Homemade Rolls

You saw these rolls in the Potato Cheese Soup post

last week, as a teaser.

Believe me...if you make the soup, you HAVE to make these rolls with it!!

It is a MUST!

And they are so simple,

trust me on that one!

1 cup milk
1 cube butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup warm water
1 pkg yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
2 beaten eggs
5 cups flour

Scald milk by bringing to a boil in microwave (2 minutes is perfect).  Pour it over the butter, sugar and salt.  Stir and let cool slightly.  Separately combine the warm water, yeast and 1/2 tsp sugar.  Let the yeast work then add it and beaten eggs to the milk mixture; stir.  Mix in about 5 cups flour, enough to bring to a kneading consistency.  Knead dough then let it rise for about 30 minutes.  The dough is then ready to make into cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, scones, etc.

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law several years ago after I had tasted them at her Thanksgiving feast.  I have since made them thousands of times and they are simply put, no-fail.  Nothing is quite as tasty as these little babies and sometimes my family will request these multiple times in a single week.  They are so easy to make and utterly irresistible that I almost always acquiesce.  What I love about them the most is that it can be 3:30 in the afternoon and I will get a hankering for these guys and I still have time to throw a batch together before dinner.  I like to tackle this recipe the old-fashioned way for the most part but for those of you who are "with it" and enjoy the advantages of the 21st century, then this recipe may be even easier.

To start, I put my 1 cup of milk in a 2 cup measuring cup, stick it in the microwave for 2 minutes and, voila, scalded milk (scalded just means it has a skin across the top - or it didn't quite come to a boil, take your pick).

I toss in a cube of butter right into the measuring cup, dump in the 1/2 cup of sugar, and the 1 1/2 tsp salt, give it a little stir and let it sit on the counter for a while whilst I go about some other task.  When I pass by that way again, I'll give it another stir or two just to get that cube of butter melted in but other than that, it takes care of itself. 

I was very proud of myself years ago when I learned what was meant by the term "proofing" yeast.  I had always seen my mom do it that way but didn't know that that was what it was called.  Anyways, nowadays with these new-fangled yeasts, proofing is not really necessary anymore.  Nevertheless, for nostalgia sake, I still do it that way for this recipe.  After all, it can be proofing while the milk mixture is cooling.  So basically, to proof the yeast, pour some very warm but not burning hot water into a bowl and sprinkle the yeast evenly across the top.  To get the yeast to sink, I always sprinkle sugar across the top of it.

Once it has all sunk down in, just leave it for a few minutes and let it work its magic.  It will poof up and if your bowl wasn't quite adequate, it may spill over.  You will learn over time what size bowl is adequate or not.

But like I said, this is all moot since you could add the yeast directly to the mixture without proofing it at all because most of what you can buy these days is self-rising or something like that and doesn't really need this step.  But just in case, proofing it will be a nice trip back to your childhood days and remembering the sweet smells and thrills of mom's bread-making day, then treat yourself to that trip down memory lane.  It can't hurt anything.  While the yeast is proofing and the milk is cooling, I get a large bowl and beat my two eggs in it.

Of course, normally, at least 2 dozen other tasks have occurred in this timeframe meaning that the milk is pretty cool by the time I get to the next step.  But it doesn't have to be real cool.  Just not scalding hot so that it kills the yeast.  When I'm in a hurry to throw these together it might get a 10 minute cool-down period if it's lucky.  Add the yeast mixture to the eggs and stir in.  Then add the milk mixture to that and stir in.  Then do the same with the flour.

I have found that 5 cups is not enough.  I almost always add more, probably close to a cup more.  I just use my kneading hands to tell me whether it is still too sticky or not.  You don't want it to be a sticky mess.  But don't get carried away and make it too dry either.  You'll know when it's just right.  I have mixed this in my Bosch before and it works just fine but it is an easy recipe to knead up by hand also so most of the time I do it that way, mainly because I don't prefer hand-washing my Bosch bowl and that dough hook thing.  Chalk it up to laziness and being old-fashioned - the double whammy.

Once it feels pretty good, toss a towel over the top of the bowl and let it sit and rise for a bit.  If you're in a hurry for it to rise, turn your oven on to 200 F, boil a little bit of water in your microwave, toss it in the oven along with your dough bowl, then TURN THE OVEN OFF (very important step unless you have a penchant for partially cooked dough) and this will speed that process along nicely.  The great thing about this recipe is that once the dough has risen, it can be used to make dinner rolls, scones, or cinnamon rolls.  So versatile.  I have tried all three and they are all amazing.  In fact, many times, I will divide the dough up, cook three portions as dinner rolls, and save a portion for either scones or cinnamon rolls that I make up the next day.  Just store the dough in the fridge if you intend to do something else with it.  However, for this post, I only have pictures for how I make up my dinner rolls from the dough.  Hopefully, the other options are obvious but if not, perhaps you can comment and make a request for a post on those some other day. 
For dinner rolls, I divide the dough into four portions (my sister-in-law does three and makes bigger rolls - I prefer more quantity and feel that the size I get are just fine for my needs - it comes down to whether you want 24 rolls or 32 - they go so quickly around here that I like to get more bang for my buck so I go for 32 but that's what agency is for - use it).   

Roll each portion into a circle.  Paint melted butter across the top.

Cut into eight pieces like a pizza.


Roll each piece up starting at the fat end and ending at the tip.

Place tip side down on a buttered baking pan (this pan was made up by my teenagers who were in a hurry to not be helping mom - looks aside, they turned out delicious).

Brush remaining melted butter across tops, if desired.  Let rise for about 30 minutes (can speed rise using the warm oven from the trick mentioned earlier).  Bake at 350 F for 15-20 minutes or to desired brownness.  Too bad you can't smell these baking right now.  If you could, you'd be drooling on your keyboard!

Enjoy!

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