Sunday Roll Recipe

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Sunday Roll Recipe

These rolls are a Sunday staple in our house. In fact they may be the only thing keeping my 11 year old alive. Well, these and the cases of Honey Nut Cheerios he goes through. He’s my picky eater, so I know when I’m planning our Sunday dinner if rolls are on the menu he will not go hungry. We may not have any rolls left over, but he will not be hungry.

I’ve made them so often I have the recipe memorized, and I can pretty much make them on auto pilot. I use this recipe for everything – I’ve shared it as Raspberry Twists and as the bun for our favorite BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, but I’ve gotten requests for the straight up roll recipe so here it goes.

Use your mixer of choice. I have a Kitchen Aid and a Bosch mixer and I honestly love them both. If you have a smaller Kitchen Aid, just don’t try substituting whole wheat flour and it should be able to handle this bread dough just fine.

Proof the Yeast

In the bowl add the warm water, sugar and yeast. Mix and let the yeast proof, or wait until it gets foamy.

Mix the Dough

Then add the shortening, flour and salt. Typically, I’ll add a cup or so of flour before adding in the salt, cause salt kills yeast and I don’t want dead yeast. But don’t put off adding the salt until the end because forgetting to add it will give you some bland rolls. And no one wants bland rolls. So add part of the flour, the salt and then the rest of the flour. This dough will still be sticky when you’ve added the correct amount of flour but will knead into a nice soft ball. If you don’t have enough flour the dough will be too sticky to form into balls and if you add too much flour the rolls will be stiff. The trickiest part is getting just the right amount and I’ve found the only way to figure that out is to practice.

To keep things a little healthier, I often substitute half or all of the flour for whole wheat flour. My kids don’t notice when I do half and half, but more than that and they start to complain. But hey, I’m the mom and if this is the only thing keeping them alive they better be getting some nutritional value from them.

Let Rise

Once the dough is mixed, remove the hook and cover. If you’re using a Kitchen Aid just cover the bowl with a towel. On the Bosch just go ahead and put the cover on.

Let sit 30 minutes or until the dough is double in size.

Form into Balls

After the dough has risen, I pinch off golfball sized pieces of the dough and form them into little balls, tucking the ends underneath. My kids like to help and they prefer to roll and toss the dough around until they are round-ish balls. Either way works because things seem to even out when they raise. I can fit 24 rolls on a half baking sheet with a Silpat baking mat. If you aren’t using a baking mat you’ll want to spray your sheet with oil, if I’m using a mat I don’t bother with spraying.

Cover the pan with a towel and let raise for another 30 minutes. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

When they come out of the oven we like to melt butter on top of the rolls. I just open up a stick of butter and run it over the tops. Enjoy!

 

 

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