Honey Wheat and Rosemary Rolls

Part II of this years Early Thanksgiving Dinner Episode begins with Big Sis's Rosemary Dinner Rolls, which she borrowed from Pioneer Woman web site, with my twist.  I really didn't want to put my own personal twist to this recipe since it looked simple and looked like it would taste good but I didn't have a choice.  You see for reasons unknown to me we can't find frozen dinner rolls around here.  For that matter we can't even find frozen bread dough around here, go figure.  So what do you suppose I do?  How about make them myself and while we are doing that we might as well do something different.

Since I know little to nothing about baking my first task is to find a recipe I can follow or at least get started with.  My choice was to go the King Arthur Flour web site and see what I could find there.  After a long search through their recipes I finally found one I could use or at least adapt to the ingredients I had on hand.  I decided on King Arthur's Honey Wheat Rolls.  Since I am trying to get more wheat flour in my diet I thought these rolls would be a good place to start, besides honey in anything can't be a bad thing.  I did say adapt because if you look at their recipe it includes instant potatoes and dry milk, a couple of items I don't have on hand and don't intend to have on hand.  So I adapt, overcame and conquered and this is what I came up with....

There is one odd ingredient, at least to me, and that is the orange juice.  Orange juice?  I am just as surprised as you are.  In the comment section fore the recipe in King Arthur's web site someone said the orange juice takes out some of the bitterness of the wheat flour and you won't taste the orange juice in the rolls either.  Hm, since I really don't know I'll take their word for it.

I probably don't need to go through all the motions on the hows and whys of bread making but if you really need to have better directions I suggest you visit the King Arthur web site, a real fine web site for breads, rolls and many other good foods.

I will say I always sift my flour regardless of what I am making.  It helps to get rid of any flour "balls" that seem to show up in bags of flour.

I also use our Kitchen Aid mixer with the bread hook for kneading the dough too.  Once the dough in kneaded I goes in a lightly oiled bowl to take a nap for a couple of hours.  This is the part I like because I get to sit down and watch some football, hard to beat that.  I probably don't have to preach the virtues of cast iron either, you have all heard or read it before.  So if you are wondering how they came out I would have to rate them a 4 out of 5 forks.  For my second time every baking rolls I know I can improve but I think I am on the right track.  I like the wheat flour mixed in with regular white flour, and of course the honey doesn't hurt either.  The rosemary on top adds something a little different which I like because after all rosemary is my second favorite herb (with basil being number 1).

And just in case you can't find those frozen rolls this is an easy, good, alternative to the frozen rolls.

Honey Wheat and Rosemary Rolls

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 packet "highly active" active dry yeast, or 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast, or 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

1 cup lukewarm water

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces

3 tablespoons honey

1-1/2 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1-1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

¼ cup unsalted butter, melted

Sea salt

Directions

:Dissolve yeast with lukewarm water. Let the yeast and water sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.  Combine the dissolved yeast with the all of the ingredients except rosemary, sea salt and melted butter. Mix and knead everything together until you've made a smooth dough.  Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise, at room temperature, until doubled in size about 90 minutes to 2 hours.

While the dough is rising, lightly spray a 10” cast iron skillet with olive oil.

Punch dough down and divide into equal balls, approx. 16.  Place the 8 rolls in the 10” cast iron skillet, spacing them evenly so they won't touch one another.  Cover the pans with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the rolls to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. They'll become very puffy, and will reach out and touch one another. While the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt.  Bake the rolls for 15 minutes, and tent them loosely with aluminum foil. Continue to bake until they're mahogany-brown on top, but lighter colored on the sides, an additional 10 to 13 minutes.