Chapter 2. Dinner Rolls — Seeds & Receipts

Growing up we didn’t have a mixer, and although I’ll use them in commercial kitchens, it’s not a tool I naturally gravitate towards at home. Being raised in a pretty low-income family, we couldn’t afford a mixer for a long time and I don’t remember us having one until maybe my pre-teens, possibly when my dad got my mom one for Mother's Day or something.

So for most of my childhood I was taught to mix, whip, stir, and knead things by hand. To this day the muscles in my arms and wrists tend to crave the motions of stirring, pounding, mixing, and shaping that breads and pastries require. Therefore, while I can appreciate the technological advances of kitchens, I prefer working with my hands as much as possible when I cook, otherwise I feel a little disconnected from what I’m making, which I think is a sentiment many cooks and chefs and farmers can relate to.

A sense of body-mind-community connection can be found through making just about any dish, but I feel especially connected when baking bread. In fact, whenever the cold season forces me indoors and I want to wallow in my tears over the loss of my plant friends, making bread brings me back to my body with a renewed pep in my step.

These rolls in particular are my favorite because they’re my mom’s recipe, and I love her. But also because I think rolls are essential to a Sunday post-church meal.

Buttery, soft, salty, sweet. Even better if they’re hot. Sunday rolls are the only bread I really truly love to make and eat. Plus they’re perfect for sopping up the juice from a roasted chicken, and uh if you’re vegan . . . the juices from roasted vegetables. . . :D

Anyway, I love these things and can eat them by the panful, so making this gallery was a personal gift to myself. #Blessed #PraiseBe. . . Below is my edited version of my mom’s recipe and below that is my mom’s original writing of the recipe, which makes me think she probably transcribed this from a tv show.

The Receipt — Michele’s Dinner Rolls

Ingredients:

1-2 tbsp. Canola Oil, for the pan

2 - 4 ½ c. All-Purpose Flour

1 tsp. Salt

¼ cup Granulated Sugar

1 package Active Dry Yeast (or 2 ¼ tsp.)

½ cup Canola Oil, for the bread

1 cup Warm Milk

1-2 tbsp. Salted or Unsalted Butter, melted

Step to It:

Warm up your kitchen by preheating oven to 375 F degrees. Then grease the bottom and sides of an 11x9” pan.
In a large bowl, thoroughly mix 2 cups of flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl.
Combine oil and milk in a liquid measuring cup then pour mixture into the dry ingredients and begin to whip dough really fast until it's combined. Stir in the remaining flour 1/2 c. at a time until a dough forms that is moist like an earlobe.
Empty dough onto a floured surface. Knead for 10 minutes sprinkling more flour on the dough as needed. You will reach a point where the dough is smooth and no longer sticky and you can just knead it without adding anymore flour. Some days you might have lots of flour leftover and other days you may have no flour leftover, it depends on how humid the day is, which impacts how easily your dough absorbs flour to reach a smooth, non-sticky state.
Drizzle oil in the sides of the mixing bowl and place dough inside to rest for 1 hour or until it doubles in size. Cover with a cloth.
Once dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured work surface. Cut dough into halves, then cut the halves into quarters, and eighths. If you want small rolls you can cut them further, but I was making this for breakfast and wanted big rolls.
Shape into balls, place into prepared pan, and allow to rest and rise again with a cloth covering their tops, about 20-30 minutes.
Once dough has risen, brush with melted butter and bake for 10-15 min. Remove from oven and eat with butter and jam or honey.

Original Dinner Roll recipe (early ‘00s)

Note from Mom - “We had so much fun with these rolls...we used them for sandwiches, Chicken Dinner, Burgers...they're my favorite rolls. Made a little like the profiterole process only without the heat. Maya usually makes these for us but I have a feeling in the coming months she'll be soo busy for years to come I'll be making these for her :D. 2019 UPDATE: Nope she asked for the recipe and she’s making them herself...twiddle dee!”

2-4 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp.salt
1/4 c. sugar
1 pack yeast
1/2 c.oil
1 c. warm milk or half and half

Ok first get the kitchen warm ... Preheat the oven to 375 F degrees

Second~ Thoroughly mix flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl
Third~ Combine oil and milk.
Fourth~ Pour mixture into the Dry ingredients and begin to whip dough really fast until it's combined. Stir in the remaining flour 1/2 c. at a time until moist like an earlobe.
Fifth~ Empty on a floured surface. Knead for 10 min.
Sixth~ Let rest in an oiled bowl for 1 hour or until it doubles in size. Cover with a cloth.
Seventh~ lay out on work surface and have an oiled pan ready. Cut into 1/2, then 1/4 and 1/8 an finally 1/10 or 1/12. Shape into balls and rest again to rise again. Then bake for 10-15 min.

do the shadows of flour make you feel like you could crumble too?

add water and this happens, shaggy and coming together

with some work and faith things start to come together

but of course there’s more work to be done

Finally . . .

This roll recipe adds the yeast right to the flour and doesn’t require yeast to bloom with water and sugar first, but I love watching yeast bloom, and here is a shot of dry active yeast in action from my annual pizza dough making bonanza. - August 2019.