Friday, December 28, 2012

Forget Kissing The Cook, They Almost Flipped Off This Cook

Last week, I brought you this post about the most amazing rolls in the entire world.  They are sweet, dense, chewy and just unbelievable.

I was so excited to make them for Christmas.  I hate store bought rolls that taste like Wonderbread.  These are so much better.  And not at all hard to make, with my breadmaker, that is.  I'm starting to think I'm just too lazy to knead my own bread and I really just wanted a machine to do all of the mixing and kneading, on its own time.

I knew we were going to k-ster's mother for Christmas morning and then to my parents for CHristmas dinner at 12:30.  I really wanted to make the rolls right in time for dinner because the whole problem with the store bought rolls is that they always get burned.  They are always the last thing in the oven and everyone forgets about them.

I thought my bread machine timer would work for the dough setting, so I was planning to have it mix the dough some time in the wee hours in the morning and then I was going to put the rolls into the pan before we went to k-ster's mother's, letting them rise while we were gone.  We planned to leave just in time to get back and bake them.

It was about 9:30 and I assembled all of the ingredients and put the basket into the machine.  That's when I realized I can't set the timer for dough.  So, I had a choice.  I could mix it up then and wait for the almost 2 hours it takes to make the dough.  That was going to be pretty late and then I was going to have to put the dough out for the whole night (at this point, I was pretty sure that refrigerating the dough would interfere with the rising).   Or, I could leave the ingredients in the basket and get up early enough to make the dough before we left.

I chose the second option and went to bed.  And then remembered that there is an egg in there and I didn't like the idea of letting it sit all night.  I know, it's pretty cold in the kitchen, so it would have been fine, but I could just see this being the Christmas we all got food poisoning from those rolls. 

I put the basket in the refrigerator and went to bed.  And then thought about how the honey and oil would get thick and more solid in the refrigerator and might not mix well.

I woke up around 4 which was a perfect time to take the basket out of the refrigerator and let it warm to room temp again.  Then I got up around 6:30 and made the dough.  I had just enough time to roll the dough into rolls and set them out with a towel on top.

This time, I didn't put them on the radiator to rise because we would be gone for almost 3 hours.


Good thing, because they rose like I could not have imagined.  They were ENORMOUS.


I glazed them and put them at 400 degrees like I did the last time.  The recipe says 15-20 min.  After about 8 minutes, they were already that gold and crusty.  They are not crusty rolls, so I was getting nervous.

They were also a mile high so I thought they'd be too big.


I wasn't surprised to see that they weren't really that high, it was all a ruse.  They were hollow in the middle and then they fell. Some were a little bit undercooked.  I was afraid if I left them for too much longer, they would burn on top and we'd be right back where we are every year!

They were still really good tasting rolls but they didn't look so pretty.

I suggest not letting them rise for a million hours unless you make them really, really small to begin with.  My sister suggests putting them in the refrigerator and letting them rise there.  The problem would have been that I wouldn't have had time to let them get to room temperature before putting them in the oven.

In any case, they were snarfed down like it was last time any of us would have rolls, so they couldn't have been too bad!

Linking here and here and here and here

3 comments:

  1. rolls are a funny thing! I was in charge this year too. Mine were beautiful and was very proud as I present them As we started eating them I realized they were undercooked on the bottoms. We all just ate the tops and outside edges. That part was fine. I think that kind of thing happens when I start getting proud of them. I should have been in charge of the humble pie.

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  2. Funny I find the things that look worse, taste the best! Do you ever find this!I have to say that they look mighty good though!I am impressed you made this from scratch!

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