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Jul

8

My Grandma’s Rolls — An Okiechef™ Recipe

Posted By: 'Okie' | 3:03 pm — 7/8/2007 | 1 Comment See comments below:

My Mother's mother's rolls
My Mother’s mother’s yeasty rolls — Mmmmmm, yummy!

One of my fondest memories was going to Oilton for the holidays and gettin’ to eat my Grandma’s bread and especially her yeasty rolls. The dough was the same for both of them as far as I know, but the way the rolls cooked up, not doughy but still super tender in the center, with a soft, brown scrumptious crust — tear em’ open and slather on the butter or margarine and man . . . you couldn’t eat enough of them fast enough. You’d see the uncs and cousins with plates full ‘o food, with 3 or 4 of these bad boys piled on top. I can still taste them in my mind.

Actually, I can just go to the kitchen and taste one for real, ’cause over the past couple of years I finally “got it” — both the taste and the texture of Grandma’s rolls. The journey was long, but not arduous, unless eatin’ you way through batches and batches of homemade rolls and breads is too much for ya. We decided that we could rise to the challenge, although “expand” to the challenge might be more like it. Regardless, if the accolades that keep being heaped on these is any indication, it was worth all the previous agonies of the many defeats.

Now, I wouldn’t be a very nice guy, and sometimes I’m not — huh, Big Al? — if’n I didn’t share the secret of these Okie’s Grandma’s rolls, so here goes.

Okie’s Grandma’s Yeasty Rolls

3 – Cups bleached all-purpose flour (not self-rising)
1 – Cup hot tap water
3/8 – Cup light brown sugar
3 – Tablespoons light olive oil
1 – teaspoon salt
1 – Egg
1 – Package fast-rise yeast

Here’s the crazy part. My wrists are just not up to kneading bread anymore. After years of kneading clay for making pottery and twisting wrenches, sketching with pens and markers and running a mouse and pounding on a keyboard — not to mention making loaves and loaves of bread — they’re Kaput. So, I’ve tried using the Cuisinart, and the Kitchenaid with a dough hook, but both overprocess this dough and give a more dense texture than Grandma’s rolls ever had. I seemed to remember that Mom said that her mother would let them rise only twice, but like I said, I can’t do this by hand anymore.

Enter the magic “bread machine” — a ten/twelve year-old one-pound capacity “The Bread Machine” by Welbilt (no longer being made :-( ). I would assume that any one-pound “vertical” oriented loaf machine would work. Just choose the dough cycle.

To get the best and fastest rise, put the water in first, then the sugar and yeast, then the flour and all the rest, turn it on and go blog or watch Fox News for an hour & a half. Have two 8″ pie pans sprayed with Pam butter flavored spray. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and sprinkle with just a little flour. I take a chefs knife and cut the mass into two parts, then each of those in two again, with all smaller balls spit into threes. That gives you twelve rolls per pan. Just stretch the dough balls over and onto themselves a few times and pinch the ragged edges together at the bottom. I get the center three set up and then the rest get spaced evenly around the edge of the pan.

With the over preheating to 400 degrees, I place the pans onto those back two burners and cover with clean paper towels. Every ten minutes or so I rotate them 180 and sometimes switch the pans from side to side to keep the rise as even as possible (the oven vents more to the right, so that side’s pan rises faster than the other one.) I let them rise a lot, ’til they’re domed nicely and pushin’ up those paper towels pretty good. This takes some practice (like you’ll mind eatin’ the rejects or somethin’) but just about the time I think they’re gonna over-rise, I mist them real good with clean water — helps build a good crust — and then get ‘em in the oven. It sure doesn’t take long before you start smellin’ somethin’ good!

I set the timer for 10 minutes, and check them through the window often. Depending upon outside temps, they’re usually plenty done in ten-to-twelve. Gotta check the bottoms sometimes to make sure they’re all browned an’ all, but since I’ve started using a pair of medium-dark gray silicone coated pans, the bottoms have browned at the same time as the tops. Cool!

When they’re done, de-pan onto a cooling rack or grid and go over the tops with a stick of butter just enough to make ‘em shiny. That also softens the crust and keeps it tender, not crunchy. These are Grandma’s rolls, not the Kaiser’s.

The hardest part is not eating ALL of them at this stage, all fresh out of the oven — all hot an steamy — all ready to tear open, butter up and eat ‘em like a big dog! But, adulthood is chock full o’ self control situations, and this certainly is one o’ those. Channel your inner Atkins, Okie — you can always make more tomorrow . . .

~ ~ ~

The Kitchen @ Okie Manor

By the way, you don’t have to have one of those show kitchens to cook like we do here at Okie Manor. As you can see, it’s more like a small boat’s galley than a kitchen. We just happen to be makin’ Thanksgiving dinner today, in July, but the “reason” for this is another post for another time — Bon Appétit!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 8th, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Cafe Okie, Okie on the Lam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |  Print This Post Print This Post  |  Email This Post Email This Post

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  • Glenn Speck

    Again you tempt the taste buds of an old fat man on a perpetual diet. Homemade yeast bread yummy!