Dinner Rolls

When I start making something, I often get into the habit of sticking with the same recipe over and over again and never try anything new. This was the case with dinner rolls. When I began making my own bread in January of '09, I found and adapted this delicious buttery bread machine roll recipe and have stuck with it ever since. It's been a while since I have made them, because I tend to make them more in the winter when we're eating soups and heartier meals. However, when I started to think about what I was going to take to the potluck corn roast that we're going to this evening, I decided rolls would be one of my contributions. I got up this morning and set out to put them in the bread maker and for some unknown reason, decided to try something new.

These rolls aren't really any better, or worse, than the buttery bread machine rolls but sometimes it's just nice to try something different.

Dinner Rolls - adapted from America's Best Breadmachine Baking Recipes
1 1/3 cups milk (I used dry milk powder and water - as always)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 1/2 cups flour (I used 2 cups white and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat)
1 1/4 tsp yeast

1. Add all ingredients to bread pan in order listed by your manufacturer. Select dough cycle. When cycle is complete, turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Knead gently, just enough to form a nice ball. Cover and let rest for 10-15 minutes.

2. Break dough into 24 pieces for small rolls or 12 pieces for larger rolls. Roll each piece into a ball and place close together in a greased baking pan (9x13 for 24 rolls, 8x8 for 12 rolls). Or, if you want to be a fancy pants you can divide the dough into 12 pieces, then further divide each piece in 3, form them into balls and place 3 balls in each cup of a lightly greased muffin tin. This will give you lovely cloverleaf rolls. I usually do this if I'm making 12 rolls but I wanted 24 small ones since they were for a potluck so I just did them the boring way.

3. Cover and let rise for 30-45 minutes until doubled in volume.

4. Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes, until they sound hallow when tapped.