Thursday, March 16, 2017

Little Red Hen's One-Hour Rolls

One Hour Rolls! Light, fluffy, buttery, and easy to make. A family favorite dinner roll recipe ready in one hour!


Hot, buttery, salty rolls in one hour? From scratch? That aren't as heavy as concrete? Surely you jest!


Nope, I jest not. The unbelievable is achievable and easier than you think. It takes an hour to make these rolls, but it only takes 13-15 minutes to bake the rolls. Most of the time is actually the dough raising- once in the mixing bowl and then again in the pan before baking. Plus, these one-hour rolls taste better than those frozen rolls that you bake and serve.

The idea of those bake and serve rolls is nice- rolls you can take out of the freezer, bake, and people will think they are homemade. Here's my problem with them: you have to let them thaw and raise ALL DAY. There's usually no way I'm remembering to take out the dinner roll dough to thaw at 8:30 in the morning. At that time, I'm trying to remember to put on deodorant before I take the kids to school. There is the fast raising alternative, but that still involves steaming the frozen dough in a warm oven for a couple hours. For me, those frozen bake and serve rolls are just not worth it.

It is amazing what homemade rolls can do to a meal. Soup turns into a meal with one-hour rolls. Salad turns into a meal with one-hour rolls. Left over chicken, roast or pork turns into a meal with one-hour rolls. I love making this recipe because in an hour I can combine these rolls with a fairly basic, (or potentially mediocre) mid-week meal, and VOILA! There is at least one thing on the table that I can guarantee my family will eat.

One Hour Rolls! Light, fluffy, buttery, and easy to make. A family favorite dinner roll recipe ready in one hour!


The recipe for Little Red Hen One-Hour Rolls makes about 2 dozen rolls. I usually make 20 rolls rather than 24 because the rolls end up just smaller than my fist, (which is the perfect size for rolls if you ask me), but you can do what you like. The rolls are best the day they are baked, though they continue to be addicting for another two days. For larger gatherings, the recipe is easily doubled and can still be done in about an hour, leaving you time to take a nap before dinner!

One slight digression- I used my Bosch mixer to make these rolls. I grew up watching my mom make bread and cookies in a Bosch, I learned how to do the same in a Bosch. I considered it a rite of passage when I received my own Bosch, up there with having my own Pyrex and the first time one of my kids threw up in the middle of the night and suddenly I was the mom who had to clean it up. One of those times when you realize you are a grown up. A defining moment in my life. I love my Bosch, so I have sometimes felt that KitchenAids are like the cool-kid-cheerleaders of the kitchen scene with their bright colors and that great clicking sound it makes when you raise that lever up and down. Darn cool kids. A KitchenAid will, I'm sure, work just as well when making these rolls. Still, they might just taste better when made in a Bosch. Maybe.

Bake the rolls. Share the rolls.

Little Red Hen One-Hour Rolls

Ingredients:
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 1 tbs instant yeast
  • 2 tbs sugar
  • 2 tbs butter, softened
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 cups of flour, give or take a few tablespoons
  • 3 tbs melted butter- to spread on top before and after baking 
  • coarse sea salt- to sprinkle on the unbaked rolls

Directions:
  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine warm water, sugar and yeast. Let rest until frothy, about 5 minutes.
  2. Add the butter, salt and 2 cups of the flour to the yeast mixture. Begin mixing on low speed. Gradually add flour until the dough pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl, but is still soft to the touch. Increase mixer speed to medium as flour is added. 
  3. Knead the dough until it is smooth, about 5 minutes. 
  4. Cover the bowl with a clean towel and let dough raise in a warm place for about 20 minutes, or until dough is almost doubled. 
  5. Remove dough from mixing bowl and put dough on a floured surface. Divide evenly into two parts. Grease or line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper.
  6. Take one half of dough and form a long "snake." Cut dough into 10-12 pieces.
     Roll each section of dough into a ball. Place in pan. Repeat with other half of dough making 5 rows of 4 (20 rolls) or 6 rows of 4 (24 rolls). 


  7. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush the unbaked rolls with melted butter. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over each roll. Let rolls raise while oven is heating, or about 20 minutes. 
  8. Bake for 13-15 minutes until rolls are golden brown. Brush with remaining melted butter and ENJOY!

