Soft, Homemade Buttery Rolls for the Holidays
One of the dishes that makes any holiday meal complete is the bread - particularly soft, buttery dinner rolls that melt in the mouth. But for some reason, we home bakers and cooks have become intimidated by rolls, thinking them too hard or too time consuming to make, and instead have opted for the bread industry's bland, homogeneous bricks in paper trays, with an ingredient list 3 times longer than it should be, or almost as bad, we have bankrupted ourselves buying overpriced, dried out "artisan" breads with the same mile long ingredient list. But the fact is, if you have a few basic ingredients and part of an evening free, you can serve homemade rolls for your special meals, adding that special touch that will put a smile on your family's faces and keep some money in your pocket. And the real beauty of these rolls is that they freeze wonderfully, so you can make them now and the day before you need them, just pull them out of the freezer and put them on the counter to defrost. At mealtime, cover them with foil and warm them for 10 minutes in the oven, and you will have fresh, buttery, homemade bread that will earn Ooos and Aaahs without breaking the bank, or adding insanity to your already hectic holiday.
In our family, the only roll recipe we use is the one perfected by my great grandmother in the forties. She then taught my grandmother to make these rolls, who then taught me. Several years ago, my grandmother, who is known far and wide for her rolls, submitted the recipe to a local cookbook for a fundraiser, and that is the recipe I have reprinted here, along with my own notes and hints on how to make that perfect roll. It should be noted however, that these rolls are soft little puffs of buttery air; if you prefer a roll with a more hearty crust, you might try Circle B Kitchen's recipe here.
Beulah's Never Fail Rolls
from Firehouse Favorites Cookbook
submitted by Georgia Blackwell
Ingredients:
2 packages of yeast
2 c. warm water
1/2 c. melted oleo*
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. salt
3 eggs†
6 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
*Oleo, is of course, the old-fashioned term for margarine. And yes, you can use margarine with this recipe, although I usually try to use regular, salted butter, just for the festiveness of butter. But either works equally well.
Soften yeast in water (about 110 degrees F), add sugar and salt and 3 c. of flour. Beat until smooth with beater. Add shortening [oleo/margarine or butter] and eggs and beat well again. Beat in another 1 c. of flour and stir in remaining [2 1/2 c.] flour. Knead well and place in greased container. Cover and set in warm place to rise until double in size (2 hours or longer). Shape into rolls in well greased pan. Cover and let rise until light [1 1/2 hours to 2 hours]. Bake 20-25 minutes at 375°.
My grandmother added this suggestion to the original recipe :
After kneading, I turn dough over in oil in a roaster then cover to rise. I place the shaped rolls in a pan in a paper grocery sack and then another bag pulled up from the other end to protect from drafts. Cut a hole to peek.
Photos and Helpful Hints
Over the years of making these rolls I have figured out a few things that might be of help to the dinner roll newcomer. Below are a few photos of the making of this recipe along with my own notes and comments on ingredients, substitutions and methods that might be helpful.
Note: if you have a stand mixer, great! But I personally have made these rolls countless hundreds of times with just a hand mixer or even just a wooden spoon. It takes a little longer, but the results are the same.
†Eggs. Since I married my husband, eggs in baked goods have become the bane of my existence. Because, of course, the man I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with is allergic to them. At first, I thought this was bad news for the baker in me. As it turns out, one tablespoon of water and one tablespoon of cornstarch for each egg is a great substitute in most baked goods. I use this substitution in everything from these rolls to chocolate chip cookies (my husband had never had a warm chocolate chip cookie until I came along) to pumpkin pies! The only time this substitution won't work is when you are relying on the eggs for their ability to leaven. For example, a New York Style baked cheesecake just isn't the same without the fluffiness added by real honest to goodness eggs. But for these rolls, which rely on yeast for leavening, cornstarch and water are a perfectly acceptable substitution!
Water temperature is *critical*. Too hot and you kill your yeast. Too cold and it never wakes up enough to rise sufficiently. Most sources say water temperature should be between 110 and 120 degrees. That's great if you have a thermometer, but I didn't have one until just recently! So I set my water heater to a maximum of 115 degrees and then I could run my tap water until it got as hot as it could and used that. I have also determined that for myself, water is warm enough to bloom yeast when I can hold my finger under the hot water for about 5 seconds, but no more.
Blooming your yeast. In the recipe, my grandmother refers to this as softening your yeast. In any case, what you need to do is pour your yeast, sugar and water into your mixer and then WALK AWAY! When you return in 5-10 minutes, your yeast should look like foamy like this picture. If it is still watery, throw it out and start over.
