I'm on a roll

I am on the hunt. I want to find the perfect recipe for the perfect dinner roll. I love dinner rolls. Love them. (Gosh, can I gush or can I gush) From the rolls you get at  Kentucky Fried Chicken  to the real nice home made ones, dinner rolls rock. Soft, fluffy and puffy, dinner rolls need not be eaten with anything. In fact, they're best eaten alone without even any butter.

I made some wholemeal buns last week, topped with poppy seeds and they were tastey .. and healthy. But being wholemeal buns, they were a little dense. I think I still prefer my dinenr rolls with white flour.

I found a recipe on allrecipes.com that got a lot of positive reviews and so I decided to give it a go. Angie's Perfect Dinner Rolls was what they were called -- which was just ... well, perfect. I read through the recipe and was happy that the process of making the dough was pretty straighforward. The only snag was that the recipe called for four rises -- as in you mix the dough and then let it rise to double it size. Then you de-gas it and let it rise again; de-gass it again and let it rise; shape it into little balls and let it rise one last time.

Boy, I wondered if I had the patience or the time. Somehow, I always start my baking projects after 9pm -- four rises would take me at least three hours. I decided to skip one rise -- after all, some of the others who used the recipes and commented on teh site did the same and still achieved lovely results (or so they said).

I also halved the recipe since the original yielded 36 buns. What would I do with 36 buns other than put on some unsightly pounds? I ended up with 16 buns.

The buns were really tasty. They weren't puffy and only slightly fluffy (perhaps a fourth rise would have made a difference?)  but they were soft and buttery and slightly sweet.

Lovely.

Adapted from Angie's Perfect Dinner Rolls

11/4  cups warm milk

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/2 cup and 1 tbsp sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoons salt

3.5 cups high protein flour/all purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, melted

Warm milk till it's tepid: don't bring it to a boil. It should be just warm enough for you to  be able to stick your fingers in for ten seconds without being scalded. Sprinkle the yeast into the milk and add 1 tbsp sugar. Let it sit for 5-10 mins till yeast is activated and the mixture becomes frothy.

Beat in the sugar, eggs, softened butter (1/4 cup), and salt and mix. I used my stand mixer, using the dough hook on a low speed (4). Once blended, gradually add in the flour and continue kneading until a soft dough forms. Cover the bowl and leave it in a warm place to rise. Should take 1 hour for the dough to double in size.

Punch down the dough and cover again to rise again (another 30 -40 mins) . Repeat this step. Dough will be slightly sticky, don't panic.

Meanwhile, preheat your over to 200C.

Now, back to your dough. Pinch enough dough to form small balls (about a golf ball or slightly bigger) -- roll them into shape. Don't know how? Click here.

Place the balls close to each other in a greased baking dish. They can be almost touching each other. Cover and let rise until doubles in size -- just another 30-40 mins.

Bake rolls until it gets golden: about 10 - 15 minutes. When done, remove from oven and drizzle the 1/4 cup melted butter over them. Eat them while they're hot.