Homemade Dinner Rolls
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 8:36AM 
I love dinner rolls as much as the next person, but the thing is, there’s only so much I can eat at Thanksgiving, and choices must be made. So I usually forego the bread so I can load up on turkey, stuffing, potatoes, etc., etc., etc. Having said that, I’ve been trying out different dinner roll recipes and this one is, without a doubt, the best. This is how you want a dinner roll to be… just a little crusty on the outside, and very soft and yeasty on the inside. These rolls have a little heft to them, but are still light enough to eat several at one sitting. I know this from personal experience.
The good people at Cook’s Illustrated are to be commended for this recipe. As they do with so many of the recipes coming out of their test kitchens however, they tend to over think and over-complicate, so I have streamlined the recipe without any adverse effects. These rolls come out perfectly. Do not be put off by the lengthy instructions; these are easy to make. In spite of its length, each step of this recipe is easy, and each time I’ve made them, they’ve come out consistently and awesomely good.
I’ve already made a batch of these for our Thanksgiving dinner, and they’re waiting patiently in the freezer for their big day. I may just have to do without that second helping of mashed potatoes. I’m so having dinner rolls this year.
Homemade Dinner Rolls
If you don't have a mixer with a dough attachment, just mix your ingredients in a large bowl and knead on a flour surface for 5 or 6 minutes until the dough comes together and is soft and satin-y. Then just proceed with the rest of the recipe.
Click here for a printable recipe
Makes 16 rolls
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated
1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon water (12 1/2 ounces), room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
2 teaspoons honey
3 cups plus1 tablespoon bread flour (16 1/2 ounces), plus extra for forming rolls
3 tablespoons whole wheat flour (about 1 ounce)
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
Instructions
1. Whisk water, yeast, and honey in bowl of stand mixer until well combined, making sure no honey sticks to bottom of bowl. Add flours and mix on low speed with dough hook until cohesive dough is formed, about 3 minutes. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature 30 minutes.
2. Remove plastic wrap and evenly sprinkle salt over dough. Knead on low speed (speed 2 on KitchenAid) 5 minutes. (If dough creeps up attachment, stop mixer and scrape down using well-floured hands or greased spatula.) Increase speed to medium and continue to knead until dough is smooth and slightly tacky, about 1 minute. If dough is very sticky, add 1 to 2 tablespoons flour and continue mixing 1 minute. Lightly spray 2-quart bowl with nonstick cooking spray; transfer dough to bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. Fold dough over itself; rotate bowl quarter turn and fold again. Rotate bowl again and fold once more. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 30 minutes. Repeat folding, replace plastic wrap, and let dough rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes. Spray two 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
4. Transfer dough to floured work surface, sprinkle top with more flour. Using bench scraper, cut dough in half and gently stretch each half into 16-inch cylinders. Divide each cylinder into quarters, then each quarter into 2 pieces (you should have 16 pieces total), and dust top of each piece with more flour. With floured hands, gently pick up each piece and roll in palms to coat with flour, shaking off excess, and place in prepared cake pan. Arrange 8 dough pieces in each cake pan, placing one piece in middle and others around it, with long side of each piece running from center of pan to edge and making sure cut-side faces up. Loosely cover cake pans with plastic wrap and let rolls rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes (dough is ready when it springs back slowly when pressed lightly with finger). Thirty minutes before baking, adjust rack to middle position and heat oven to 500 degrees.
5. Remove plastic wrap from cake pans, spray rolls lightly with water, and place in oven. Bake 10 minutes until tops of rolls are brown; remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees; Continue to bake until rolls develop deep golden brown crust and sound hollow when tapped on bottom, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer rolls to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.
Because this dough is sticky, keep your hands well floured when handling it. Use a spray bottle to mist the rolls with water. The rolls will keep for up to 2 days at room temperature stored in a zipper-lock bag. To re-crisp the crust, place the rolls in a 450-degree oven 6 to 8 minutes. The rolls will keep frozen for several months wrapped in foil and placed in a large zipper-lock bag. Thaw the rolls at room temperature and re-crisp using the instructions above.
Patrice Berry
As you can tell from the photos, I made a slight alteration in the recipe when it comes to forming the rolls. Instead of leaving the rolls in their cut shape, I formed them into round balls. I have made the rolls both ways and each method produces a slightly different texture. The round rolls are a little denser, while the cut rolls are a little fluffier. Depending on which kind of dinner roll you like, you can form the rolls accordingly. The Husband likes his rolls more on the dense side, so he likes them as pictured. Enjoy!
Reader Comments (30)
We have homemade rolls Christmas Eve just for that reason. They are just too much to have with the big meal.
I agree, Renee, but the family would never let me get away with not serving rolls. These are pretty delicious little things, and like I said, it's going to be hard not to have one this year.
We always have fried bread with my husband's family-I prefer a nice Brown and Serve to eat my cranberries on :)
I am a full out carb lover, and would never leave out a carb (especially bread!) at Thanksgiving. These look like the perfect dinner roll!
These are absolutely the best dinner rolls EVER! and as a new cook/baker (non desert) this has become my go-to staple at my holiday dinner table. Simply the best and get better with each batch I make :)
Those rolls look just perfect!
