Buttermilk Yeast Rolls and Cheesy Potatoes for Christmas Eve

It's true that it's New Year's Eve, not Christmas Eve, but we are catching up here. Happy New Years y'all!!

I'm still searching for the perfect dinner roll, but the ones I made for Christmas Eve dinner are mighty close. I used a recipe from Baking with Julia and although the original recipe was for a loaf of bread, with the bread made in a dough machine, I didn't actually change the ingredients, something I'm not known for. Being an experienced baker I knew that I could convert the process to make the dough in my trusty stand mixer and that the dough could then be divided into rolls at shaping time instead of being shaped into a loaf. Julia claims that you can also make the dough into bread sticks....maybe next time! These rolls were the perfect accompaniment to baked ham, potato casserole, steamed broccoli and salad. They were delicious without butter and decadent with.

The rolls were light but sturdy enough that they didn't collapse when you bit into them. They had a slight tang from the buttermilk, but were clearly yeast rolls. The bread lovers in the family enjoyed them immensely. I had never used powdered buttermilk before making these rolls, but I will make use of it now instead of fresh buttermilk, even though the reconstituted powder doesn't have the same creamy texture that fresh does. Usually that will not make a difference since my main use of buttermilk is for things like Irish Soda bread, scones, waffles, biscuits and that sort of baked good. I'm looking forward to seeing how the powder does next time I make the soda bread. I'll let you know.

Buttermilk Rolls
from Baking with Julia but made with a mixer and into rolls, not a bread machine and into a loaf. Instructions are my own.

3 cups (approximately) bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour (I used bread flour)
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons powdered buttermilk
2 1/2 teaspoons (one packet) active dry yeast
1 cup (approximately) room-temperature water
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, salt and buttermilk powder. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a bread hook, place the water, yeast and maple syrup. Let stand 10 minutes. The yeast will 'bloom'. Add the butter and start the mixer on low. Slowly and gradually add the dry ingredient mixture. The dough will form and 'climb' the dough hook. Knead with the stand mixer for 8 - 10 minutes. Turn the dough out into an oiled bowl or rising container, cover loosely, set in a warm place and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1.5 hours.

When dough has risen, turn out onto a lightly floured work surface, flatten with your hands and divide into 11 or 12 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and put into a lightly greased 9-inch cake pan, leaving a little space between the balls so they can expand. Cover lightly with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. toward the end of the rising time.

Bake rolls in the preheated oven, reducing the oven temperature to 375 degrees F when you put the pan in the oven. Bake about 15-20 minutes, or until the rolls are golden to dark brown. Turn the rolls out onto a wire rack, separate and serve at once. Makes 11 - 12 rolls.

The other dish that was new that night was the potato casserole from Julia Child's classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Although I've made the Savoyard potatoes from that book, I had not tried her method for the classic gratin of potatoes. I used very thinly sliced Yukon gold potatoes, which lent the dish a nice golden glow, plus the milk and Swiss cheese that Julia recommends.

I made these a day in advance since the ham was going to take up the oven, which meant that I added additional milk when it was time to reheat the casserole. A key step here is to make sure that the baking dish is not too deep. Mine was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 inches deep. This depth allows for plenty of exposed potatoes across the top of the casserole, allowing the excess water in the milk to evaporate and also allowing the cheese and milk to form a nice crust on top. Quite a few guests had seconds, so I know that this was a hit. It probably would be at your house, too, and it's not hard to make. Who can hate cheese and potatoes?

Gratin Dauphinois
(Scalloped Potatoes with Milk and Cheese) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck

2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes (6-7 cups when sliced), (or other boiling potatoes)
A fireproof baking-serving dish about 10 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep (if recipe is increased, dish must be wider but no deeper) - I used a 9 x 13-inch baking pan, like the kind you use for brownies, and it worked very well
4 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt (I used garlic salt for 1/4 of it instead of the fresh garlic that Julia calls for)
1/8 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground
1 cup (4 oz) grated Swiss cheese (I used diced Swiss)
1 cup boiling milk

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Peel the potatoes and slice them 1/8 inch thick. Place in a basin of cold water. Drain when ready to use.

