Finally: Delicious And Quick Dinner Rolls

I’ve been on the prowl for a good dinner roll recipe for years!  We love having a homemade bread item to go with just about any meal, but for most of them, I really have to think and plan ahead in order to provide them for my family.  Biscuits and muffins are the quickest, but they aren’t really bread, you know?  Over the years I’ve tried different roll recipes, but they either took far too long for the process to play out, or they called for ingredients that I don’t have on hand.  Many, many dinner roll recipes call for ingredients like powdered milk and potato flakes.  Instant potatoes just don’t happen here.  Ever.  So I always passed up those quicker sounding recipes because of the extra ingredients that I didn’t want to purchase.  Other recipes, like ones for garlic-butter rolls, called for starting the recipe with pre-made frozen dinner rolls.  All I wanted was a simple recipe for dinner rolls!

King Arthur Flour has come to my rescue though!  The other day I had in my mind to make a garlic-butter type of roll to go with dinner, and so I was spending time looking for one.  I didn’t find quite what I was looking for, but I did find a quick dinner roll recipe that was exactly what I was looking for.  It was quick, contained normal ingredients, and could make a quantity if I wanted.  I cut the recipe in half because I didn’t need 24 dinner rolls, but I have my eye on the part where you could make the full recipe and then freeze some of the dough balls before they are baked.  Frozen dough balls in the freezer to be dinner rolls at the ready?  That sounds awesome!  These are also delicious the second day, which doesn’t always happen with homemade bread.

Anyway, here is my version of the recipe.  As I mentioned, this is half of the original recipe, but I’ve also simplified the directions a bit for my purposes.  You can find the original recipe right here on King Arthur’s website.  As I typed this recipe in, I was reminded how wonderful and luscious this dough was to work with.  It really was delightfully soft and not sticky while I kneaded it up.  It shaped really easily too, and I made them twice in just a few days time just to make sure they were really as good as I thought they were.  They are, and total time required is just about 90 minutes- that’s nice and quick for a homemade dinner roll!

Quick Dinner Rolls

1/4 cup lukewarm water

1 cup warm milk

1 1/2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 Tablespoon PLUS 3/4 teaspoon instant yeast

3-4 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

Combine the water, milk, butter, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl.  Stir well and let sit for about 5 minutes, or until the yeast has started foaming.

Add 2 1/2 cups of flour and mix with a wooden spoon until you have a shaggy dough.  Start adding flour 1/2 cup at a time until a ball begins to form.  Dump the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for about 10 minutes, or until the is soft and not sticky to the touch.

Sprinkle your work surface with flour and set the dough ball on the flour.  Turn your mixing bowl over the top of it and let rise for 20 minutes.

Gently press on the dough and pat out into a rectangle on your counter.  Using a pizza wheel, divide the dough evenly into 12 portions.  Roll each piece of dough into a nice ball and set into a baking pan that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.  A 9 x 13 pan works great for one batch of dinner rolls.

Cover the pan of rolls and let rise for another 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Bake the rolls in a 350ºF oven for 20-25 minutes, or until nicely golden.

Makes 12 delicious dinner rolls.