Dinner Diaries

Yeast Rolls

Several years ago at Easter I tried to make yeast rolls like Big Granny and Nana. To say they were hockey pucks would be giving them a compliment. Since then I've been trying to make friends with yeast and it's getting better. I've made cinnamon rolls twice now that I would be proud to serve at a GHBC potluck. I thought that I could just use that basic dough recipe and see how they taste as rolls. We had an RA luncheon after church today so I made a trial run of the yeast rolls. If they worked out okay then I'd do them "for real" at Thanksgiving. Last year at Christmas I lamented to Nana about why yeast rolls had to be so hard. I can't remember her exact words but basically she said the trick was to have them swimming in butter. So before baking the rolls I drizzled some melted butter in the pan. Nana was right. It made them better but more was needed to get to Big Granny status. It's probably better if I don't know how much butter her rolls actually have baked inside.

Here is the recipe I used. It works great if you want to use it for cinnamon rolls. I think for dinner rolls they will be just as good.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup warm milk
1 stick melted butter
One package dry yeast
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
large pinch salt
3+ cups four

Directions:
a. Add yeast to very hot tap water and let sit for 10 min or so.
b. Add a stick of butter to milk and zap in microwave until milk is hot and butter is mostly melted
c. In bowl, whisk egg and sugar together. Add milk/butter mixture, water/yeast mixture and salt. (all liquid now in bowl)
d. Slowly combine with 2.5 cups or so of flour. I use my hand to combine. When it forms a ball, remove from bowl and start kneading by hand and adding flour as necessary.
e. Return dough to lightly greased bowl and let rise for 60-90 min.
f.  After 1st rise, punch down dough and shape into small balls. Place in pan and let rise again for 60 min.
g. (optional) Before baking, drizzle crazy amount of melted butter in pan.
h. Bake for 20 min at 350 or until done.