Yeast Rolls #1

I've been on a cooking quest recently. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but there's been a lot more "homemade" cookin' going on in the Dodson house. It started a few months ago when I was realized how much money we were spending on bread, biscuits, rolls, buns, tortillas, and frozen pizza. I thought, "how hard can it be to make these things at home and save some moo-lah at the same time?" So I started researching and learning through online cooking websites and blogs. I was so excited to get started!

John and I headed to the store and purchased three different types of flour, sugar, and butter. I think it cost us less than 1 frozen pizza. I was so pumped for the potential savings in our future! My first experiment was homemade bread loaves...which turned out fantastic! Then I tried homemade biscuits and they turned out even better! That's when things started heating up. I tackled flour tortillas, naan (Indian bread), pizza dough and peasant bread (Italian bread). And everything has turned out delicious...way better than store-bought! Yes, it takes a little bit more time, but it's totally worth it!

Next on our list was yeast rolls. John asked if I could try and master a recipe for rolls by Thanksgiving so we could wow everyone :) I decided to give it a go this past weekend. I found this recipe by typing "yeast rolls" into the Google search engine. Then I scoured the internet for the best looking rolls I could find. Because let's be honest, why would I want to make something that doesn't look divine? I came across this recipe on a blog called A Hens Nest. The rolls looked absolutely amazing and the recipe seemed simple enough. In fact, she said that this was her go-to recipe when she's short on time, which sounded awesome to me! She also gave some helpful instructions on how to freeze some of the rolls if you don't want to make a whole batch.

The recipe yielded 24 rolls and I ended up making 15 and freezing 9 (that's just how it worked out with the pans). I didn't use my Kitchenaid for these rolls, I did the old fashioned way...with elbow grease. The dough was easy to work with and only needed about 5-8 minutes of kneading. When the balls are placed in the cake pans, it's ok if they end up touching after they rise for the second time. This won't affect them in the oven and they are easy to pull apart once they are done. I was able to fit about 7-8 rolls in each of my round cake pans, and 9 rolls in my square pan. I baked the rolls for 13 minutes in my 350 degree, preheated oven, and they came out golden brown, light and fluffy. They were just as I imagined....fabulous!

I'm planning on trying another yeast roll recipe in the next few weeks...one without eggs. This was the first time making bread dough with eggs and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. These rolls kept really well in a ziploc bag on the counter for a few days. And they actually got sweeter as time passed. They started to taste more like Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, which was great for John and not-so-great for me. I'm not a huge fan of Hawaiian Sweet Rolls. And I think that taste may have come from the eggs, although I'm not entriely sure. I'm not an expert chef or anything, I'm just learning as I go. So the next batch will be a yeast roll recipe, san (without) eggs. And we will compare roll to roll.

Yeast Rolls
1/3 c canola or olive oil
1 c hot water
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 c sugar
1 pkg (or 2 1/2 tsp) yeast
2 eggs
3 1/2 – 4 c all purpose flour

Mix oil, hot water, salt, sugar, yeast and eggs well. Stir in flour 1 cup at a time until a kneadable dough forms. Dump dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl, cover and let rise in warm place for 1 hour, or until double in size. Punch down dough and dump onto lightly floured surface. Cut dough in half, form each half into 12 rolls. Place in 2 greased round cake pans or on 1 greased cookie sheet, spacing evenly. Cover let rise again for 20-30 minutes, until about double. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 10-18 minutes until golden. Brush tops with real butter hot from the oven and serve!

You can serve one cake pan for dinner and freeze the second one. To do this, place the formed dough into the greased pan, spray tops lightly with cooking spray and cover tightly with plastic wrap then aluminum foil. Freeze for up to a week. To bake, thaw at room temp for several hours until doubled then bake as usual.