Wisconsin Foodie

Hard Rolls

Hard Rolls – Transcript

– Announcer: This week on Wisconsin Foodie:

[jazz music]

– Luke: You must be Fuzzy?

– Yes, I am.

– Nice!

– Luke: You are just as colorful as, I think, everyone says you are.

– Yeah.

– How often do you eat a brat sandwich?

– At least four times a week.

[Luke laughing]

– Fuzzy: I don’t do it because of the brat. I do it because of the hard roll.

[Luke laughing]

– Luke: How much of this part of the process separates your hard rolls from the other bakeries in the city?

– Rick: Very large part of our bread and hard roll. You know, reputation is based around hearth baking in this oven. So you wanna give it a try?

– Luke: Oh, you know I do! This is most certainly Sheboygan. I can only imagine what this must taste like with the double brat.

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

– Introducing Organic Valley Ultra. Milk with more protein, half the sugar, and no toxic pesticides. Let’s be honest, none of that healthy stuff really matters unless our kids will drink it.

[dramatic music, mom whispers “C’mon”]

[girl gulping]

[cow mooing]

– Yeah, I would drink that.

[mom gasps]

– Do you hear that? She would drink that!

[cheering, triumphant music]

– Parents are weird.

– More protein, half the sugar. Organic Valley Ultra.

The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie, and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering]

Just look for our badge. It’s on everything we make.

Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer is made.

– Wisconsin’s great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

– From production to processing, right down to our plates, there are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world. Hungry for more? Shape your career with these companies and others at fabwisconsin.com.

– Specialty crop craft beverages use fruit grown on Wisconsin orchards and vineyards to create award-winning ciders and wines. Wisconsin’s cold climate creates characteristics and complexities that make this craft beverage unique to our state.

– Society Insurance.

– Freshwater Family Farms.

– Also, with the support of the Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

[upbeat music]

– Luke: We are a collection of the finest farmers, food producers, and chefs on the planet.

We are a merging of cultures and ideas, shaped by this land.

[sizzling]

We are a gathering of the waters, and together, we shape a new identity to carry us into the future.

[upbeat music]

We are storytellers. We are Wisconsin Foodie.

[paper tearing]

[upbeat music]

People who know brats say that a brat is only as good as the hard roll that it’s served on. Today, we’re going to visit two of Sheboygan’s historic bakeries. The City Bakery and the West Side Bakery to see how these hard rolls stack up.

[machine whirring]

– Good morning.

– Morning.

– I’m Luke.

– Hey, I’m Rick.

– Nice to meet you, Rick.

– Yeah, you too.

– Luke: Man, City Bakery, it’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues, and I can’t wait to get to work.

– Well, if you want to help out, you’re more than welcome. You just have to–

– Hat it up.

[laughing]

Nice.

[Rick laughing]

Can’t wait. Rick, I want to ask you some questions about this oven. And I can’t say I’ve ever seen one quite like it.

– [laughing]

Yeah. I’ve never actually seen one anywhere. I mean, years back there was probably several of ’em, but I don’t believe that the Petersen Oven Company is in business anymore.

– Luke: How much of the identity of the bakery and the baked goods are associated specifically with this oven?

– Rick: Oh, I think it’s a very large part of it. Very large part of our bread and hard roll. You know, reputation is based around hearth baking in this oven.

– How long have you owned City Bakery?

– Over 31 years now. And I worked here before that. I started working here in 1982. Probably since I was about 17 or so. I worked in a bakery as a cleaning person, and took a lot of interest in it, and the baker, you know, he showed me things, and that’s how it pretty much all started. Did you want to try and slide one in?

– Luke: I would love to. I’m a little intimidated. I don’t mind telling you that.

That feels amazing.

[Rick laughing]

I mean, like, honestly, there’s a pliability to it, but if you notice the bread in my hands, it’s not actually seeping through, right?

– Rick: Yep.

– Luke: And it’s springy. You can literally feel it bouncing.

– Rick: And you can dock it.

– You can dock it, okay.

