As I mentioned in my first post, I am in the middle of a Thanksgiving dinner recap with some of my favorite dishes of the season. This is dish two in a five part series. The first began with cranberry sauce done two ways.If anyone who has gotten close to me can attest (and as I have mentioned in previous posts), I love bread. I love bread in all forms. It definitely is a type of food I will select meals around. I also do not discriminate. All bread is welcome.
Enter the dinner roll. Every Thanksgiving dinner needs some sort of roll. And I'm not talking about these (although they are quite tasty).
I romped around the good ol' interweb and found this little recipe that had excellent reviews. The rolls did come out quite good although I had one little complaint. In the linked recipe, it is stated that the rolls are a bit more dense than crescents but not as much as dinner rolls. I would disagree. They were quite dense in my opinion. I do not want to write-off this recipe as the density might have been my own doing due to over-kneading so I will make these again and update the post with the results.
Process
As always when making bread from scratch (and without a machine), prepare your dough the day before or early in the morning to allow for all the downtime during the rising process. Otherwise your rolls might be ready for dessert if you're lucky.
Begin by prepping the yeast. Mix the two packages of active yeast in a small amount of warm sugar water, usually 100 to 115 degrees is suitable. Let the yeast begin to foam up before you add in the other ingredients. Once a good froth has formed, whisk in the milk, remaining sugar, one egg and salt. Make sure the milk is warm or at least room temperature. The egg should also be room temperature for optimum dough rising performance.
Slowly mix in half of the flour. As you add flour, make sure the dough is well combined and smooth with no clumps. After three cups of flour have been added, switch to your dough hook and beat in the butter, following up with the last three cups of flour. Again, add the flour slowly. The last cup of flour should be used at your best discretion based on the consistency of the dough. You will want the dough to be slightly sticky but not sticking to your fingers or dough hook. Once ready, roll the dough into a ball, cover slightly with oil and place into a bowl. Do not knead the dough. This is where I believe I went a bit overboard. Cover and place into the refrigerator overnight.
Once it has risen overnight in the fridge, remove and punch down the dough to remove some of the trapped air. Divide into two sections and knead each a few times. Set the dough aside and let rise for about ten minutes. During this time, prep the baking sheets with parchment paper.
Roll out the dough into a circle and cut into twelve equal sections. Roll up each section starting with the large end into a crescent shape. Place onto a baking sheet and set aside to rise for about one hour.
At this time you can make the egg glaze. Take one egg and some milk and beat the egg until you cant tell the difference between the milk and egg anymore. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and brush on the glaze onto the top of the rolls. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes or until a nice golden color appears.
Sweet Butter Rolls
Ingredients
2 packages active dry yeast
1/4 cup water, warm
2 cups milk, warm
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp Kosher salt
6 1/2 flour
1 cup unsalted butter
Directions
I romped around the good ol' interweb and found this little recipe that had excellent reviews. The rolls did come out quite good although I had one little complaint. In the linked recipe, it is stated that the rolls are a bit more dense than crescents but not as much as dinner rolls. I would disagree. They were quite dense in my opinion. I do not want to write-off this recipe as the density might have been my own doing due to over-kneading so I will make these again and update the post with the results.
Process
As always when making bread from scratch (and without a machine), prepare your dough the day before or early in the morning to allow for all the downtime during the rising process. Otherwise your rolls might be ready for dessert if you're lucky.
Begin by prepping the yeast. Mix the two packages of active yeast in a small amount of warm sugar water, usually 100 to 115 degrees is suitable. Let the yeast begin to foam up before you add in the other ingredients. Once a good froth has formed, whisk in the milk, remaining sugar, one egg and salt. Make sure the milk is warm or at least room temperature. The egg should also be room temperature for optimum dough rising performance.
Slowly mix in half of the flour. As you add flour, make sure the dough is well combined and smooth with no clumps. After three cups of flour have been added, switch to your dough hook and beat in the butter, following up with the last three cups of flour. Again, add the flour slowly. The last cup of flour should be used at your best discretion based on the consistency of the dough. You will want the dough to be slightly sticky but not sticking to your fingers or dough hook. Once ready, roll the dough into a ball, cover slightly with oil and place into a bowl. Do not knead the dough. This is where I believe I went a bit overboard. Cover and place into the refrigerator overnight.
Once it has risen overnight in the fridge, remove and punch down the dough to remove some of the trapped air. Divide into two sections and knead each a few times. Set the dough aside and let rise for about ten minutes. During this time, prep the baking sheets with parchment paper.
Roll out the dough into a circle and cut into twelve equal sections. Roll up each section starting with the large end into a crescent shape. Place onto a baking sheet and set aside to rise for about one hour.
At this time you can make the egg glaze. Take one egg and some milk and beat the egg until you cant tell the difference between the milk and egg anymore. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and brush on the glaze onto the top of the rolls. Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes or until a nice golden color appears.Sweet Butter Rolls
Ingredients
2 packages active dry yeast
1/4 cup water, warm
2 cups milk, warm
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp Kosher salt
6 1/2 flour
1 cup unsalted butter
Directions
- In a large mixing bowl dissolve the yeast and 2 tablespoons sugar in warm water. Leave alone until foamy. Add in the milk, remaining sugar, 1 egg and salt. Mix well.
- Slowly add in half of the flour and beat until smooth. Beat in the butter and then the remaining flour. Once a well-combined dough forms, form into a ball and rub a small amount of oil all over the surface. Cover and place into the fridge overnight.
- The next day, remove the dough and punch it down, removing most of the trapped air. Divide into 2 sections and knead each a few times. Set aside to rise again for about 10 minutes. During this time, prepare the baking trays, lined with parchment paper.
- Using a rolling pin, flatten the dough into a circle and cut into 12 equal sections. Roll them up like you do with crescents. Cover loosely with saran wrap and place into a warm area to rise for about an hour.
- During this last rise, preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix 1 egg and 1 T of milk for a glaze. Brush the rolls with the glaze and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Those 12 pieces seem a bit thick to me... maybe if you split the dough in half and rolled each out into a circle and cut each into like, 8 pieces instead then maybe you'd get a lighter roll?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you kneaded the dough too much but maybe also you should let the dough rise a bit longer than 10 minutes the second time? My experience with dense rolls has been that they didn't rise properly.
ReplyDelete