Rose's Butter-Dipped Dinner Rolls

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Last week Jim asked me why I didn't blog about one of Rose's breads again. I told him I couldn't just repeat recipes all the time, or it wouldn't be much of a blog, would it? He agreed, but pointed out that nobody was likely to call me out for making a bread I'd made three years ago. Since it was his birthday week, I decided I could sneak in my favorite dinner roll recipe. If you eat these rolls with butter, they're really triple-butter rolls: butter in the dough, melted butter brushed all over the shaped dough, and more butter when they're served. Whether you think that's over the top or just right depends on your attitude toward butter. My attitude is favorable.



Last week, I said that you should never let bread be the master of you. I took my own advice and made this bread through the first two risings on Friday night, so I'd have enough time to shape them and let them rise again before taking them to a Saturday lunch. Lunch at 12:00 sharp people! (This is Jim's family, all German and heavily into order and routine--as he would be the first to tell you). It worked beautifully.
Friday night I made the sponge and the flour mixture, letting it sit long enough so that the sponge started to bubble up through the flour. Here's the point where the butter gets added and everything is mixed together.

It takes a few hours to double, then it gets pressed into a rectangle and folded.

Back into the bowl. Here, you can either continue with the recipe, or put it in the refrigerator to rise slowly overnight, which is what I did. By the next morning, it has doubled in size again.

If your husband gets up earlier than you do, you can tell him to take the bowl out of the refrigerator when he gets up. Then you can have a cup of coffee, read about Obama getting the Nobel peace prize, and get to work. Otherwise, you can have two cups of coffee and also read about everyone's reaction to Obama's getting the Nobel prize, and then get to work.
There are instructions for shaping into little round rolls, Parker House rolls, and Cloverlead rolls, but I just made the pan o' buns. You roll them into balls, dip them in butter all over, and place them in a square or round pan, keeping a little distance between them.

Within an hour and a half or so, they've risen enough so that they're crowding each other, and they will form themselves into little loaves.

After they cool for a few minutes, you can break them apart. They are little visions of loveliness and lightness.

I don't generally include Rose's recipes because I did every recipe in the book. If I'd printed all the recipes, and some lawyer called me and accused me of violating a copyright, I wouldn't have a great defense. However, if you want the recipe and don't have the book, you can go to starchefs.com and get it. But the short version of the recipe doesn't have weights, so maybe you should just break down and buy the book. If you make these, just be prepared to perfect your fake-modest disclaimer that, really, it was nothing.