Light Wheat Rolls

Happy Black Friday everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with tons of food, friends and everything else that is special about Turkey Day. Also, I hope you didn’t go Black Friday shopping. That is a scary sight and people get trampled and they fight over clothes and appliances. I don‘t think I ever will participate in the event, I‘m too young to die. But If you did go, I hope you got the flat screen TV you’ve been eyeing or whatever it was you wanted to get a good deal on.

So, on to bread. Every year I’m on roll duty for Thanksgiving. Something about making bread rolls is just fun. Last year I made these Honey Muffins as the carb component of the Thanksgiving meal, and they went so fast. This year I went with wheat rolls. On Thanksgiving Eve, I baked them, and then froze them so they would stay fresh for dinner. 

These rolls were very light (as their name describes) and fluffy. Everyone thought they were delicious and my mom even said there was a hint of sweetness to them. I kinda felt the same way, but it wasn't overpowering. I'm starting to think that whole wheat flour adds a touch of sweetness to breads, but maybe that's just me. I do love the color that whole wheat flour gives though, so I might be baking with more whole wheat, you never know.

Light Wheat Rolls
adapted from Katrina on AllRecipes

Ingredients
1 package active dry yeast
¾ cup + 2 tbsp warm water (110° F)
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup + 2 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour
egg wash

Directions

1. In a bowl of an electric mixer, dissolve the year in the warm water. Let stand for about 10 minutes until it becomes creamy.
2. With the hook attachment, mix sugar, salt, melted butter, egg and whole wheat flour into the yeast mixture. Once that has come together, slowly pour in the all purpose flour, ½ cup at a time, until the dough starts to pull away from the bowl.
3. Pour dough out onto a well floured surface and knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. I had some trouble here and had to keep adding more flour, so if the 1 ½ cups is not enough, don’t be afraid to add more flour.
4. Lightly oil a large bowl and place the kneaded dough in the bowl, turn to coat. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set the bowl in a warm place to let the dough rise until it’s doubled, about an hour. Punch the dough down and cover with the damp cloth. Let rise for another 30 minutes or until doubled in volume.
5. Grease 12 muffin cups. Punch down the dough one last time and divide the dough evenly into 12 portions. I found that weighting the dough was best and then divide it’s weight by 12 to get equal amounts of dough. Roll the dough pieces into 7x1 inch strips. Roll the dough up on the short length creating a spiral. Place the spiral dough into the muffin cups and let rise uncovered for about 40 minutes. Once risen, brush a little bit of egg wash (1 beaten egg + 1 tbsp water) on the top.
6. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve warm.