If you are at all concerned about your yeast or water temperature, using this step will help you determine that your yeast is viable and growing before you add the more expensive ingredients and waste the next hours of your life!
The next several steps are fairly self-explanatory. Slowly add the ingredients, alternating some wet and dry until the dough comes together. Be careful and don't start your mixer on too high a speed, or you'll be cleaning flour off surfaces for weeks! Depending on the humidity in your kitchen on any given day, you may or may not have to add an extra 1/4 to 1/2 c. of flour to achieve a workable dough. Be careful though not too add too much, otherwise you may bend up with a tougher roll than you want!
A Note on Flour
Many bread recipes specify using bread flour as opposed to all purpose flour. However it should be noted that the type of flour you use is directly related to the final texture of your bread. Different types of flour, in addition to having been processed differently, have differing amounts of protein in them. Protein + water = gluten, which provides the structure for the bread. In other words, the more protein, the tougher the structure. Cake and pastry flours are lower in protein, thus making them more appropriate for those baked goods that have light and airy structures (angel food cake) or no gluten at all to speak of (pie crusts). Bread flour is at the other end of the protein spectrum, with higher amounts of protein, and thus more gluten and a heavier, denser, tougher structure. Use bread flour in those breads that you want to have the chewier texture. For these rolls however, we use AP, or all purpose flour, which has enough protein to give the rolls structure but not so much as to make them chewy and tough.
Once all the ingredients have come together, knead your dough until it becomes a pliable, if sticky, dough. This should take about 6 minutes in a stand mixer on low to medium, or 10 minutes if kneading by hand. if you are kneading by hand, be sure not to add too much flour during the kneading process. Too much flour or kneading can turn your nice soft rolls into nice hard hockey pucks.
Over Kneading
Particularly if you are using a stand mixer, it is easy to over knead your dough. Kneading is the method by which gluten is stretched, lengthened and strengthened - which leads to tougher rolls. This dough is done kneading when it is pulling away from the sides of the bowl (in a stand mixer) but is still a bit sticky. It is better to have an overly sticky dough than an overly tough one.
This is what the dough looks like when you set it to proof, or rise. I have greased the sides of the bowl with a quick spray of canola cooking spray and plopped the dough in the bowl. It is covered by a light, non-terry cloth (believe me you don't want to wash that mess) tea towel. My grandmother usually uses an elaborate get up of two paper grocery sacks covering each end of her proofing/roaster pan, because she doesn't like the towel resting on the top of the dough when it's rising. I am not that ambitious or picky, and frankly I usually don't have the paper grocery sacks...
I place the dough on top of my oven which I have warmed while mixing and kneading and then turned off. But really, almost any place standard room temperature or warmer will do so long as your yeast has bloomed well. If your yeast was iffy to begin with you'll want to make sure you choose someplace warm where your dough will not be disturbed.
And two hours later, this is what you get, dough that has doubled in size!
Forming the dough can be a bit tricky for the novice hand, but a few rolls into it and you'll get the hang of it! First you must spray your hands with cooking spray or rubbing your hands in oil, which you will have to reapply periodically. Remember, this is a sticky dough we're working with, and we're trying not to add too much flour. After punching down the dough, releasing the gas that has built up inside, pinch (not tear, like mozzarella cheese from a pizza! That will toughen the gluten!) off a slightly larger than golf ball sized portion of dough. Roll the dough by spreading it flat with your thumbs on one side and tucking it under on the other side with your fingers. Once you have a relatively smooth side facing you, squeeze together the edges on the back side and place the roll smooth side up in a greased baking or roaster pan. Although you don't want to overcrowd your pan (your bread needs a place to rise to the second time!), placing the rolls side by side in a larger pan will allow the rolls to rise together, forming softer sides. If you like you can form your rolls into crescents, twists, knots or any of a dozen shapes and sizes, but that will increase the surface ratio being browned, turning your rolls slightly more crusty.
This recipe usually makes 1 1/2 9x14 roaster pans of rolls - which is why I often double it! It's not like folks aren't going to eat the extra rolls around here! Make sure you preheat your oven and watch your rolls carefully to avoid overbrowning. Especially if you plan on freezing and re-heating later, you'll want to remove your rolls when they are still fairly pale and you can heat and brown them just before you serve.
And voila!Soft, buttery rolls!
And to add that nice, buttery sheen to them (without using an egg wash, which is a no-no in our house!), rub butter on them fresh out of the oven!
As mentioned earlier, these beauties freeze very well, so you can make them ahead of time and produce them with little to no effort right before your big dinner. But you will want to let them cool *completely* and then cover tightly with plastic wrap and foil to keep the moisture (and thus the tenderness) in!
Happy baking!
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