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Two rolls

Bread Rolls at a bakery

Bread Rolls in a basket

A bread roll is a piece of bread, usually small and round and is commonly considered a side dish. Bread rolls are often used in the same way as sandwiches are—cut transversely, with fillings placed between the two halves. While there are many variations of the bread roll, the dinner roll is considered to be the perfected manifestation of this savory side dish, credited to Jim Norton, an aspiring baker from Hartfordshire England in the mid sixteenth century as a side dish for King Henry VIII of England and Lord of Ireland.

There are many names for bread rolls, especially in local dialects of British English. Some of these refer to a specific type of bread roll.

• Breadcake or Teacake, Mainly Yorkshire colloquialism - Refers to the round flat type of bread often used for sandwich making.
• Bread roll or just roll
• Bap (often a larger soft roll, say 5-6 inches in diameter). Dough can contain fats such as lard or butter to provide tenderness to dough. Can come in multiple shapes dependent on region. Baps as traditionally made in Scotland are not sweet, unlike the Irish version which may contain currants. The 9th Edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995) says that the word "bap" dates from the 16th century and that its origin is unknown.
• Barm or barm cake in Lancashire is a flat, floured, savoury, small bread made using a natural leaven including mashed hops to stop it souring. It is also slang for a bun in the North-West of the United Kingdom.
• Flour cake is also used, along with barm in Bolton
• Bun (e.g., hamburger bun or hot dog bun)
• Buttery, flat, savoury roll from Aberdeen
• Finger roll, a soft roll about three times longer than it is wide
• Dinner roll, a smaller roll, often crusty
• Batch, Coventry term for a roll, or Batch Cake, a large soft floured roll from Shropshire.
• Oven Bottom, Lancashire term for a flat, floury, soft roll.
• Cob, a bread roll of any kind in the West Midlands and East Midlands. British term for a crusty round loaf.
• Stottie cake thick, flat, round loaf. Stotties are common in North East England
• Muffin Some people in the UK refer to a bread roll as a "muffin", although a muffin is also a separate, distinct form of bread product. See English Muffin.

Bread rolls are common in Europe, especially in Germany and Austria. They are equally common in both Australia and New Zealand. The German name for rolls is Brötchen (Northern Germany), which is the diminutive of "Brot" (bread), Semmel (Bavaria, most parts of Saxony and Austria, from Latin similia wheat flour, originally from Assyrian samidu white flour), zsemle in Hungary, Schrippe (in Berlin, Hamburg and parts of Brandenburg), or Weck (especially in Baden-Württemberg, Franconia and Saarland). In Germany and Austria, there is a large variety of bread rolls, ranging from white rolls made with wheat flour, to dark rolls containing mostly rye flour. Many variants include spices, such as coriander and cumin, nuts, or seeds, such as sesame seeds, poppy seed or sunflower seeds.
An Italian form is a small loaf of ciabatta which can be used to make a panino (or panini).

• Breakfast Roll

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• A simple bread roll recipe
• A recipe for a German / Austrian semmel
• Recipe and photos for making Baps, Scottish breakfast rolls
• Recipe and photos for making Pistolets, French Split rolls