Baking German white bread rolls

Question

While searching online for a recipe, I found this YouTube video: How to bake 4k german white bread and followed the recipe (in the description):

German White bread (Berliner schrippe)
Ingredients for 6-9 bread rolls:
pre-ferment / vorteig:
200 gr Flour / Mehl
150 ml water / Wasser
5 gr instant yeast / trockene Hefe
main dough / teig:
300 gr Flour / Mehl
5 gr instant yeast / trockene Hefe
1 teaspoon salt / Salz
1 teaspoon sugar / Zucker
pre-ferment must be kept overnight in the fridge, then add pre-ferment to the remaining flour and the dissolved (yeast + sugar + water) and mix with the kneading attachment of the kitchen machine for about 5 minutes. Let it rest covered in a warm place until doubled. form into equal balls and brush with water, cut a line on them, let rest for another 30 mins to 1 hour. bake in a preheated oven (180-200 degree centigrade) until golden. cover the hot bread balls for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

The only thing I didn't do was pouring water on the bottom rack as shown in the video. The bread rolls came out dark brown, I mean not as shiny and golden as they look in the video. Is this step necessary?

What is achieved by pouring water? Are the bread roll's final look related to that water step? Will putting a pan of water in the oven do the trick?

Answer 1

If your rolls came out too dark, you probably baked them too hot and/or too long.

Note that the recipe states 180°C to 200°C and some ovens run hotter than others. (A separate oven thermometer is a good investment in general, even more so if you see something like that occasionally.) So as a first step, reduce the oven temperature a bit and watch the time.

The steam (because that’s what’s created by pouring water into the oven) helps the rolls rise better by delaying the crust formation and can create the coveted sheen: Condensation on the comparatively cool dough leaves a thin layer of water that binds to the starch and gelatinizes to a glossy layer. A similar effect can be created by misting the rolls with water before baking. A bowl of water will not create a similar amount of steam.