat the oven to 400 F, Brush the risen dough balls with milk for a nice browncolored crust. Bake for about 15 -18 minutes or until they are done and the top is golden brown.

The top of the rolls will appear hard as soon as you remove it from the oven. You should be able to hear a hollow sound when you tap on top of the roll, that’s how you know it is well cooked. I remove mine at 18 minutes.

Remove the prepared rolls from the oven and brush withremaining 1 tbsp butter whilst still warm. They will soften once they start cooling down. Enjoy these, slathered with some butter or with bhaji or any curry of your choice.

Notes

• How to knead bread dough? Take a look at this quick video by King Arthur Flour.
• Shaping dinner rolls require a technique, it is not simply just rolling the dough into a ball, refer this quick video to get an idea.
• To store the rolls, place them in an airtight container or ziplock bag. They stay good for 2-3 days at room temperature.
  If you buy yeast in packets, then 1 packet i.e 2 & 1/4 teaspoons are sufficient for this recipe too.
• You may use half milk and half water.
• This same recipe can be used to make homemade buns too. Only remember to place them at least 3 inches apart so that they the buns don’t touch each other after proofing, and they maintain their round shape.

★ If you try this pav recipe, I would love to hear from you! I’d appreciate it if you could rate and leave a review below in the comments. Your reviews help others know the recipe better too. Feel free to share your feedback and suggestions at [emailprotected]. Thanks so much 🙂

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