Dinner Rolls (and Cinnamon Rolls)

I recently had a group of ladies from church over to learn to make rolls.  I've been making homemade rolls for over 20 years, but early in my marriage I could not make a decent roll.  They mostly turned out like hard rocks.  But with a little help from a friend who gave me a lesson, and the purchase of a Kenwood stand mixer, I finally could turn out a beautiful batch consistently.

I decided to post the process on this blog so that if anyone needed to remember the process or what things looked like, they can refer to these photos.

THE RECIPE

Dinner Rolls 

Scald 1 C milk and add 6 T butter to it, set aside to cool.

Dissolve 2 T yeast and 1 T sugar in 1 C very warm water in a large drinking glass.  Let rise to top.  

*(I just wanted to add that if you use Rapid Rise yeast, you may want to cut down the raising time to 1 hour each instead of 1.5 hours. I buy yeast in jars, but if you use the little packets, be aware that one packet is NOT 1T... so you'll still need to measure it out.)

Beat 3 eggs, add cooled milk mixture and yeast.  Add:

3 C flour  (note:  if you use bread flour, you might need a bit less)

½ C sugar

1 t salt

Mix well.  Mix in another 3-3 1/2 C of flour (less with bread flour).  Knead 10 minutes, place in bowl, cover and let rise for 1 ½ hours.  Pinch off dough and shape into balls (with greased hands.)  Place on greased baking sheet.  Cover with a dishtowel.  Let rise 1 ½ hours and then bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Rub butter on tops of rolls as soon as they come out of oven.

Makes 30 rolls

Cinnamon Rolls

Roll out dough after first rising, melt 1 cube of butter and spread it on dough.  Mix 1 ½ C (brown or white) sugar and 2 T cinnamon.  Sprinkle over dough and butter.  Roll up dough and cut in 3/4-inch slices.  Place in greased baking pan (leave ½ around rolls).  Cover with dishtowel.  Let rise 1 to 1 ½ hours.  Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Frosting:  1 cube butter, 1 pkg powdered sugar, 1 t vanilla, milk to make spreadable.   (I usually don’t make quite this much, maybe 1/3 less.)

Note:  Dough should be sticky when you start the kneading process.  Visit http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/video/2008/03/bertinet_sweetdough for an excellent video about sweet doughs and kneading. 

I forgot to take pictures of the mixing up part, but it is pretty self-explanatory.

The part where you add flour is always tricky and sometimes it is hard to know how much flour to add.  You want to stop when the dough starts to clean the side of the bowl:

 After finishing the 10 minute knead, it is still sticky, 

but you are going to dump it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it by hand 4 or 5 times to achieve a smooth surface.

Then put the dough in a bowl sprayed with Pam (either the same one or I usually use a large Tupperware bowl.)

 Cover with a dishtowel to raise for 1 1/2 hours.

Shaping the rolls:  I divide the dough in half and then from each half pinch off 15 hunks of dough.  You can even up any of the pieces or just have a variety of sizes!  Then I flatten each piece of dough on a lightly flour surface with greased hands and fold in the sides, pulling to smooth the ball like a small loaf of bread, flip it over and put it seam side down on the pan.  Your dough balls should look like this.

 Cover with a cloth and let raise for 1 1/2 hours.  They should look like the photo below when it is time to put them in the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.  If the tops are getting brown too fast, either lower the oven temperature and/or place a piece of foil loosely over the top of the rolls to keep them from browning too quickly.  You don't want the bottoms to be too doughy.  When you take them out of the oven, rub butter over the tops to give them a nice, glistening look and a delicious buttery flavor.

I use the same recipe for Cinnamon Rolls.  After the first rise, roll out the dough very thin. 

 Melt butter and spread it around, followed by sugar + cinnamon mixture.  I like to use brown sugar now, but for years I used white sugar.  Either works!

 Slice in 3/4-inch segments and place on a pan.

 I usually place mine a little closer together, but I decided to experiment with putting them farther apart.  I think I like them closer together better.

 Put a cloth over the pans and let raise for 1 1/2 hours.  Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.  Sometimes a little longer.

Mine always seem to pop up in the middle, not sure why.  They usually deflate down after I take them out or I pop them down with my hot pads.

Spread frosting on while they are still hot and let it melt down into the cracks.

Happy Baking!