Homemade Rolls

Homemade Rolls

 

This recipe is a lit­tle softer and sweeter than most. In other words, it’s really good.

7 cups flour (may use up to 1/2 cup less if desired)

2 pack­age active dry yeast (I actu­ally use bulk yeast, and my mea­sure­ment ends up being just a lit­tle bit more than this. No wor­ries though. Two packs will fluff up nicely enough.)

2  1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

2 tea­spoon salt

2 eggs

In mix­ing bowl, com­bine 3 cups flour and yeast. Mix. In sauce pan, com­bine milk, sugar, short­en­ing, and salt. Heat over medium heat until short­en­ing almost melts, stir­ring fre­quently to pre­vent scorch­ing. Add milk mix­ture to flour and yeast and mix imme­di­ately. Add eggs. Mix. Grad­u­ally add remain­ing flour and knead into soft ball. I use an elec­tric mixer with a bread hook. No work. So easy. By the way, you can’t really knead dough too much. The more you knead, the softer the bread. After knead­ing is done, place dough in greased/sprayed bowl. Spray top of dough with cook­ing spray. Cover loosely with plas­tic wrap and let rise until dou­ble in size. Punch down. If desired (for softer rolls) let rise again. Punch down and let dough rest 10 min. Roll out as desired. See instruc­tions below for a few ideas. Place pre­pared rolls onto greased/sprayed bak­ing sheet(s) or in greased/sprayed bak­ing pan(s). Spray rolls with cook­ing spray and cover loosely with plas­tic wrap. Let rise 30 min­utes or until dou­ble in size. Care­fully remove wrap. Bake at 350 for 10 — 15 min­utes or until golden brown. Remove from heat. But­ter tops and enjoy. Store left­over rolls in fridge in air­tight container.

To make cin­na­mon rolls, on a floured sur­face, roll out dough into a rec­tan­gu­lar shape 1/2 inch thick. But­ter gen­er­ously. Sprin­kle with cin­na­mon and sugar in desired amounts. Add chopped wal­nuts and/or raisins if desired. Roll dough length­wise. Using string/thread, cut rolls into desired width by plac­ing string/thread under dough, bring it over the top, cross and pull. The dough should cut smoothly and cleanly. Remove any way­ward wal­nuts. Place on greased bak­ing sheet and bake at 350 for 10 min or until golden brown. Glaze and enjoy.

Glaze: 3 cups pow­dered sugar, 2 table­spoons whip­ping cream or milk (add more milk for a runny tex­ture), 1 tea­spoon vanilla, 1/2 cup but­ter. Mix, then whip until smooth and fluffy. Frost cin­na­mon rolls imme­di­ately when they come out of the oven.

To make soft wheat bread, sub­sti­tute 1/3 — 1/2 flour in recipe as wheat flour. Makes 2 — 4 loaves depend­ing upon size of pan.

To make rolls in the shape of crois­sants, on a floured sur­face, roll dough out into cir­cu­lar sec­tions as if mak­ing a pizza. Slice into cross­wise sec­tions like a pizza. Roll each tri­an­gle piece from the large end to the small end. Shape and place on bak­ing sheet leav­ing space for dough to rise between each roll. Spray with cook­ing spray and cover loosely with plas­tic wrap. Let rise 30 min or until dou­ble in size. Remove wrap and bake as in recipe above.

To make pizza crust, make dough as in recipe above. After the dough has risen once, roll dough out in corn­meal — thin. Place dough on pizza pan. Add sauce and top­pings. Bake in hot oven 12 — 15 min­utes or until done.

Because this dough is sweet, it also makes the best scones, or fry bread, AKA Navajo Tacos. For the best fla­vor use olive oil. Fill wok 1/3 — 1/2 full of olive oil. Heat olive oil in wok to 400. Shape scones or fry bread into 1/2 inch thick pat­ties. Slip dough into hot oil being care­ful not to splash. My wok holds between three and four pieces at a time. (As dough cooks shape next set of pat­ties.) Cook until golden brown on one side. Using tongs, flip and cook the other side. Using tongs, remove cooked bread and place on glass plat­ter lined with paper tow­els. Con­tinue shap­ing and fry­ing pat­ties until dough is gone. As you fry the bread, use paper tow­els between the lay­ers of bread on the plate so that any excess oil will be absorbed. For scones, serve with honey. For fry bread, AKA Navajo Tacos, serve with hot chili, shred­ded cheese, sour cream, and tomatoes.

Since most recipes on this site are my own recipes, some­times my instruc­tions can be con­fus­ing. Sorry about that. If there is any­thing that doesn’t make sense, feel free to email me for clar­i­fi­ca­tion. Also, all mea­sure­ments in my kitchen are akin to olden day mea­sur­ing. I use my hand to mea­sure tea­spoons and table­spoons. I heap things some­times when I want a lit­tle dif­fer­ent tex­ture. In other words, feel free to change things up and make these recipes your own.