Homemade Rolls Part 2

How are your rolls doing so far?
If you missed the first installment : go Here
and it will guide you through how to make the dough for your rolls.

This is how we left our rolls in our last installment.

The dough should have risen quite a bit. If your dough looks smaller, then maybe let it sit for a little longer. Your dough can definitely get bigger than this, but not over the sides of the bowl. If you let dough rise too much, it will fall and your rolls will be flat, dense and chewy.

TIP: Remove all your jewelry on your hands before you get them covered with flour and sticky dough.

 Time to roll out your rolls. Make sure to set aside a big area for your adventure. I use my wooden cutting board. Your area should be flat. A tiled area with lines is a bad idea. Cover your area with flour. I simply dump a pile of flour and spread it around with my hands.

I roll my rolling pin in the flour and make sure it is coated with flour too.

Dump part of your dough -- I said PART. That means you can dump maybe a quarter of your dough or a half. Not the whole thing! Trying to deal with the whole batch of dough all at once is really tricky and should be attempted after you have made rolls a few times. Once you have gotten skilled at rolling out your dough, dealing with a larger batch gets easier.

Sprinkle flour on top of your dough. You are trying to coat the entire glob of dough with flour. You can roll your dough around in the flour until it is not as sticky.

Use your floured rolling pin and begin rolling your dough flat. You want your dough to be about 1/4 inch or the thickness of a pencil. It is acceptable to make your dough even a little thicker.

This is the fun part. You get to cut out your rolls. I use a round glass to make circles. You can also use a pizza cutter to make squares, or whatever shape you want. Please note that this will not be the final shape of the rolls. That cute little hand in the photo above is my big boy helping cut out circles. Even kids can do this.

Once you have cut out a circle, you are going to take it in your hands and stretch it slightly. See above. 

Fold the stretched roll in half to create a half circle looking roll. By doubling the roll, you are adding the pocket that will be where you add your butter, honey, jam, or whatever goodness you want later. This also makes your roll thicker and you want that thickness for a good tasting roll. 

Continue cutting out your rolls and add them to a non-greased cookie sheet. After you have cut out all your circles, put all the unwanted weird shaped pieces in a corner of the cookie sheet.

This is my pile of left over pieces. Once you have finished with that piece of dough. Cover your board with flour again and continue with another batch of dough. Repeat until all your dough is on the cookie sheet. One full batch of this recipe should completely fill one cookie sheet.

It is okay if there is some space between the rolls. The rolls need to rise one more time.

Cover your rolls with a clean towel and let them rise. This should take about 40 minutes to 90 minutes.

This is what your rolls should look like after they have risen.

This is a close up of my odd pieces in the corner.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Don't turn your oven on and put your rolls in. This will cook only one side of your rolls and they will taste funny. Give your oven time to heat up. Your rolls can rise for a few more minutes. Make sure your oven rack is either on the top or middle setting. Don't cook your rolls on the bottom rack.

Bake your rolls for 10 minutes and check them. You know how your oven cooks, some hotter or cooler than others. Adjust your time accordingly.

The tops of your rolls should be a  light golden brown color. You don't want

them to get any darker than above or your rolls will be a little crunchy. 

This step is optional. I take a cold stick of margarine, tear off the top of the stick and gently rub the rolls with the margarine. This gives the rolls the nice sheen you see in the picture. It also gives the rolls a lovely taste, but adds tones of calories to each bite. My kids eat the rolls just like this. If you plan on putting butter in the roll anyway, you probably could skip this step.

Now, what are you going to do with all these rolls? Serve them for dinner,

eat them yourself, or share them with a friend? Yum!