in which there are thanksgiving rolls

Today's project was making some sort of bread product to supplement the corn muffins at thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws tomorrow. I decided I'd make some homemade dinner rolls.

For about a year now, I've been thinking it would be a good thing if I made all the bread we eat at home. At first, I really wanted it to be an entirely from scratch endeavor, so I got myself some wheat flour, a wide-mouth jar and a recipe for sourdough starter.

(I would like to take a moment here to point out my incredible restraint in not buying wheat berries and an auxiliary coffee grinder.)

Long story short, I gave that up after several VERY dense loaves and more than one smelly rescue of the little yeasties from the encroaching mold. I think what finally did me in was the day I opened it and a cloud of fruit flies swarmed my face. Skip forward several months to the produce store and a commercial-sized bag of instant yeast for the low-low price of $2.49. I figured if I only had to use the yeast rather than grow and maintain it, then I really would bake all our bread.

And I did.

For at least one whole month.

Anyway, it's been awhile and I've never tried dinner rolls specifically, so I was anxious to see how they turned out.



Here she is, all kneaded and pretty and ready for the first rising. I like to put the dough in the oven with just the pilot light on for at least the first rising. I don't know that it's any more conducive to the little yeasties than the kitchen table over the radiator, but it makes me feel good.




Here's the dough, doubled after the first rise and ready to be punched down and formed into rolls. What fascinated me most about the articles I read when I was trying to make bread from a starter was that when (if) the starter got going the way it was supposed to and you never got rid of any of it, the resulting blob would fill an olympic-sized swimming pool in something like three days.




And here are the rolls after the second rise. I egg-washed both pans and sprinkled one with sesame seeds (left over from when I was going to make granola bars for breakfast every week) and poppy seeds (left over from when I was going to make muffins for breakfast every week).




And here's the finished product! The last time I checked the rolls before I took them out of the oven, there were some faint popping noises coming from the pans. It was the sesame seeds. At least that's what I'm going with.

Anyway, they seem to have turned out just fine, although the pan with the seeds didn't brown nearly as nicely as the plain pan. I guess we'll find out tomorrow how they taste.

poka!