dinner rolls with rosemary and flaked fluer de sel

(Sorry this photo is so crappy, but it's hard to take pics when you are busy and stressed while making food for 30 people!)

I made these rolls for another dinner I worked on with my awesome chef friend, Tom Call. He asked me to come up with some yummy and buttery dinner rolls. I went to my Go-To Baking Mentor (my mom) and asked what she would recommend trying. She suggested this recipe from Sarabeth's Bakery cookbook. I'm so glad she did! It looks like a lot of instruction, but it's pretty simple to put together. Plus, I added the rosemary and fluer de sel to try to make them a little more special. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. For the dinner, we made these more of a "tasting size" in little mini muffin tins instead of making them in the two pans like in the recipe below. If you make them that way, I would suggest using a scale and weighing the dough. Each mini roll weighed about 30 grams.

Dinner Rolls with Rosemary and Flaked Fluer de Sel (adapted from Sarabeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours)

3 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk, divided
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, as needed
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, well softened
4 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary, divided
1-2 tablespoons flaked fluer de sel

Sprinkle yeast over 1/4 cup, 105° to 115°F, milk in a small bowl. Let stand until the yeast softens, about 5 minutes, then stir well to dissolve. Pour into the mixing bowl. Add 3/4 cup cold milk, the sugar, egg, and yolk, whisk to combine.

Attach the bowl to the mixer and fit with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed, adding 2 cups of the flour and the salt. One tablespoon at a time, beat in the butter, letting each addition become absorbed before adding another. Add another cup of the flour and 2 teaspoons of the chopped rosemary to make a soft dough that cleans the sides of the bowl.

Using a silicone spatula, scrape the dough into the center of the bowl. Replace the paddle attachment with the dough hook. Knead on medium-low speed until the dough is supple, about 4 minutes. One tablespoon at a time, add as much of the remaining flour as needed for the dough to become smooth.

Generously butter a medium bowl. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Shape the dough into a ball. Place the ball, smooth side down, in the bowl, and turn right side up to lightly coat the ball in butter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Lightly butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Cut the dough into 18 equal portions (if you have a kitchen scale, each portion will weigh 2 ounces.) To shape into balls, one portion at a time, place the dough on an unfloured work surface. Cup one hand over the dough and move your hand in a tight circular motion, letting your palm gently touch the top of the dough. For each pan, arrange 7 balls inside the perimeter of the pan, with 2 balls in the center, spacing the balls equally apart. There will be space between the balls until they proof. Choose a warm spot in the kitchen for the proofing. Cover with a tea towel. Let stand until the rolls look puffy, about 45 minutes.

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Remove the tea towel and spray rolls with water, sprinkle with the last two teaspoons of fresh rosemary and lightly sprinkle with flaked fluer de sel. Bake unti the rolls are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes. Remove from the pans, then separate the rolls from each other and serve hot.

NOTE: If you need to re-heat the rolls, generously sprinkle them with water and put them in a 350°F oven for about 5-10 minutes. Just keep a razor sharp eye on them so that they don't get too golden and dry out.

christmas food

my family is all about food. as long as i can remember, all of our family traditions have revolved around food or taking roadtrips in our old van to disneyland. even the roadtrips involved food. so this christmas, i thought i'd take some pictures of some food we made and ate. it's amazing i returned back to salt lake in the same size jeans i left in. i can thank a stomach that won't let me eat very much for that, i guess. so i'll start with these cookies that we love. pfeffernusse. we used to call them "pepper-nuts" when we were little cause we couldn't pronounce this little spice cookie the right way.

normally, for christmas eve, we make a big fancy dinner. but this year, since it was just me and my parents, we decided to do a dinner of appetizers for christmas eve and safe the fancyness for christmas day. my mom had some marinated shrimp at an office party, i found some potato latkes on one of my favorite food blogs, and my friend casey told me about this crushed cranberry sauce you pour over cream cheese, so we made those and a few other things for our dinner of appetizers and it was soooo good.




for christmas morning, my mom made this bread pudding that had little bits of cream cheese in it and a caramel sauce over it. yes, i know i'm spoiled. thank you.

and for dinner, i made roasted brussel sprouts, yams with pine nuts, and my dad made pork tenderloin which was garnished with a blueberry chutney my mom made. along with the famous butterhorn rolls and twice baked potatoes. plus a pair salad with goat cheese and a pomegranate dressing. yuuuum.





somehow i was too enraptured with the traditional dessert my mom makes, a pecan turtle tort, to actually take pictures of it. i have no one to blame but myself. but i think i am probably sparing anyone who reads this a major case of mouth-watering jealousy. and you'd probably gain weight just looking at the pictures. it is not a light dessert.

so that was my christmas and it was awesome. i hope everyone had a great one, too!
love,
caroline

ultimate sticky buns

i made these on sunday. i've been wanting to make them since i started researching sticky buns after seeing them on "throwdown with bobby flay" on the food network (the winning recipe is here). however, you need about 4 hours to make them so it's a big commitment. and while they are good and got a lot of compliments, i still feel that the easy recipe is better. which is basically like this. sorry no pictures, but there are plenty on the first recipe link and i'm pretty sure hers looked better than mine. besides, i spent four hours making the rolls, give me a little break, eh?

butterhorn dinner rolls

ok, so these are the rolls my whole family goes crazy for and devours every holiday. this was the first time making them by myself so i had a few tips from my mom and oldest sister and figured i'd try to document the process so it would make it easier for anyone to figure this out in the future. so here goes the step by step tutorial.

1 T. yeast dissolved in 3 T. warm water and 1 t. sugar
1 c. salted (salted really makes a difference) butter
2 eggs, beaten
4 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. warm milk
1 t. salt

cream butter and sugar. add eggs. add alternatively flour (with salt), and milk and lastly, dissolved yeast. dough will be sticky and the consistency of cookie dough. refrigerate overnight. (the dough won't have risen really by morning) but will be pretty hard, so take out about 30 minutes before you want to start working the dough. cut in fourths.


roll out dough in as perfect a circle as you can. about 1/4 t0 1/8" thick. melt 1 stick of salted butter, spread over dough, then cut into wedges like so.

roll into horns from large to small end into horns like shown below. put on buttered (or i use a silpat - which i love) cookie sheet, cover with a dishtowel and raise for three hours. (fills two trays)


after 30 minutes, they look like this. not much more raised but, just a little bit.

bake at 350° for 20 minutes. brush hot rolls with more of the melted butter. serve as soon as possible.


enjoy these delicious. rolls. easy recipe but fairly time consuming and very worth the effort.