The Sauce: Cranberry Butter – Holiday fruity butter featuring fresh cranberry sauce with a hint of orange and cinnamon. Whipped in a flurry with fresh creamery butter for a lightly tart but sweet spread for rolls.
Dough, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti dough
My daughter Audrey is a stellar dinner roll baker. She’s been testing and tweaking her recipe for several years. It started a while back when I had a dream kitchen with miles of granite counter tops. Rather than make a double batch of dinner rolls for Thanksgiving we each made a batch with a recipe of our choice. Her rolls, her first batch ever, were finer textured and lighter than mine. Since then she’s been wrangling with the dough; tweaking, teasing, testing. Nowher dinner rolls pouf up and bake into the most tasty, tender, golden morsels. She made some last month for Thanksgiving. I’m still dreaming about them.
Once in a while she has time to turn out a batch but not too often. It would be fun to have them more frequently so I asked her to teach me. With a notepad in hand, I studiously jotted the ingredients; flour, butter and eggs. She was fussy about the order. Beyond that, I recorded the way each ingredient changed the burgeoning mixture from lumpy to smooth and creamy, then thick and elastic. I recorded the consistency of the dough as it began to take shape. My hen-scratch notes included when she was beating, when she grabbed a wooden spoon to stir, when she dumped the lump on a floured board and kneaded with the heal of her hands.
After a double raise and short bake, these dinner rolls are piping hot and heavenly. Serve with this slightly tart, fruity butter.
Recipe: Audrey’s Dinner Rolls
Prep Time: 20 Min | Inactive Time: 90 Min | Cook Time: 15 Min | Yield: 3 Doz Rolls, 1 3/4 cup Butter | Level: Moderate
Ingredients
Rolls
- 2 cups warm water
- 1 1/2 Tbsp instant dry yeast
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened plus more melted butter
- 2/3 cup nonfat dry milk
- 2 tsp salt
- 5-6 cups flour
Orange Cranberry Butter
- 3/4 cups whole Orange Cranberry Sauce
- 2 sticks butter, softened
- 4 tsp honey
Special Equipment – hand mixer
Instructions
1 Lightly grease a large bowl and a baking sheet. Set aside.
2 In small bowl, mix water and yeast and let bloom, about 5 minutes.
3 Meanwhile, place the eggs in a large bowl and beat with hand mixer until well beaten.
4 Add sugar, butter, dry milk, salt and beat until smooth and creamy.
5 Switch to a large wooden spoon and stir in the yeast.
6 Add 2 cups flour and stir. Gradually add enough flour to form a soft dough.
7 Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, 1-2 minutes.
8 Place in the greased bowl, cover and let rise until dough doubles in bulk, about 50-70 minutes. Punch down and divide into 3 clumps. Cover 2 of them.
9 Roll out one clump in a rectangle to 1/4” thick. Cut 2 1/2” x 5” rectangles. Roll up each piece and place on the greased baking sheet with the cut side down. Repeat with remaining 2 clumps of dough.
9 Brush tops with melted butter and let rise until double in bulk, about 30-40 minutes.
11 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees during this rise.
12 Once the rolls have doubled in size, bake in the center of the oven for 15-18 minutes until golden brown. Brush with more melted butter, if desired. Serve warm with cranberry butter.
Orange Cranberry Butter
12 Meanwhile combine the orange cranberry sauce, butter and honey in a medium bowl and beat on high for 5 minutes. Mixture should be creamy.
Information
Notes
Instant dry yeast works faster than active dry yeast. Use 2 tablespoons of active dry yeast in place of the instant. Instant usually doesn’t require blooming but this recipe works well when the yeast has blooming time.
The rising time varies depending on the room temperature. Placed near a warm stove the rolls will raise faster. They should double in bulk. The times are approximate.
Cut the dough in rectangles to avoid re-rolling the extra dough left when cutting in circles. The dough has better texture when only rolled once.
The Cranberry Butter is slightly tart compared to honey or Maple Butter. This butter is especially good during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It keeps well in the fridge in an airtight container. Make enough cranberry sauce to serve with the turkey and to whip into Cranberry Butter.
Applications
Serve for Thanksgiving and Christmas. These rolls are super with Sunday Pot Roast or a hearty stew or soup.
Serve these dinner rolls with Maple Butter.
Dish Designer
- Exchange 1 1/2 tablespoons of instant dry yeast for 2 tablespoons of active dry yeast.
- Exchange fresh orange cranberry sauce for canned whole berry cranberry sauce.
Inspiration – Audrey Bastian
SaucyCuisine.com
Cook with Sauces
Written by Helen Horton
Photographs by Helen Horton
Updated: December 24, 2012
I love these rolls. They’re fun and easy to make. Although they take a bit of time you can start them in the morning and gets lots done between rises. The dough is so light and airy. Once you make them, they taste great for days. Adding homemade rolls to a meal is really classy and good.
I didn’t realize Auds was such a master of the dinner roll! I will have to order some up the next time I can swing a biscuit — they sound melt-in-your-mouth good!
These rolls are so good. They are light and fluffy and taste delicious. We really enjoyed them. It can be hard to make a perfect roll but these were great. It would be awesome if this recipe worked with whole wheat flour. Do you think it would?
Wheat flour is a little heavier than white. You can use wheat in combination with white (1/3 to 2/3 or half and half). It depends on how light and fine-textured you want the rolls to be. Start with 1/3 wheat and increase it until you reach the point that the rolls are too heavy for your preference.