Crowd-pleasing Dinner Rolls

For Thanksgiving one year, my whole family rented a house at the Jersey Shore for a reunion. My job was providing dinner rolls. The nieces’ and nephews’ eyes got round when they saw me mixing flour, water and yeast. I put the sponge on top of the fridge and let it bubble, and then later I fed it. ‘Most people buy dinner rolls,’ my sister said, eyeing me quizzically. ‘Wait till you taste them,’ I said as I trundled off to bed. 

Next morning I made dough in a big salad bowl and, by the time it was risen, had a crowd around me. While the brother-in-laws watched football, the kids and I shaped rolls by the dozen, stuck them in buttered lasagna pans and, once risen again, baked them. The dinner was so busy I hardly remember it. 

What I do recall is the next day’s informal lunch: the older nieces and nephews sitting around the table devouring the final dozen or two of those dinner rolls, hugely grinning from ear to ear. I can think of no better acknowledgement of a job of baking well done! 

Special Warning: these rolls are so good that your family may not eat its dinner.

Crowd-pleasing Dinner Rolls

Makes 5 dozen rolls

For the sponge made the day before:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup water at 100º

1 teaspoon active dry yeast

Before bedtime:

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup water

On the day:

¾ cup milk (I use 2% lactaid)

1½ sticks butter (6 ounces or ¾ cup. Salted is fine.)

¾ cup sugar

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1½ teaspoons active dry yeast

2 eggs

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3 Tablespoons butter for shaping and panning

3 glass lasagna pans (best) or sheet pans

1. At around dinnertime on the evening before you need these rolls, combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup water and a teaspoon of active dry yeast in a quart-sized mixing bowl and whisk together. Cover with plastic and let sit at room temperature until frothy.
2. Before bedtime, add another ½ cup flour and another ½ cup water to the sponge and whisk again. Cover with plastic and let sit in a cool place overnight.
3. Next morning, scald ¾ cup milk in a saucepan (steam but don’t boil), and cut 1½ sticks butter into it when hot. Remove from heat, add the ¾ cup sugar and let cool to nearly room temperature.
4. Put 3 cups flour into the bowl of a mixer (or big bread bowl, if mixing by hand). Add the sponge, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1½ teaspoons of yeast, and the contents of the saucepan. Scrape the saucepan with a spatula to get the sugar off the bottom. Break 2 eggs over the bowl. Using a flat beater, mix at medium low (#3 on a Kitchen Aid stand mixer) for 6-8 minutes, until you have a very smooth batter. By hand this will be 100+ strokes.
5. Switch to the dough hook, add 2 more cups of flour, and mix at speed #2 for 5 minutes.
6. Turn dough onto a lightly floured board or counter and knead for 3 or 4 minutes, and then put into a clean bowl. Let rise in a warm place for 2 ½ hours, until doubled in size.
7. Scrape dough out onto the counter, using a small amount of flour to keep it from sticking, and form it into a long snake, turning the edge in on itself to create a smooth skin. When your snake is about 4’ long, cut it into 5 smaller lengths and roll each length into a snake about 18” long. Let rest for 10 minutes.
8. Using a dough scraper or blunt knife, cut the snakes of dough into 1½” lengths, so that you have about 5 dozen. Turn each of the rolls upside down so that the soft underside is now on top and tuck what had been the top under with your fingers, stretching the soft skin over it in a mound.
9. Butter the bottom and sides of 3 glass lasagna pans or metal sheet pans. Spread some butter onto the palms of your hands. Turn each roll lightly in your buttered hands and set them an inch apart in the pans. Let the shaped rolls rise for 1½ hours, until they are just touching each other.
10. Bake for 25 minutes at 375º or until medium brown on top. Cool on racks. For best flavor, let cool for an hour or more before serving. 

Note: For best results, put a pan of boiling water on a bottom rack of the oven during baking. Also, if using a convection oven, you can bake rolls on two racks at once, but be sure to lower the temperature to 350º after 5 minutes and rotate pans halfway through. Baking times will vary.