Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was in charge of bringing rolls for dinner. Volunteered to make the rolls is more like it. I wanted to try and make them from scratch, something I had never tried before! I was excited to try. I searched and searched online until I found the neatest idea. Thankful Rolls. Before trying a recipe such as this, allow plenty of time for yourself. Dealing with yeast is very time consuming, but if made correctly, these turn out fabulous!
Before I started making the dough for these, I hand wrote out a bunch of thankful sayings that will go inside the rolls. Some of the sayings I came up with were:
I made enough for everyone to have one of these rolls, and the rest were normal rolls with nothing inside. I folded each piece of paper and wrapped them in foil that was the size of the papers.
Above are the ingredients you will need for these rolls. I used all 5 1/2 cups of the flour, mainly for rolling out the dough and from getting my hands sticky.
Side note : these were made without a big Kitchen Aid mixer, and without a rolling pin. I can't believe after everything we registered for the wedding, we forgot to put a rolling pin down! I used a wine bottle like I have before, worked fine. Just dab a little flour on it, then wipe it off afterwards and it's still good to go!
Instructions:
- In a large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the water and the milk powder and stir so the milk dissolves. Since I do not own a large electric mixer, I used a large mixing bowl and my little hand held mixer. Worked just fine for me. Not as easy probably, but it works if you have patience.
- Add the yeast to this mixture while the water and milk is still warm. After I added the yeast, I let it sit in the bowl for a few minutes to let it react, maybe 5 minutes or so? Then add the sugar, butter, egg and 2 cups of the flour. Mix on low speed of mixer until ingredients are wet, then turn to medium speed and mix for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and add 2 more cups of flour (now 4 cups of flour total added so far) then mix on low speed until the ingredients are wet, then turn mixer on medium speed and mix for 2 minutes. The dough will be getting stiff by now and you may need to remove the bowl from the mixer and mix in the remaining flour by hand. (mine was getting stiff but I kept it in the bowl, just mixed it on low/medium off and on)
- Add approximately 1/2 - 1 cup of flour and mix again. (this can be done by hand or mixer, I used the mixer). The dough should be soft, not overly sticky, and not stiff. (it is not necessary to use the entire 5 1/2 cups of flour, however I did!) Scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl. and pour approximately 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil all around the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough over in the bowl a few times so it is covered with the oil. (this helps prevent the dough from drying out.) Cover the bowl with a kitchen towl or plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until double in size.
- Sprinkle a cutting board or counter with flour and put the dough on the flour. You want to put enough flour on the dough so that it is workable and not sticky.
- You can roll these into crescent rolls or do it the traditional Lion House Roll way. (If you google Lion House rolls, you'll find a video of one of the workers rolling the dough.) Roll into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick.
- You want to cut the large rectangle into smaller rectangles that are a little bit smaller than a dollar bill, like 2"x4". If you make the "L" with your thumb and pointer finger (like she does in the video) that will show you how wide and tall to cut your rectangles. Then brush with melted butter. I took one stick of Blue Bonnet butter, melted it, and brushed it on the dough.
- Then you roll the squares (or flip them like in the video). Warning : you might need a face mask because the butter and flour fly everywhere if you choose to do the flipping version! To put the note inside, just place the little piece of foil with the note already folded inside the foil, in the middle of the dough, and manually roll with your hands. Then place them on a greased baking pan with the end of the roll resting on the pan. Cover again with a kitchen towl so they don't dry out as they rise. Let the rolls rise in a warm place, while on the baking pan, until double in size. (approximately 1 - 1 1/2 hours).
- Bake in a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until they are browned to your satisfaction. Brush with melted butter while hot. Yields 2 to 2 1/2 dozen rolls. While these babies are baking in the oven, your whole kitchen will smell wonderful!
After the rolls cooled, I covered them with foil still sitting on the baking pans, took them to my parents house, and when they were ready to be served, stuck them in the oven for a few to get warm. They are fabulous!
As you can see in the above photos, once you break open the rolls, the little piece of foil is right there in the middle. Unwrap the foil and the little thankful note is there to read. At Thanksgiving dinner, we read these all out loud (if you wanted to), and say what you are thankful for. Everyone loved the idea and how they tasted! I was pretty darn proud of myself for making rolls from scratch. They didn't taste too doughy, everything was perfect.
You could also do these for any type of family get together, or holiday party. Just come up with your own sayings to write down, and have fun with it!