Those look absolutely perfect -- like you bought them at some wonderful bakery. Nothing beats home-made, though. I actually somehow do find room for homemade rolls at Thanksgiving time. Will definitely remember these for the holiday.
They look beautiful.
I was going to make these for dinner tonight and it looks like I should have started earlier... a lot earlier. So am I reading correctly, they need to raise 5 different times for a total of 3 hours? ( 30, 60,30,30, & 30 mins?) I have never made rolls from scratch and these look AMAZING!
Yes there are five different rising times which seems excessive,doesn't it? I probably should have recommended up front that you plan ahead and I will fix that on the post. In truth, none of the steps are difficult, and the resulting rolls are so amazing. I hope you give them a try, Jen. Good to hear from you!
HOLE-LEE-COW!!!!!!!! I just got out of the kitchen from making these balls of heaven. The aroma of these babies baking had me on the edge of oven. I couldn't get the knife and butter out quick enough after they were done baking. I didn't even give them time to cool, not even a little. I just wish I would have taken a little more care in rolling them so they would be a bit more uniform.
If you have four hours to dedicate (during the 5 raise times, you can get plenty of other stuff done, just set a timer! haha) you will not be disappointed!!!!!
Gotta go have another before they cool!! Thank you for the great recipe, Patrice!!!!!
So glad you liked these, Jen. Aren't they good??? I'm also glad you went ahead and made them after realizing they took so many rise times. Well worth it, I agree.
Can these be made in the bread maker on the dough cycle? Then baked as rolls?
I'm not really sure, Vanessa, but I don't see why that wouldn't work. If you try it, let us know how they come out, OK?
Do you have to use a cake pan? (poor college student)
You can use any baking pan that seems the appropriate size, Lauren... Probably smaller than a 9x13 if you have one. Glas or metal would be fine. Have fun!
Hi! I LOVE dinner rolls and am excited to to try this recipe, however although I have bread flour I do not have any whole wheat flour on hand. Considering this is such a hefty time commitment I just figured I should check with you first before I tried to sub the wheat flour for regular all purpose flour without fudging up the results! Do you think it would work??
Many thanks!
It would be no problem at all to use all bread flour, Amy. They would turn out just fine. So nice to hear from you and I hope you enjoy the rolls!
Do you think you could hand knead it instead of using a dough hook since my mixer didn't come with one?
And for how long do you think I should knead it for.
Of course, you can knead this by hand, Elle! I'm so sorry I didn't mention that in the recipe. You only need to knead it for about 5 or 6 minutes by hand. Just long enough for it to feel like it's all come together and smooth and soft. Thanks for asking!
I don't have bread flour , can I use all perpose flour ?
Yes, you can definitely use all purpose flour for these, Adnan. The texture might be just a little lighter, but they should be just fine.
Hi there! I just came across this recipe for potential Thanksgiving use...I like your idea of making them beforehand. We had undercooked rolls last year by trying to do them while trying to do pies, turkey, etc...
If I make them the day before, what's the best way to keep them? I see you mention freezing or just storing in a ziplock. If I don't freeze - do I store them all in a ziplock and throw them in the fridge? If I freeze, do I wrap individually in foil and throw in a ziplock?
Thanks so much!
The recipe states that you can put them in a ziploc bag for a couple of days; I would store them like this in the refrigerator, Kat. From experience, I know that these freeze really well, so that's a good option too. No need to individually wrap them for the freezer. You only need to wrap the rolls in foil (but not individually) if you're going to freeze them for longer than a couple of days. Just put them in a ziploc, lay that on a baking sheet so that the rolls are on a flat surface and freeze. After they're frozen, you can remove the baking sheet. Make sure that you bring them to room temp before re-heating them. Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the rolls!
I love America's test kitchen recipes, and am a bread baker. What changes did you do to the recipe to simplify the process. I do know that they can certainly complicate things sometimes, as they do go to the extreme. I am just curious, hope you don't mind, and thanks for this I will be making these for our Xmas dinner
Debbie, in Canada
The main thing I changed, Debbie, is that I didn't feel it was necessary to remove the rolls from the pan part-way through the baking process and place them on a cookie sheet to finish baking. I like the soft edges that are created by keeping them in the cake pan. This seemed like an unnecessary step to me and when you've got a big dinner to tend to, you don't need to be adding more work, time and effort to the process. Enjoy the rolls!
Hi,
I made these exactly as directed and during the last rise, my round balls "melted" into spread out hamburger buns. Is this a problem with the yeast? I was very disappointed as they did not turn out like your beautiful rolls pictured. Any idea what could have gone wrong? Thank you!
I'm so sorry, Amy. The only thing I can think of is that the yeast wasn't quite right. This can happen even if your yeast is well before the expire date. The only other time I've heard of dough going flat like that is when the water is too warm for the rapid rise yeast. Unlike active dry yeast, the rapid rise yeast must have cold or room temperature water. I hope you'll give them another try. I know it's a lot of work and super disappointing only to have them melt down like that. They're well worth the work if they turn out. Keep us posted...
Patrice, did you know you can speed up the rise of the bread by putting the rolls or the bread in the bowl in the dishwasher turned on heat. Put it up on the top rack and let it set. It acts just like a 'proofer' in the large bakeries. They turn out very light and fluffy.
What a great idea, Rena! I'll have to give it a try! Thanks!