– Yep.

– And do you dock it across?

– I put five cuts on it.

– Five cuts.

– Yeah.

– Is that your signature?

– Well, it’s five cuts for a pound-and-a-half loaf, and four cuts for a one-pound loaf.

– Luke: That’s really smart. So, five cuts?

– Rick: Yep.

– Luke: Why is scoring bread important?

– Rick: Otherwise when you put it in, and all that rapid expansion of gases, it has to have somewhere to escape. Otherwise, it’ll split the loaf open. And you could get up, yep.

– And I’m going over there.

– On the far end. Yep, just try to get, you know, within a couple of inches of them other loaves. Without hitting ’em.

Now you just give it a little–

Come off good?

– I think I got it.

– All right.

[Luke and Rick laughing]

– Luke: Oh, that’s super satisfying.

– Rick: Mastered my job in a couple minutes. You get muscle memory after a while for doing things.

– Luke: But getting that slide just right is definitely a skill.

– You know, that’s a lot of reasons for the cornmeal on the bottom. So it slides off the peel.

– Sure. How many loaves do you have in the deck right now?

– Rick: Probably about 30 or so, or 40.

– Luke: 30 or 40?

– Rick: Yep.

And you do have to kind of work with a fair amount of speed, especially if you have a full oven. So that, by the time we get these all in, some of them on the other side might be getting close to ready.

[upbeat funky music]

– Luke: That’s one of the best smells in the entire world. Just the richness.

– Rick: Yeah.

– Luke: Do you ever get sick of that smell?

– Rick: No, I love the smell of bread.

[Luke laughing]

[upbeat funky music]

– I don’t know if people can hear this, but right now— Rick: Crackling?

– It’s crackling. It sounds a little bit like Rice Krispies.

– I think it’s actually just the shrinking of the hard outer crust.

– Luke: Okay.

– Rick: It’s the sound that you hear.

– Luke: Sure. Do these Italian loaves got out in the front case?

– Rick: Yeah.

– Luke: How much of the retail store, like what percentage is that of your sales?

– Rick: I would say probably about 75%. We tend to focus, I think, on retail more.

– Server: Three in this bag.

– Rick: Now we’re just gonna scale the flour. This is just salt, sugar, diastatic malt. Which is, you know, basically a lot of sugar to it. Lard and then yeast, and the rest is just a sponge.

Pretty sticky.

– Yeah.

– Rick: You gotta kinda understand the science behind yeast bread. You know, production is important to understand. You know, what different functions of the fermentation process, and the age of the dough, which can vary according to weather and shop conditions.

[upbeat jazz music]

– Luke: Yes.

– Rick: That’s it. Now it’s just having to get mixed to development, and— Luke: How much of this part of the process separates your hard rolls from the other bakeries in the city?

– Well, we’re the only ones that do a sponge and dough technique off the bat.

– Luke: So this more of an Old World process.

– Definitely, yeah.

– You know, with the fermented dough.

– Yep, yep.

– Luke: How many hard rolls do you think you could fit in this thing at one time?

– Rick: I’d say 200 probably, 300 dozen.

– Luke: 300 dozen?

– Rick: Yeah. We’ll mix ’em up, and we’re ready to go with hard rolls.

– Luke: That sounds great.

[machine whirring]

– Rick: Wanna get your hands–

– Luke: In batter.

– Rick: Into the dough.

– Luke: I do.

– Rick: You can. These go five by seven on the board.

– Luke: Okay.

– Rick: Try to space ’em as evenly as possible. That way they won’t stick together. There ya go, like that.

– Is this eight? Did I accidentally slip eight on there? I did.

– Oh yeah, there ya go.

– Take it off.

– Thanks. All right, let’s do this.

– Luke: See what happens when you turn your back on it? Quality control just falls apart.

[gentle acoustic music]

All right, so when we get those here that I’m pulling off, I’m out of board space.

[laughing]

– Rick: Yep. Not allowed to shut the machine off.

[Luke laughing]

I’m just kidding.

