Dinner Milk Rolls

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup lukewarm water
 1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk 
4 cups all purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast (1/4 oz)
1 teaspoon regular salt
3 tablespoons butter
Egg white or cold milk for glaze
Poppy, sesame or sunflower seeds (or coarse sea salt) to garnish


Preparation:

  • In a small bowl, combine sugar, water and yeast. Stir to dissolve and set aside on warm place until bubbly (for about 10 to 12 minutes).
  • In a large bowl sift the flour and regular salt. With the pastry blender rub in the butter. Add yeast mixture and warm milk, adding it cautiously (in case you don't need it all). Make a soft manageable dough.
  • Knead dough for at least four minutes by hand ot two minutes with mixer or food processor. Shape dough into a ball, place in a well-oiled large bowl,  cover with oiled plastic wrap and warm cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 40-50 minutes).
  • When ready punch down and transfer to the lightly floured work surface and knead again. Divide into 2 equal portions. Working with one portion at the time, roll each one into rounds or make other shapes.
  • Place on a greased baking sheet, glaze the tops with egg white or cold milk, sprinkle with seeds or sea salt, cover with cloth and let rise again for about 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350º F.
  • Bake rolls until golden brown for about 15 to 20 minutes or until baked.
  • Serve warm or cool on wire rack.

Makes 25 to 30 rolls.



Real Cooking
Did You Know?
It is not known when yeast was first used to bake bread. The first records that show this use came from Ancient Egypt.

Researchers speculate that a mixture of flour meal and water was left longer than usual on a warm day and the yeasts that occur in natural contaminants of the flour caused it to ferment before baking. The resulting bread would have been lighter and more tasty than the previous flat, hard flatbreads. It is generally assumed that the earliest forms of leavening were likely very similar to modern sourdough; the leavening action of yeast would have been discovered from its action on flatbread doughs, and would either have been cultivated separately or transferred from batch to batch by means of previously mixed ("old") dough. Alternately, the development of leavened bread seems to have developed in close proximity to the development of beer brewing, and barm from the beer fermentation process can also be used in bread making.