Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls Recipe - The Baker Chick (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade dinner rolls hard? ›

Too much flour, or not the right kind, could be to blame. Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

If you want a lighter fluffier bread loaf just add 2 Tbsp of dry milk to the flour per loaf of your bread. Vinegar has a very similar effect to the dough as the ascorbic acid. It helps hold the dough together and strengthens the bubbles so they won't pop.

There's something magical about the bread you get at your local bakeries - they're always sooo soft and fluffy. Many of these breads, especially packaged ones, are made with a ton of chemical additives such as calcium propionate, amylase, and chlorine dioxide which help keep them soft, light, and fluffy for days.

Use a good-quality bread flour that has a high protein content, as this will give your dough the structure it needs to rise and become light and fluffy. Make sure to use the right amount of yeast for your dough. Too much yeast will cause the dough to rise too quickly, resulting in a denser texture.

Cast iron can be used on the stove top or directly in the oven. If you don't have a large 11 inch cast iron pan, you can use a glass baking dish sprayed with nonstick spray. A 9×13 size would work well. It's best to have the rolls all touching each other when you arrange them in the pan, and I'll tell you why…

Avoid adding too much extra flour to the dough.

These ingredients slow down gluten development and can make the dough a little sticky. Your instinct might be to add extra flour; however, any extra flour will create a denser, tougher roll instead of the light, fluffy, soft dinner roll we want.

Butter basting: Rolls can be brushed with butter before, during, or after baking. While it doesn't brown the surface as much as egg wash will, it does promote browning and adds a lot of flavor.

But not all homemade bread recipes call for bread flour. When it's an ultra-tender, fluffy bread dough we're after—as in our recipes for no-knead focaccia, challah, and cinnamon rolls—we reach for all-purpose (AP) flour. AP flour can provide adequate structure to delicate bread doughs while keeping them soft and plush.

Is active dry yeast the same as instant yeast? ›

A Quick Primer

Dry yeast comes in two forms: active and instant. "Active" describes any dry yeast that needs to be activated prior to use, while "instant dry yeast" describes any dry yeast that's ready for use the instant you open the package.

The dough rises in about 1-2 hours in a relatively warm environment. Punch down the dough to release the air and shape into rolls. Let the rolls rise for about 1 hour. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

For baking light and fluffy bread, it is necessary to choose flour that has high levels of protein. If you choose to use flour with lower protein levels, you'll be left with the bread being dense.

If your dough feels dense and tough to handle when you stop the mixer, it is a sign that it is becoming over-kneaded. Over-kneaded dough can become very hard to work with and produce a more flat and chewy bread.

Overworking the dough will make it tough and difficult to roll out. - Be sure to let the dough rise in a warm place until it doubles in size. If it doesn't have enough time to rise, the rolls will be dense.