No matter how much you love doing something, when forced to do it, sometimes that “it” loses its charm. On the other hand, if unable to do “it” you are obsessed with figuring out how to work around the inability to do “it.”
During kitchen construction this week I’ve felt like I’ve had my hands tied behind my back. I never really knew how much I loved cooking. I know there are those of you reading this who are laughing at that statement but it’s true! I have always enjoyed reading cookbooks, in fact I read them like novels. And I’ve embraced the challenge of creating menus to maximize in-season fruits and vegetables, and the flavor preferences of family. But I didn’t realize I’d go a little “nutsy” if I couldn’t actually cook.
So on the construction workers’ day off, I made dinner rolls. Well, you know, because I could! Setting up the mixer and using the oven was heaven after four days of not being able to get into the kitchen.
Love the dough hook on the KitchenAid. It makes easy work of kneading when needed. Ha ha. Since kitchen was not in a state where I could do a lot of kneading by hand, the mixer did it for me.
It just makes me feel good to have dough rising in a bowl. It doesn’t matter if the dough turns into pizza, bread, rolls, or crackers, it’s just comforting somehow.
I didn’t roll the rolls well enough – I should have put more “oomph” into it. Odd shaped or well-rounded, they all had a good flavor.
I think these could have cooked a bit longer. I took them out at the time the recipe recommended because I didn’t want them turning into hockey pucks. Next time I will cook them a little longer.
Of recipes I’ve tried recently, I like the No Fail Bread or Rolls for a lighter bread/roll. The version of rolls shown in today’s post were a little denser and almost biscuit consistency. They were great with dinner and for breakfast covered with fruit.
Serves 24
Save RecipeIngredients
- 2 cups warm milk
- 2 tablespoons instant dry yeast
- ¼ cup white granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 6 tablespoons salted butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 6 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine warm milk, yeast, sugar, salt, butter, and eggs.
- Add in 5½ cups of flour.
- Using a dough hook, turn the mixer on to a low speed. Once the flour starts to incorporate into the dough, increase the speed to a medium range.
- Slowly add the remaining ½ cup of flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. The dough mixture should be slightly sticky and soft.
- Add more or less flour until the dough reaches the desired consistency. The amount of flour you add in bread making is always an approximation and you should go by feel.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly greased mixing bowl. Cover with a towel and let rise 90 minutes.
- Lightly grease a baking sheet. Punch down the dough and form into 24 rolls. Place on the greased baking sheet in six rows of four.
- Cover and let rise 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake the rolls for 12 to 14 minutes, until lightly browned.
- Remove rolls from oven and brush with melted butter.
- Serve the rolls warm, or to cool, let rest on the pan for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.
- Once cooled completely, store in a plastic bag.
Nutrition