I love bread. I love to bake bread and I love to eat freshly baked bread!
I have always liked soft dinner rolls because they are so versatile. You can eat them on their own, dip them into stew, spread butter on warmed dinner rolls... the list is endless. I have even sliced a dinner roll into two (cross-section horizontally) and added a small slice of bak kwa (barbecued pork) in between. Yummy!
Here is a simple recipe that yields a large batch of soft dinner rolls. You can either use a bread maker to make the dough (which is my preference) or you can prepare it using a cake mixer with dough hooks.
INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cups low fat milk (warm)
3 tbsp butter (melted and cooled)
1 egg (beaten)
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp castor sugar
3 cups bread flour
2 1/2 tsp instant yeast
METHOD
1. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Set aside.
2. Place all the ingredients in the bucket of the breadmaker, in the order in which they appear in the ingredient list above.
3. Place the bucket in the breadmaker and select the dough function. Start the cycle.
4. When the cycle has been completed, turn the dough onto a floured board. Using floured hands, knead the dough a few times.
5. Separate the dough into several small balls. The number of balls would depend on the size of your baking tray.
6. Place the balls about 2" apart on the baking tray.
7. Cover the baking tray with a dry cloth and leave for 1 hour or until the dough has increased in size and the balls are touching each other.
8. Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celsius for 20 minutes.
TIP
1. The yeast should not touch the liquid before the dough cycle starts. As such, do make sure that the bread flour has covered all the liquid before you add the yeast last.
2. I place the baking tray in the middle rack of my under-the-stove oven.