– Luke: Is that truly a rule? You can’t shut the machine down?

– Rick:

[laughing]

No.

– Luke: No?

– Rick: No.

– Luke: I have no idea how many of these I’ve done so far. Maybe that’s part of the trick, you know, you just don’t count. You just do, you know?

[gentle acoustic music]

Let’s get out of Rick’s hair for a little bit, and make our way across town to meet with the Sheboygan baking legend Fuzzy at his West Side Bakery, and learn how his hard rolls are just a little bit different.

[gentle acoustic music]

– Fuzzy: Good morning or afternoon, whatever it is.

[Luke laughing]

– I’m Luke. You must be Fuzzy.

– Yes, I am.

– Nice.

– Yeah.

– You are just as colorful as, I think, everyone says you are.

– Yeah.

– I mean, this sweatshirt is great.

– Yeah.

– Look at this. You got all of Wisconsin represented on there.

– Fuzzy: Even Sheboygan.

– Luke: Even Sheboygan!

[Fuzzy laughing]

How do you eat your bratwurst? I think that like, you know, it’s–

– How do you eat ’em?

– Well, with your mouth usually right, but like what do you put on ’em?

– Yeah, I like to buy brat patties.

– Luke: Brat patties!

– Yeah, I like the brat patties, put ’em on a hard roll. Put butter, and then you’ll put the pickles and onions, and you put that all on there, and then with a little cheese.

– Oh, nice. What cheese do you put on there?

– Muenster cheese.

– Muenster cheese.

– Yeah.

– That is like the most Wisconsin answer I’ve ever heard. That’s beautiful. So, Muenster cheese, butter, pickles, onions. No mustard?

– Oh yeah, some Grey Poupon.

– Grey Poupon. You like the Dijon?

– Yeah. And then I, we fry ’em up, and then I put each one in a bag, and when I wanna nice brat sandwich, I pull one out, put in the microwave, and–

– Luke: Here it is.

– And away I go.

– How often do you eat a brat sandwich?

– At least four times a week.

[Luke laughing]

– Fuzzy: I don’t do it because of the brat, I do it because of the hard roll.

[Luke laughing]

– Luke: City Bakery does a hard roll.

– Fuzzy: Yeah.

– Luke: You do a hard roll.

– Fuzzy: Yeah.

– Luke: What am I gonna notice that’s different?

– Fuzzy: We roll our stuff in the cornmeal. And that gives it a little bit of crust. Years ago, we used to have an oven like they have at City Bakery.

– Luke: But you switched to this–

– Fuzzy: 1977 I think.

– 1977?

– Yeah, that’s when I realized that baking in the old hearth oven, I would either overwork myself, and I never would make any money. And this was very efficient. And then the new rack ovens are even more efficient. And we’re really producing four racks an hour, which is 240 dozen.

– Luke: 240 dozen.

– Fuzzy: Yeah.

– Luke: Yeah, that’s not messing around, is it?

– Fuzzy: No, no, no. I will be honest with you. If you get his hard rolls fresh, they’re better than mine.

– Really?

– Right.

– You just admitted that on camera?

– Yes.

[Luke laughing]

– But I understand that his hard rolls only last a day at the most.

– Sure.

– Where mine will last three, four days.

– Luke: Nice. So you’re playing the long game on that one.

– Fuzzy: I’m playing the long game because see, he could never take on the wholesale accounts that I do. Because he doesn’t– You can’t bake fast enough. When he bakes one oven of rolls, we bake three ovens.

– I mean it’s smart. And I think, even now, you know, to do a standalone bakery–

– Yeah.

– Right? There are so many people that have this idea, and this dream, like, “Oh, I’m gonna be a baker, “I’m gonna be a pastry chef,” maybe they see it on Food TV. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the real money in bakery is in wholesale.

– Yes.

– Gotta have those accounts to support it.

– Yes, it is. I mean we do a good store. We still do a good store business. I have loyal customers that came in when I first started it. ‘Course they’re old like me now, but they still come in here, because they like the stuff we make. And we make all our bakery, we make it fresh. We don’t buy frozen stuff.

– Are you still doing the baking here?

– No, I don’t do any baking no more.

[Luke laughing]

– Not even at home?

– No, I don’t.

[Luke laughing]

Why, why, why would I wanna when I– I do come here and get, you know, I get free hard rolls and free breads, and everything.

– Yeah.

– I don’t know if my son hears that.

[Luke laughing]

He doesn’t like it that I don’t pay for it.

– Well, your name, your face is on the bag, there should be some like, you know, royalty somewhere in there. At what point did you decide to start putting your face on the bags?

– Fuzzy: Well, it was my wife, first wife’s idea.

– Luke: Okay.

– Yeah, she says, you know, “Everybody wants, that comes in the store, “you know, can you meet Fuzzy the Baker?” She took a picture of me, and she surprised me. When I ordered hard roll bags, they came with my picture on it. I didn’t even know it was happening.

– Luke: How’d you get the nickname Fuzzy?

– I don’t know. I was just a little kid. You know, even now, I only have fuzzy hair.

[Luke laughing]

– Luke: If you would, tell me the story about how you got into baking.

– Fuzzy: Well, when I got out of grade school, I–

You know, they held me back a year, ’cause they said I was a little slow. I started at 15, and then when I turned 16, then I went full time. I did all the stuff that needed to be done. I would even go in during the morning,

not getting paid, I would go over where the cake baker was working.

And I would just watch him, and help, and just to learn it.

That I, what I, if knew someday I was gonna go on my own business, I wanted to learn it, and then I wouldn’t have to have somebody else do it. I lived at home, I paid my ma and pa rent. I stayed away from buying a car, ’cause cars keep you broke. And when I was 25, and got married to my first wife, who was from Hilbert, I had $25,000 in the bank. 1965. Which is a lot of money back then.

– Luke: So you bought this space?

– Fuzzy: I bought this, but when we first opened up, I did everything. I did all the cleaning, I did the delivering, I did everything. And the first year, after we paid all the bills and everything, we worked for 50 cents an hour back then. I said “It’ll get better,” and every year it got better, and it got better, and got better.

– Luke: Sure. What’s the next chapter of the West Side Bakery?

– Fuzzy: Well, you’d have to ask my kid. I hope he keeps it going.

– Luke: Yeah.

– Luke: Jason’s gonna take this over. He’s gonna take it into the next era.

– Fuzzy: Next era, yeah.

– Luke: Are you there to kinda guide him through it, or is it his, his bread?

– Fuzzy: No, he hasn’t asked me many questions. So, if, you know, he wants to ask me things, how I did it, then I would be glad to answer ’em. Because I don’t know about this, but I’d probably– Well, I’m gonna tell ya anyhow.

– Good.

– Back then, however many years ago that is, I was voted one of the master bakers in the state of Wisconsin. And it was only two of us.

– Luke: Wow.

– Fuzzy: Well, it means a lot to me. And especially that I lasted this long and– I survived because I modernized.

– Luke: Sure. Fuzzy, I really appreciate you taking the time to, you know, kinda walk me through this place. And give me a little bit of a glimpse into your life.

[jazz music]

We’ve loaded up on hard rolls from the West Side Bakery, but we’re not done yet. We know that we’re gonna have to put these to the test, but first, we need to head back to the City Bakery to crease and bake the hard rolls with Rick and his staff.

[jazz music]

The creasing board comes from the wood from these paddles. Some of those are actually handmade by Rick himself out of basswood.

Which allows for curvature, flexibility, but also is relatively heat-resistant. So, as you’re coming in and out of that oven, and the deck is somewhere in that 600- to 700-degree range, you’re not gonna start your paddle on fire.

– Rick: It takes a little more work to do this, but it’s an important part of it.

– Luke: The cornmealing and flipping?

– Rick: Yep.

– Luke: Why is the flip important?

– Rick: Well, once again, every time you handle dough, it adds a little bit of age to the dough. Plus, you’ll get cornmeal on both sides, and then when they bake ’em, we’ll turn ’em over like this onto the peel.

[jazz music]

– Luke: Doesn’t the story go that Fuzzy over at West Side, he worked here, right?

– Rick: Yep, I would say it was probably in the ’60s that he worked here. I never actually worked, you know, alongside Fuzzy, but he’s been in business a long time, and so he obviously knows what he’s doing.

– He’s kind of legendary, would you say?

– Yeah, the name Fuzzy, yeah, in Sheboygan. Everyone kind of knows Fuzzy the Baker, that name.

– Luke: It would stand to reason that he, you know, knew the method that was here.

– Yeah, yeah.

– Right?

– If he remembers.

– If he remembers.

[Luke and Rick laughing]

– Rick: Yeah, I think he’d probably started making hard rolls this way. As he started buying different equipment he started— Luke: Changing his methods?

– Rick: Change, yeah.

[jazz music]

So you wanna give it a try?

– Luke: Oh, you know I do.

– Rick: Same angle, right next to the other one.

– Luke: All right.

– Rick: There ya go.

– Luke: Too close?

– Rick: Good.

– Luke: It’s okay?

– Woman: Mm-hmm.

– Luke: Having ’em touch just a little bit won’t hurt it?

– Rick: Nope.

– Okay. Awesome, thank you.

– Rick: Yeah, you’re welcome.

– Luke: I’ve never done anything like this. Never ever.

[machine whirring]

The only word that I can use to describe this is artisan. Loading these rolls onto a wooden board, and placing them strategically on a deck of a hearth oven means this isn’t necessarily mass-produced. This is something that’s made with love, and care, and tradition. This is most certainly Sheboygan. This is most certainly Wisconsin.

The first thing that I immediately notice is this isn’t your average, like soft roll. This isn’t a hamburger bun.

[crunching]

The inside, you know, it’s still hot. And really that crunch on the outside, that’s symbolic of a good bread. You got a crust. I can only imagine what this must taste like with a double brat.

Hey, Rick, I can see you guys aren’t slowing down at all, so I’m gonna let you get at what you do. But thank you so much for taking the time to show me your craft.

– Glad to do it, glad to do it.

– Can I pick up a bag of hard rolls on the way out?

– Absolutely, we’ll get you set up with that.

– Luke: Can I keep the hat too?

– Rick: Oh, yeah.

– Luke: All right.

– Rick: Hat’s all yours.

– Luke: Great. Thanks a lot, brother. Have a good day.

– Rick: You bet.

– Luke: We just left Sheboygan, and we’re back on the road, and we’re hungry. We decided that we needed to settle a debate for ourselves as to which way to properly consume a Sheboygan bratwurst. Fuzzy the Baker at the West Side Bakery had strong opinions about his brat patty, but the people at City Bakery and Miesfeld’s agreed that the City hard roll with the double brat was the way to go. Tonight, we’re gonna settle this for ourselves. First and foremost, we are going to turn on the skillet to a medium-low heat. We want that to stay nice and low so that we don’t split the skins, or in the case of the brat patty, dry it out while we’re cooking it.

For these, I’m not gonna use any oil, and the idea behind that is I want these to get a nice sear. And they should be really, really juicy. So, we want them to basically cook and baste in their own juices. You know, I think it’s fair to say that our first choice for cooking brats is always to put ’em on a grill outside, but sometimes you’re on the road, you gotta make due with what ya got. And we’re doing that right now.

So we’re five minutes in now on the cook time for the brats, and I’m gonna give ’em a flip. And we can hear ’em kind of starting to come alive. Now that we’ve turned these over once, I wanna the brat patties on. And to be fair, I’ve never actually cooked a brat patty before, but I’m intrigued. I know that we want these to cook all the way through. And so, I think I wanna get them on that griddle sooner than later.

[jazz music]

What we have to do now is we need to cut up this Muenster cheese to get it on that brat patty. I feel like I need to be as authentic to Fuzzy’s vision of the Sheboygan bratwurst as I can be.

