All-American Dinner Rolls

All-American Dinner Rolls

Easy to make rolls that are moist and delicious. I ususally make croissants with this recipe.

Course bread
Cuisine American
Keyword croissant, dinner rolls
BarrowFamily.org Discovered by Robyn Candland

Ingredients

First Step:

  • 2 pkgs yeast (4 1/2 Teaspoons)
  • sprinkle of sugar
  • 1 cup of warm water

Next set of ingredients, add to the yeast water:

  • 1 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup of warm water

Final set of ingredients:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup of warm water
  • 7 cups of flour (1/2 cup more if your flour isn't too thirsty)

Croissant preparation:

  • 1 cube melted butter

Instructions

First step:

  1. Combine the yeast, water and sugar in the bottom the bowl of your machine. Mine is a Bosch, with dough hooks. Let this sit until the yeast is bubbly. While that is happening prepare the shortening.

Next set of ingredients, add to the yeast water:

  1. 1 cup shortening

    ½ cup sugar

    2 tsp salt

    1 cup of warm water

    Scoop some shortening into your glass measuring cup, and soften it in the microwave for about a minute. Don’t make it too hot and liquid-y or you will kill the yeast that you are preparing. Because I am a lazy and a messy cook, I softened it up to the point that it settles down and the extra can be scooped back out to make a level one cup.

    Then all I do is use a spatula to get it out, without working that hard at it.

    Use your machine to combine all ingredients. Just get them mixed up, they really don’t have to be smooth.

Final set of ingredients:

  1. 4 eggs

    1 cup of warm water

    7 cups of flour (1/2 cup more if your flour isn’t too thirsty)

    Add one cup of flour at a time after you start your mixer. The dough needs to pretty sticky so not too much flour. When you’re done scrapping all the flour into the bowl without sending up a flour dust cloud, set the timer for 10 minutes. This is very important, making sure you knead that dough for a full 10 minutes.

  2. Strangely enough, I have done this so many times that I can hear the gluten in my dough activate because the sound of the machine changes, and not more than another minute goes by when the timer goes off.

  3. Spray a large bowl with a non-stick spray, and get the dough out of your mixing bowl. Sprinkle the top with a bit of flour, and cover with a towel. Place the bowl of dough into the refrigerator and allow to chill overnight. (yeah right!) I like mine to chilled, but I never have more than 4 hours to give it. The dough handles and performs better when chilled. If you don’t have the time, it still all works out.

    Go straight to preparing the dough.

Now, to make your croissants:

  1. Have a pizza cutter ready, and a cube of butter completely melted in a bowl.

    Divide the dough in the bowl into four sections, visually or physically. Take ¼ of the dough out onto a floured surface and with a rolling pin, smooth the dough out into a circle about the size of a pie crust.

    Pour ¼ of the melted butter on top of the dough and spread it to the edges, covering equally.

    With the pizza cutter wheel cut the circle of dough into eight pie shaped pieces. Roll each piece from the wide end to the center point. Move to a baking sheet, and curl the edges in just a bit. Repeat the with each triangle piece of dough.

    Repeat the whole process over until you have 32 rolls on your sprayed baking sheets. I need three baking sheets for this recipe.

Bake

  1. Cover your rolls and baking sheets with a towel and allow them to rise to a nice fluffy size.

    Bake in a preheated oven for 12 minutes or just until golden brown. Sometimes that first batch needs a bit more time than 12 minutes, the rest don’t usually.

Recipe Notes

Depending on how thirsty your flour is, I sometimes will need extra flour. The lighter and sticky the dough is the fluffier your rolls will be.