Easy dinner rolls

This time in three weeks, Will and I will be on a plane heading over to New York City! We're more than a little excited. The planning is well and truly underway and we've gone so overboard as to plot every place we want to go on a map. Restaurants have their own colour so as you can imagine it is dominating (really must make some bookings!).

The only thing I'm not too excited about is American bread. Love you guys as I do, your bread is just too sweet for me. I think the first thing I'm going to want to do when we get home is bake up my own. When I first started baking bread it seemed pretty daunting. I had no idea what I was doing and let's be honest, my first few  (ok maybe more than a few) loaves were pretty rubbish.

Now I've got the hang of it, apart from the odd failure (we had some under-cooked bread the other day thanks to my lack of patience), I think the bread we eat at home is quite often better than some of the stuff you can buy. To a lot of people, the idea of baking bread seems way too hard or too time consuming but I promise you, it really is easy. If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook the actual hands-on time is about 5 minutes. 5 minutes!

The rest of the time you can do your thing while the yeast works its magic.

I have learned a few things in my bread adventures. If you know these tips first up you can probably skip the door-stop-bread-phase and go straight to nice edible loaves:

• Make sure the water is at the right temperature. You need it to be at about 100-110F. Too hot and it will kill the yeast. Too cold and it won't come to life. Once you've made a bit of bread you'll be able to tell just by sticking your finger in it.
• Use baker's flour. It has a higher gluten content and turns out much tastier bread than regular flour.
• Dough needs to be kneaded (don't we all!). You'll know when it's ready for resting when it's nice and smooth and not sticky.
• As Celia's friend says 'slash with panache.' Don't be wimpy about cutting your slashes. The quicker and more brutal the better. Ok maybe don't attack it
• It's ready when you tap it on the bottom and it sounds hollow inside. The best way to do this is to pick it up with an oven mitt or tea towel and tap it with a knife.

I'm still relatively amateur at bread baking but I find if I stick to those rules I pretty consistently turn out decent bread. Last week, I thought I'd try my hand at little easy dinner rolls. This is what I should have/was going to bake for my shredded beef sliders and they would have been perfect with their fluffy insides and thin crust.

I dressed them up with poppy seeds and sesame seeds to add a bit of interest but you could leave them plain or perhaps dust them with a little bit of flour before baking. They always look more authentic with flour. Make sure you add the seeds/flour and then slash so you have that nice break in the middle. Some of them actually look like little bottoms don't you think? No? Just me again? :-)

Even if you're terrified of bread baking or have a fear of yeast, you can make bread. Go on. Try it! Let me know how you go. Enjoy!

ps These guys freeze really well so you can make up a big batch and have them on hand.

Recipe

Easy peasy dinner rolls

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Prep Time: 2 hours hours 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 2 hours hours 25 minutes minutes

Servings: 16

Author: adapted slightly from Women's Weekly - Bake

1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoon 7g dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 cups 500ml warm water (100-110F)
• 4 cups 640g baker's flour (you may need a few extra tbsp)
• 2 teaspoon sea salt flakes
• spray oil
• 2 tablespoon milk
• seeds if desired

Instructions

• In a small bow or jug, whisk the yeast, honey and water together until combined then set aside for a few minutes until it starts to froth.
• Place the flour and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer and pour in the yeast mixture.
• Using the dough hook, mix on low speed until combined then increase the speed a few notches and let the mixer knead the dough until it is nice and smooth (about 5 minutes). You may need to add a little extra flour if it is too sticky.
• Test if the dough is kneaded enough by pressing quickly with your finger. If your finger comes away clean then it's ready.
• Spray a large bowl lightly with oil.
• Shape the dough into a ball and place it in the bowl then cover it with plastic wrap.
• Set the bowl aside in a warm place until it doubles in size (about an hour).
• When the dough has risen, punch it down to expel the air and give it a quick knead. Technique doesn't matter just smoosh it around a bit.
• Divide the dough into 16 portions then roll each one into a ball and place on a lined baking tray leaving about 3cm between each one.
• Spray a piece of plastic wrap with oil and lay it lightly over the balls then leave them to double in size again. This takes about 30 minutes but be careful not to let them rise more than specified.
• After 10 minutes, preheat the oven to 180C fan-forced.
• When the balls have risen, lightly brush the top of each one with milk then sprinkle with seeds.
• Take a sharp, serrated knife and slash the top of each bun.
• Bake the rolls for 12-15 minutes or until golden.
• Transfer the rolls to a wire rack to cool completely.

Have you made this recipe? I'd love to hear what you think. Tag me on Instagram @clairekcreations