One Hour Rolls! Light, fluffy, buttery, and easy to make. A family favorite dinner roll recipe ready in one hour!


23 comments:

  1. It's funny that you feel like the KitchenAids are the cool kids, because I feel like my heavy duty KitchenAid is a child's toy next to your super legit Bosch. :)

    I am so intrigued by these rolls. I've been burned (literally AND figuratively) by so many one hour roll recipes... I'm not sure that I can open my heart to them again. But these look delicious, so conquer the one hour rolls I shall.

    P.S. I really don't get the point of Rhodes Rolls. I always find myself thinking "Hmm... I have three hours until dinner. No time for Rhodes Rolls, I'll just make them from scratch."

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  2. I am so happy that you mentioned a Bosch mixer. When I was a child, my Mum actually sold the mixers. So, of course, I was gifted one when I got married. Absolutely love it! I grew up with homemade bread and love trying out new recipes. My latest creation has been roasted garlic and fresh rosemary bread. Could easily add to this recipe, but they look lovely just the way they are! Thanks so much for posting this!

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    1. Lynn, your garlic rosemary bread sounds amazing! I'd love to try to make it...in my Bosch! Thanks for sharing your memory. Sounds like we could be good friends.

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  3. I'm a Bosch girl too and I'm fixing to make these rolls for a crew of cowboys this morning. Homemade biscuits every morning and fresh rolls at noon. No ranch wife would let a meal be served without freshly baked bread on that table! :) Thank you for sharing your recipe!

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  4. I don't have a mixer to do this for me.. I so need one for sure...how long should I knead this by hand?? I know each time I add flour...please let me know...appreciate...I w make these and pray I can do justice to them...I need a quick bread dough/rools...

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  5. These are just delicious! I don't have a mixer so I did them by hand. Just finished one and am a very happy camper.

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  6. I made 12 and they took about 17 minutes.

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  7. I'm certainly going to make these rolls in my Bosch. I've had mine since my kids were little and they are now in their 50's. I used to triple my oatmeal recipe, dump all the oatmeal in and it mixed it beautifully.
    It's still going strong.

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  8. Looks great! Can I make the dough ahead of time? If so, how long? Maybe a few days? Thanks

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  9. Thank god I have a replacement for my old recipe! No eggs, crucial with our daughter's egg allergy. AMAZING rolls. Don't leave the salt off the top. I used my bread machine for the kneading. So easy!

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  10. These are really great! I used my KitchenAid... and they are pretty delicious. I feel like the dough dried out during the rising stage, though... so they didn't rise the second time as much as I'd like. That could have been the yeast, tho. I'll likely use a light coating of oil when I put the towel over them to rise the first time.

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  11. These are really great! I used my KitchenAid... and they are pretty delicious. I feel like the dough dried out during the rising stage, though... so they didn't rise the second time as much as I'd like. That could have been the yeast, tho. I'll likely use a light coating of oil when I put the towel over them to rise the first time.

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  12. These are delicious, really light & fluffy. Freeze well too. Definitely a keeper.

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  13. This is my second batch. They are excellent and easy to prepare. My grandson requested them so how can I refuse��. It’s a keeper in our family!

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  14. I love this recipe it's become a regular in my house!! Perfect everytime !!

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  15. What would be the difference if bread flour was used instead? Do you know?

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  16. Could you use warm milk in place of the water?

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  17. Every time I make this I die and go to carb heaven. ���� they turn out perfectly and I can’t get enough.

    Do you happen to know the nutritional info per roll?

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  18. These rolls are in the oven right now...the kitchen smells great. I wanted to try them the day before, but need to serve them tomorrow (Thanksgiving). I read that the best time to freeze the dough is before the first rise? Any advice on this? Thank you.

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  19. This recipe makes me feel like a seasoned bread baker. Thanks so much. It was easy and these are just like I remember my grandmother's and my brother's rolls.

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  20. I will Never search out for another roll recipe again. Amazing and delicious 😋. Super simple too! Thanks

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  21. Just made this recipe and wanted to comment - saw I commented 6 years ago!! I made this into a loaf today (baked for 30 minutes). Still w/o a stand mixer and still delicious!

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