Perfect Dinner Rolls (if you’re a leprechaun!)

A traditional clover-leaf roll...except it's green!

A traditional cloverleaf roll…except it’s green!

Are you ready to get some dough under your nails? Green dough, to be exact – since it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll give you my basic recipe for dinner rolls, and then instructions below for making the green clovers. Wow your friends and crank out the shamrocks!

Fair warning, I’m hitting the green wine, starting….NOW! I’ll try to get the recipe ingredients entered before I lose my focus, and the photos snapped while I’m still only seeing one of everything. (Disclaimer: In case you’re wondering about my wine glass, this was a gift from my daughter, who understands my obsession for blue ribbons. She’s not saying I’m a really top-notch whore…just that I will do nearly anything to add to my ribbon collection.)

Sláinte!

Sláinte!

Remember, this is my basic dinner roll recipe. You’ll have to jazz it up with green food color and follow the photos below for making cloverleaf rolls.

Perfect Dinner Rolls
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Serves: 24
This recipe makes 2 dozen soft, fluffy dinner rolls. You can also flatten out balls of dough for delicious hamburger buns!
Ingredients
  • 2¼ cups warm water
  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • ⅓ cup butter, softened
  • ⅓ cup powdered nondairy creamer
  • 1¼ teaspoons salt
  • 6 to 7 cups bread flour
Instructions
  1. In a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast into the warm water and let it sit for 5 minutes.
  2. Add the sugar, butter, creamer, salt, and 5 cups of flour. Beat until smooth. Slowly add just enough remaining flour to form a soft dough that pulls away from the side of the bowl.
  3. Knead on a floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes. (Or, if using a stand mixer, knead with a dough hook for approximately 5 minutes.)
  4. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning once to coat. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled. Punch down.
  5. Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces. Shape into balls (or oblongs if you prefer) and place about an inch apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
  6. Cover and allow the rolls to rise until doubled.
  7. Heat oven to 375 F.
  8. Bake for approximately 12 minutes, or until they are golden brown on top.
  9. Cool on a rack.

Powdered creamer is something I never use in coffee. Ghastly stuff. But I’ve tried this recipe without it, and the rolls just don’t turn out as fluffy. Apparently it acts as a dough conditioner. Bite the bullet and use it – you’ll love these versatile rolls!

First, a FAIL!

As so often happens, the actual results of my first shamrock experiment didn’t exactly match the picture in my imagination. It was late and I’d had my share of green wine, so I went to bed and gave it a fresh try in the morning. Here’s what the first batch looked like – not exactly something that would go viral on Pinterest.

Meh.

Meh.

Plan “B” was to make cloverleaf rolls, using jumbo cupcake pans. They rose beautifully and were a perfect, delicate green; not gopher guts green – a very edible spring green shade. To make these, add green food coloring to the mixture in your bowl before you add the flour. So simple.

Roll dough into balls

Roll dough into balls

Put 3 balls of dough in each cavity.

Spray the pan with a little “Bakers Joy” and put 3 balls of dough in each cavity.

Mmmmm.

Mmmmm.

May the Good Lord take a liking to you… but not too soon!

Lorinda

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