Austro-German Salt Rolls: Salzstangen/Salzstangerl

There are many regional names for bread rolls in German, with the standard German word "Brötchen," a diminutive word literally meaning "(a) little or small bread," serving as a general term. Rolls of various shapes and sizes sprinkled with or rolled in salt and caraway seeds are common in a number of German (broad sense) areas. The relatively narrow and rod-shaped rolls with salt and caraway are called "Salzstangen" by some Germans and "Salzstangerl" by some others, primarily in Austria.* Both terms can also be used for "pretzel sticks." The "Stange" part of both words is related to English "sting," and English once had the noun "steng," derived from the earlier form of "sting," and it essentially meant what German "Stange" still means; that is, "rod, bar, pole," but it is not hard to see how English developed "stinger" from the idea of a "rod or pole that punctures."

I used a mixture of bread flour and all purpose flour, but you can certainly use just all purpose flour.

Ingredients (8 rolls):

1 cup bread flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 packet (1/4 ounce/7g) dry yeast (quick rise is fine)
1/2 teaspoon salt**
1/4 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
salt, coarse (or pretzel salt)
caraway seed
1 beaten egg to hold the salt and caraway seeds

Mix together the flour, yeast, salt and sugar. Melt the butter and mix with the milk, then add this to the flour mix. Mix this all very well and knead the dough for several minutes until it is smooth. Roll the dough into a ball and cover with a towel or paper towel and let the dough sit for about 35 to 45 minutes in warm place. Roll the dough out into a circular form, like making a pizza, but then cut the dough into 8 equal segments. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take one of the eight "pizza slices" of dough and roll it out by rolling from the wider part toward the pointed end, so that the dough is pretty thin, like you would think of pie crust or noodles. Roll up the dough, again beginning at the wide end. Place the dough on the baking sheet and continue with the remaining 7 rolls. Leave about an inch of space between the rolls. Beat the egg and brush some of the egg onto the tops of rolls, then sprinkle the rolls with some coarse salt and some caraway seeds. Cover the baking sheet with a towel or paper towel and let the dough sit for a half hour. Heat the oven to 350 F and bake the rolls for about 30 to 35 minutes, or until they are lightly browned.      

* The "erl" suffix is a pretty common form for diminutives in parts of Bavaria and Austria.

** Remember, you will be adding salt to the outside of the rolls. 

WORD HISTORY:
Tote-The origins of this word are not known, and even its beginning in English is not totally clear. It was borrowed by English circa 1675 "likely" from its Low German cousin "Tute" (now "Tuut"), which means "bag," but it "could" be related to "toot," from the idea of a horn being used as a container, and we still have the phrase, "horn of plenty," with a horn filled with various food products, and the Low German word originally meant "a cone shaped form of container," and there are connections even in Icelandic, a language to this day not all that far removed from its ancestor  Old Norse. German has "Tüte," but this was a borrowing from Low German in the 1500s, and it means "cone shaped holder/container," which then also broadened, as in Low German, to "bag." By the way, in German, an "Eistüte" is an ice cream cone. On the other hand, "some" believe "tote" to have come to English from an African language, where some similar words had similar meanings like "pick up, pile up, load."