Dinner Rolls - Part One

This is for my cousin, Shelly.  I can't get down to visit and show you how to make these dinner rolls so I figured I'd do my best to show you here.

You'll have to bear with me here folks.  I'm not a photographer, writer or teacher.  I am a good cook though and you'll get the gist of what I'm saying.

First, get out all of the ingredients. 

Today, I'll make a small batch so the ingredients need are:

3 cups All-Purpose Flour (or Bread Flour)
1 1/4 tsp. Salt
4 tsp. Sugar

1 package (equivalent to 2 1/4 tsps.) Dry Active Yeast (or Rapid Rise)

1/2 cup Water
2/3 cup Milk
4 tsp. Butter (or Vegetable Oil)

Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and mix it up a little bit.



Add the wet ingredients....

Let the machine bring all of the ingredients together.  You'll need to

scrape the flour into the liquids until it forms a dough.  You want the dough to be soft, not sticky and the dough hook should put all of the ingredients together lifting from the bowl.  If the dough is sticking to the bottom of the bowl after a couple of minutes of mixing, add a little bit of flour (try a tablespoon at a time) until it forms a nice dough.  If there is too much flour in the bottom of the bowl to mix into the dough, add water (try a tablespoon at a time) until the flour is picked up into the dough.

Let the machine knead the dough for 8-10 minutes.  You want a nice soft dough ball to form.

Form the dough into a ball and lightly oil the bowl and the dough with olive oil to keep it from drying out.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place.  If you haven't used your oven lately you can place the bowl in the oven with the light on.  That will produce a nice warm environment for your dough to rise.

Let it rise for an hour/double in bulk.

Punch down the dough. 

Now at this point I'm going to deviate a little from my norm.  I have a gym date in 20 minutes and can't finish the rolls until later tonight or maybe tomorrow.  So, I'm going to put a little oil in a bowl, add the dough ball, turn it over so that the dough and bowl are nicely oiled and cover with plastic wrap.  Then, I'll put it into the fridge until I'm ready to work with it again.

We'll form the dough into rolls and bake them in my next post.