Garlic Rolls

Has anyone ever noticed how the holidays never really end? It’s weird. It’s like the holiday calendar starts in October and doesn’t end until July. Let’s count off: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, New Years, Groundhog’s Day and Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, USA’s Independence Day. It’s all so crazy, but I’m not complaining. Those months are filled with amazing and drool-inducing food.

I found these beautiful rolls on Baked Bree. Bree take beautiful pictures of her food and so many of her recipes look delicious. She does a lot of dinner and sides so I knew I would be able to find some kind of bread component for Christmas dinner.

The only thing I was intimidated by was the use of yeast. Before this recipe I have only worked with yeast maybe three times. I am a complete novice when it comes to working with this finicky creature. One thing always worries me when I use yeast and that is “what if it doesn’t rise!?”

These rose as beautifully as bread dough can rise. I was a little scared at first, since it ha hardly grown within the first hour, but then I looked away for just a second and BAM! I was looking at beautifully puffed up dough.

I can’t wait to work with yeast again. There are some yeasted cinnamon roll cookies I have my eye one that I want to make before I go back to college. Hopefully I will get those done.

Oh by the way, I don’t tend to measure out dough that needs rolling out. So the directions say to roll it out about 16x10 inches, but I think my rectangle was a little longer and wider. So do whatever looks good to you.

Garlic Rolls

Ever so slightly adapted from Baked Bree

Makes about 16-18 rolls

Ingredients

Dough

1 package (2 ¼ tsp.) active dry yeast

½ cup warm water

1/3 cup sugar

3-4 cups bread flour, separated

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 tsp. salt

Garlic Butter

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 clove garlic, finely minced

1 ½ - 2 tbsp. rosemary, chopped

Directions

Mix together the yeast and the warm water into the bowl of an electric mixer. Measure out the 1/3 cup sugar and remove 2 tbsp. Place the 2 tbsp. into the bowl with the yeast and water. Whisk ingredients together until the yeast has dissolved. Allow the mixture to sit in the bowl for 2 – 3 minutes.

Measure out 1 cup of flour and stir into the yeast mixture. Attach the paddle attachment to the stand mixer. Add in 2 more cups of flour, the rest of the sugar, melted butter, and salt. Mix on medium speed until the dough starts to come together. Slowly add a little bit of flour until the dough starts to pull apart from the sides of the bowl. For me this was at the 3 ½ cup mark.

Grease a large glass bowl with cooking spray. Pour the dough into the greased bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap. Set the bowl in a warm place and allow the dough to double in size, about 2 hours.

While the dough is rising make the garlic butter and prepare the pans. Beat together the butter, garlic, and rosemary. To prepare the pans line two 9 inch round pans with foil. Lightly grease the foil with cooking spray.

Once the dough has finished rising punch it down a little bit. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 16x10 inch rectangle.  Slather the garlic butter all over the surface of the rectangle. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into 1 inch wide strips (I used a ruler to get straight and even lines). Roll the strips up and up the flat side down into the prepared pans (about 8 per pan). Cover pans with a tea towel let the dough rise for another 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Bake the rolls on the center rack for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden.