Tag: dinner rolls

Mom’s No-Knead Rolls

On a sheet of unlined 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inch paper from the kind of tablet Mom bought for writing letters is her recipe for No-Knead Rolls. It’s one of a hundred or more recipes jammed into a recipe card box. Mom scratched “From Charles XMAS 1955” on the back of the box so I gave it to her when I was twelve years old.

Recipe boxIt’s a tin box made in the USA by the Ohio Art Company with a floral design and “Recipes” imprinted on the front of the hinged cover. Last year I found one like it offered as a collector’s item on ebay. My sister, Patsy, who is the guardian of most of Mom’s recipe books, loaned it to me two years ago, and I have been reading through the recipes as I look for ones that seem familiar to me.

Before listing the ingredients Mom noted that the recipe makes one and half dozen rolls. This suggests why she saved this recipe. Mom baked lots of bread, but sometimes she would want to have rolls to serve warm from the oven rather than slicing bread she had baked a day or two earlier. This recipe produces enough rolls to satisfy a table of guests without burdening the breadbox with too many leftovers.

If there were any rolls left over, she could always offer to wrap a few for someone to take home. Odds are good that there were takers. These rolls are delicious, especially if you add the cup of cheese Mom suggests to make cheesy dinner rolls.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup water, divided
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup sugar
3 T shortening
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (1 package)
1/4 cup warm water
2 large eggs
3 – 3 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

PROCEDURE:

Bring a half cup of water to boiling and pour it over the salt, sugar and shortening in a mixing bowl. Stir until the shortening is melted. Heat a quarter cup of water to lukewarm in a cup or small bowl and stir in the yeast to proof.

Stir the evaporated milk into the hot water and shortening and allow it to cool to lukewarm. Add the proofed yeast to the other liquid ingredients. Beat the eggs until they are lemon colored and stir them into the liquid in the mixing bowl.

Stir about half the flour into the liquid and mix it well, then beat in more flour a half cup at a time until you have a stiff but not a dry batter. You will know it is the right consistency when the batter becomes elastic and follows the spoon as you stir. Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and set the bowl in a warm draft-free place. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk, usually in about an hour.

Stir the dough down and let it rest while you grease muffin tins with enough cups for eighteen to twenty rolls. Fill the cups a little more than half full and cover the tins with the damp towel.

Preheat the oven to 375º about twenty minutes after filling the muffin cups. Put a couple of tablespoons of water in any empty cups. When the dough rises to the top of the cups, put the tins on the center shelf in the oven and bake until the rolls are lightly browned, fifteen to twenty minutes.

NOTES: Mom’s recipe card included an option for “cheesy dinner rolls.” Fold a cup of shredded sharp or extra sharp Cheddar cheese into the batter just before you fill the muffin pans. I have tried it, and the rolls are wonderful this way too.

This recipe is perfect for the beginning baker. It will teach you that making bread dough is not difficult, that you can adjust the liquid and dry ingredient ratio if necessary and that yeast really does make dough rise. There’s no need to knead. You just stir and spoon the batter into the muffin tins, let it rise again and bake the tasty little morsels.

This recipe is a good one for learning to trust your eyes. Open the oven door after fifteen minutes to see how your rolls are browning. If they look done, take them out. If it turns out you should have baked them longer, they will still be edible. If you must, you can finish them in the microwave for a few seconds.

Cabin Wheat Bread

People in my parent’s generation learned to “make do.” If they didn’t have enough sugar, they used molasses to sweeten cookies and cakes. If they ran out of shortening, they used bacon grease or chicken fat to make pie crusts and biscuits. When kids tore holes in their clothes or broke their toys, mothers and fathers patched and fixed things until they were “almost good as new.”

Jerri subscribes to the “make do” school of thought even more than I do. One Sunday afternoon at the cabin when I discovered that there was not enough white flour to finish the bread I had started, she looked up from the book she was reading and said, “There’s some whole wheat flour in the cabinet. Make do.”

And I did. Since I had intended to make white bread, I substituted just enough whole wheat flour to make the dough. The result was more than satisfactory, and our friends enjoy it when they visit.

The whole wheat adds a little more fiber and gives the bread the nutty flavor we associate with whole grain flours. This bread keeps well and is very good toasted.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups water
1 package or 2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 cup milk
2 T butter
2 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups whole wheat flour
4 to 5 cups all purpose white flour

PROCEDURE:

Put 1/4 cup warm water (90º to 115º) in a cup with 1/4 tsp. sugar and stir in the yeast. While the yeast is proofing, warm the milk and butter until the milk steams and the butter is melted. Pour the hot milk into a large mixing bowl and stir in the sugar and salt.

Allow the milk and butter to cool a few minutes, then add a cup of cold water and stir in a cup of white flour, a cup of whole wheat flour and another cup of white flour. Stir thoroughly after each cup of flour is added.

Check the temperature of the batter by dropping a little on the inside of your wrist. If it feels cool or only slightly warm, add the yeast and stir it in well. Depending on your preference, add a half or a full cup of whole wheat flour and enough white flour to make a dough that begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Tip it out on to a well floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and satiny. Return it to a greased bowl, turn it to cover the dough lightly with grease, and cover the bowl with a damp towel.

Let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk. Tip it onto a lightly floured surface and and knead it for five or six turns, then divide it in half, form two loaves and place them in greased pans. Cover them with a damp towel and set them in a warm draft-free spot to rise.

While the loaves are rising preheat the oven to 400º.

When the dough has risen slightly above the tops of the pans, put them on the center rack in the hot oven.   After ten minutes, reduce the heat to 350º and bake approximately 25 minutes longer.

When the 25 minutes are up, tip the loaves out of the pans and tap them on the bottom. If the loaves sound hollow, the bread is done. If not, let them bake directly on the oven rack another five minutes, then remove them from the oven and cool them on a wire rack.

NOTES: You can make one loaf and a pan of wonderful dinner rolls with this recipe as well. Just roll out half of the dough to about a half inch thick, cut it into 12 equal pieces and form the rolls. Place the rolls in a greased 9 x 13 inch pan and put the pan in with the loaf of bread. The rolls should be lightly browned and done in 15 or 20 minutes.