Because I came from the culture of waste not, want not, we’re gonna actually use the fat from the bratwurst to toast those buns. So we get a little bit of that salt, and some of those spices permeating it.

We got the brat patty with the Muenster cheese. We’re gonna place that on top of the buns. Then we’re gonna take some of these half-moons of onions that we’ve thinly sliced, and we’re gonna lay those on top of that Muenster cheese. We’ll garnish that with the bread and butter pickles. And then finally, the Dijon mustard.

[jazz music]

So being that this is my first time having a brat with one, pickles on it, two, Muenster cheese, and three, in a patty form, I gotta say, this is pretty good. This is like a reinvention on an old classic. Thing I really like about this, is the crispiness of that hard roll. Like on the bottom where we seared that thing, it’s got a really nice, pleasing crunch. Next, and certainly not least, we have to try the Sheboygan brat. This, when polling residents of Sheboygan, was the most popular choice of bratwurst, and was the predetermined way to eat it. The double brat, mustard, onion, straight up.

Let’s give it a shot.

That’s so classic. When I think of a brat, my mental perception is one that like, you know, conjures up images of tailgating, or being outside, or summertime. And this takes me there. The bratwurst is delicious, the mustard is great, and that hard roll, really, really takes the cake.

So in the end, I think there’s probably a million different ways that we can prepare brats here, and to be fair, I’m not sure I wouldn’t like any of ’em.

[jazz music]

– Rick: This is the dough for the fleischbrock.

– Luke: And what’s fleischbrock?

– Rick: It’s meat, cabbage, onions, salt, and pepper. And it’s fried, and then it’s stuffed in the middle of dough, and then proofed and baked. So we make ’em once a week, every Wednesday.

[upbeat music]

– Oh, man.

Tastes like something that my grandma would have made. It’s rich, it’s hearty, it’s soft, it’s delicate. And I think we’re probably gonna have to do a whole ‘nother episode just on this.

[upbeat music]

– Announcer: Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following underwriters.

– Introducing Organic Valley Ultra. Milk with more protein, half the sugar, and no toxic pesticides.

– Let’s be honest, none of that healthy stuff really matters unless our kids will drink it.

[dramatic music, mom whispers “C’mon”]

[girl gulping]

[cow mooing]

– Yeah, I would drink that.

[mom gasps]

– Did you hear that? She would drink that!

[cheering, triumphant music]

– Parents are weird.

– More protein, half the sugar. Organic Valley Ultra.

The dairy farmers of Wisconsin are proud to underwrite Wisconsin Foodie, and remind you that in Wisconsin, we dream in cheese.

[crowd cheering]

Just look for our badge. It’s on everything we make.

Employee-owned New Glarus Brewing Company has been brewing and bottling beer for their friends, only in Wisconsin, since 1993. Just a short drive from Madison, come visit Swissconsin and see where your beer’s made.

– Wisconsin’s great outdoors has something for everyone. Come for the adventure, stay for the memories. Go wild in Wisconsin. To build your adventure, visit dnr.wi.gov.

– From production to processing, right down to our plates, there are over 15,000 employers in Wisconsin with career opportunities to fulfill your dreams and feed the world. Hungry for more? Shape your career with these companies and others at fabwisconsin.com

– Specialty crop craft beverages use fruit grown on Wisconsin orchards and vineyards to create award-winning ciders and wines. Wisconsin’s cold climate creates characteristics and complexities that make this craft beverage unique to our state.

– Society Insurance.

Freshwater Family Farms.

1. Henry & Sons Bourbon.

Something Special from Wisconsin.

Marcus Hotels and Resorts.

Central Wisconsin Craft Collective.

91.7 WMSE.

Edible Milwaukee Magazine.

Also, with the support of the Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

For more information about upcoming Wisconsin Foodie special events and dinners, please go to wisconsinfoodie.com.

Still hungry for more? Get connected on Facebook and Instagram, and also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you’ll fine past episodes and special segments.

[upbeat music]