by A.J. Coltrane

I was convinced that these Easy Dinner Rolls (Food.com) were going to fail, all the way until they came out of the oven. So convinced, that I asked Iron Chef Leftovers to pickup backup rolls on the way over. (For another beer tasting, go figure.)

I’ll backtrack a little bit. Here’s the recipe:

Easy Dinner Rolls

By MizzNezz on September 19, 2002

• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 32 mins
• Yield: 24 rolls

About This Recipe

“Even the beginner cook can make these. And they’re true home-made rolls. They must chill 2 hours. Or you can make them up 3 days in advance.”

Ingredients

• 1 cup water ( 110 degrees F)
• 2 packages yeast ( Do not use the quick rising in this recipe)
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 1/4 cups flour

Directions

1. Combine water and yeast in lg bowl; let stand for 5 minutes.
2. With wooden spoon, stir in butter, sugar, eggs and salt.
3. Add flour, 1 cup at a time and beat in as much as you can.
4. (you will probably be able to use all the flour) Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 3 days.
5. Grease a 13×9 baking pan.
6. Turn dough out onto floured surface.
7. Divide into 24 equal pieces.
8. Roll each piece into a smooth round ball.
9. Place in rows in prepared pan.
10. Cover and let rise for 1 hour; until doubled.
11. Heat oven to 375*.
12. Bake until golden brown, about 17 minutes.

That’s really straightforward. Nothing but really basic pantry ingredients, and most of the actual work can happen the day before.

At about dinnertime the day before I needed these, I combined the ingredients using the stand mixer and let it go until combined. That’s different from the recipe, but I can’t imagine how that mattered. The dough went into the refrigerator to rest overnight. I checked on it at 10pm, and the dough was almost bursting out of the bowl. I redistributed the dough and punched it down.

When I got up to go to work I checked on the dough again. Same result, it was still going nuts. So I punched it down again. I also made a point to move it to the coldest part of the fridge in an attempt to slow it down.

I got home from work and removed the dough from the refrigerator so that it could come to room temperature before dividing and shaping. It was straining at the plastic wrap again.

Now, there’s a lot of yeast (two packages is 4-1/2 tsp) in this recipe, and a lot of sugar, but at this point I’m thinking maybe the dough has already used up all of the fuel available.

I divided the dough into balls and placed them into the buttered baking dishes, and waited. And waited. And waited some more. The final rise was supposed to take an hour. At almost two hours I was out of time, so I put the first batch in the oven.

Remarkably, I got this:

Note: I used two baking dishes, a 9×13 and a 9×9. 18 rolls in the 9×13 and 9 rolls in the 9×9. 24 rolls in the 9×13 looked really…. unrealistic.

And they made nice buns for the meatloaf sliders:

So it all worked out, though I really didn’t believe.

If you’ve gotten this far, here’s a bonus animal pic: