Category: Breads and Pancakes

Mennonite Dinner Rolls

Mennonite housewives understood both their Bible and human nature. When they read that “Man shall not live by bread alone,” they respected the need to honor their God, but they also knew that people needed something besides bread on their plates.

Namely, rolls. How else can one explain the fact that the recipe for rolls is the third recipe in the Mennonite Community Cookbook right after “Starter for Liquid Yeast” and “Basic White Bread Recipe”?

These rolls are easy to make, fluffy and tender and have a wonderful flavor. You may want to make them a couple of times to get a feel for just how much flour you need to produce rolls that are light and tender, but once you figure that out, you will be making these rolls often to treat your guests and family.

And of course, the baker needs to test a few when they come hot out of the oven.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup water
2 1/4 tsp. (1 packet) active dry yeast
2 cups milk
5 T sugar
1/4 cup butter plus extra to paint the rolls.
5 – 6 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 large egg

PROCEDURE:

As with other breads, you will be kneading the dough, so scrub your hands well as the first step in the process.

Dissolve the yeast in a half cup of lukewarm water and allow it to proof. Heat the milk until it is very warm and pour it into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the butter and sugar and allow the milk to cool to lukewarm. Stir in the yeast and three cups of flour, a cup at a time. Stir thoroughly after adding each cup until you have a smooth batter.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and allow the batter to rest in a warm place for about half an hour. The yeast should begin working in the batter and turn it into what is called a sponge. Beat the egg until it is lemon colored, then stir the egg and salt into the sponge.

Add the remaining flour a cup at a time, beating the dough well between each addition. If necessary, beat a little more flour into the dough until it just begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Allow the dough to rest for a few minutes, then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.

This is a sticky dough, so make sure your hands are well floured. Use a spatula or baker’s scraper to turn the dough a few times to coat the outer surface with flour, then knead the dough for three or four minutes. Try not to work too much flour into the dough, but knead until the dough feels smooth and satiny. Let the dough rest and rise slightly for a few minutes on the floured surface.

While the dough is resting, grease a nine by thirteen-inch and a nine by nine-inch baking pan.

Divide the dough in half and roll one half to a rectangle about half an inch thick. Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut the rectangle into equal pieces about two and a half inches square. With floured or greased fingers, form the pieces into rolls and place them nearly touching in rows. Roll out the second half and finish the job. You should end up with about two and half dozen rolls.

Set the pans in a warm place and cover them with a damp towel. Let them rise until they have nearly doubled in bulk. Preheat the oven to 400º a few minutes before the rolls have finished rising.

Melt two tablespoons of butter and use a pastry brush to lightly paint the tops of the rolls. Bake the rolls for fifteen to eighteen minutes until they are golden brown.

Rub a stick of butter over the tops of the hot rolls after you take them from the oven. Serve them warm.

NOTES: I prefer to use whole milk for baking. However, my wife buys 2% milk. To get a little more butterfat into these rolls, I put a half cup of half and half into the measuring cup, then fill it to the two cup mark with the 2% stuff.

There are some good explanations on the Internet of how to form neat rolls. but I just tuck the corners of the dough under, make the buggers a little roundish and put them shoulder-to-shoulder in the pan. They taste just fine and even look like dinner rolls.

Joyce’s Sausage Pinwheels

My brother-in-law Merle was a regional credit manager for Phillips 66. As anyone in business will tell you, a sale is not complete until you have been paid. A credit manager’s job is to see that the company gets paid. This is not always easy. When Merle was transferred to a territory which included Alabama and Mississippi, he learned that the previous credit manager had asked for a transfer.

It seemed that a major petroleum jobber was persistently late on million-dollar invoices. The credit manager was just as persistent in reminding the jobber that Phillips expected invoices to be paid when due. Like one of “those good old boys” from back in the bayous, the jobber announced that he would be tempted to use the rifle hanging in the back window of his pickup the next time he heard another word about paying invoices on time.

I asked Merle how he handled the situation. “Well, the manager I replaced was a nice guy, and he wanted to keep both the customer and our sales department happy. The jobber was one of our biggest customers in the area. But he was earning interest on money that he owed Phillips 66, and Phillips could use that interest too.

“I spent a day looking over the filling stations in the area and decided that he needed Phillips just as much as we needed him, so I told him that if he didn’t start paying on time, I would stop deliveries until he got caught up. We got along just fine after that.”

As a mid-level manager for Phillips 66, Merle was expected to entertain colleagues and their wives from time to time. His wife, Joyce, had the job of providing the food. Here is a simple, savory appetizer that their guests always enjoyed, and Joyce shared it with Jerri.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
5 T shortening
2/3 cup milk
1 lb. pork sausage

PROCEDURE:

Stir the flour, salt and baking powder together in a mixing bowl and cut in the shortening with a fork or pastry blender as if you were making biscuits. Add the milk to moisten the dry ingredients. If necessary, add a little more milk or flour so the dough is moist but not wet.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead it briefly, just ten or twelve turns. Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a quarter inch thick rectangle. Spread the uncooked sausage evenly on the dough. Roll each rectangle as if you were making a jelly roll.

Cover the rolls and chill them for an hour to make them easier to slice. Preheat the oven to 400º.

Slice the rolls into quarter or half-inch rounds and put them a half inch apart on baking sheets. Bake the pinwheels for ten to twelve minutes until they are lightly browned. Serve them warm.

NOTES: Long after Merle retired, he and Joyce visited our cabin at Cable. As we drove Highway 63 north, Merle told us that he had checked a directory of Phillips 66 dealers after he learned that his sister was planning to marry a guy from Hayward. Until we crossed that beautiful river, he said, he had always assumed that Namekagon Oil Company was owned by Mr. Namekagon. The story still makes us smile.