Smear the inside of your baking dish or pan with 1 tablespoon of the butter. Sprinkle with 1/4 of the salt, and use garlic salt if you can. Drain the potatoes and dry them in a towel. Spread half of them in the bottom of the dish. Divide over them half the remaining salt, and half the pepper, cheese and butter. Arrange the remaining potatoes over the first layer, and season them. Spread on the rest of the cheese and divide the butter over it. Pour on the boiling milk. Set the baking dish over heat and when simmering, set in upper third of preheated oven. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender, milk has been absorbed, and the top in nicely browned. (As the oven is hot, and the dish shallow, the potatoes cook quickly.)

Since I cooked mine in advance (the day before), I brought the cooked potatoes to room temperature, preheated the oven again, poured about 1/2 cup milk over the top of the potatoes, and put the pan in the oven for another 10 minutes. By that time the milk was absorbed, the potatoes sizzling hot and just a little more browned on top.
Serves 6

Pucker Up

One of the delights of the Bread Baking Babes (thank you Tanna and Karen for creating the group!) is that you never know from month to month what sort of bread you will be making.

This month our Kitchen of the Month hostess is delightful Astrid of Paulchens FoodBlog. She chose the perfect recipe for this month and next when family gathers around the table and nice hot dinner rolls are part of the feast. These, called Pocketbook Rolls, look so much like lips that you just want to pucker up and give them a kiss.

I have a sad tale to go with my rolls. Sometimes the posting day falls on the wrong day for the other things going on in my life. Thursdays are busy for me due to a class I take in the evening. I often leave homework for the last minute, too. Yesterday I baked the rolls but I had gotten so caught up in working on classwork that I forgot to preheat the oven as early as I should have, so the rolls were only baked 5 minutes, although I did put the dough in the fridge overnight and allow plenty of time for rising. Here they are rolled, cut, shaped, brushed with butter and ready to rise.

 Using the information on freezing the rolls that Astrid provided, I decided that wasn't a bad thing since half the recipe needed to be frozen and baked the rest of the way for Thanksgiving. I put those in the microwave for safekeeping. The second sheet of rolls I left on top of the microwave with a note to Sweetie that he should bake them for 4 mintues in a preheated 400 degree oven. Sweetie was off playing tennis as he usually does on Thursday afternoons, but I knew he would enjoy some rolls with his dinner.

When I arrived home from class after 9 pm I found out that he had misunderstood the directions and baked both sheets of rolls. I suspect that he didn't preheat the oven and that he baked them far longer than 4 minutes because they were almost flat (which baking them the rest of the way in a cool oven might do) and dark brown on the bottom (which probably meant too long in the oven as it got hotter). They are still tasty rolls, but don't look so great and when they sank the puffy lips went away, too. The results can be seen in the photos on this post. I wish I'd had time to photograph the rolls when they came out of the oven the first time...pale gold, puffy and beautiful!

Do check out the post for the other Bread Baking Babes because I know theirs will be gorgeous!Some may not have posted yet, but keep checking, OK?
If you would like to be a Buddy, bake these and do a post with photo, then e-mail Astrid a link so she can send you a Buddy badge.

Here is what Astrid said:
These rolls are so named because the folded dough resembles small purses or pocketbooks.
In the book it says it is essential that you let rise them at least 2 hours to attain the right feathery texture they are famous for.
They also suggest that these rolls are easily stored in the freezer: if you intend to do so you should bake them no longer than 5 minutes, cool them and then store in an airtight container in the freezer until further use. When you want to serve them bake them in preheated oven at 400°F about 5 minutes or until golden.

Pocketbook Rolls
makes about 2 dozen rolls
recipe adapted from The Glory of Southern Cooking by James Villas

1 packet active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm whole milk
1/4 cup vegetable shortening, room temperature
4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar-
1/2 cup boiling water
1 large egg, beaten
3 cups all purpose flour (I used King Arthur Flour White Whole Wheat flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
8 tablespoons butter, melted
Proof the yeast in the lukewarm milk until bubbly. Should take about 5 minutes, depends on your yeast though.

Meanwhile cream the shortening, butter and the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Gradually beat in the boiling water.
Add the yeast mixture and stir until well blended.

Add   the egg and stir until well blended.

Add  the flour and salt and mix very well. (I used about another 1/2 cup flour).
--- from here you can keep the mixture up to one week in the fridge covered lightly with plastic wrap for further use.

Three hours before ready to use:
Roll out the dough. About 1/2 inch thick.
Cut into rounds with a 2 to 2 1/2 inch biscuit cutter.
Fold each round in half and place on greased baking sheet.
Brush each roll generously with melted butter, cover with a towel.
Let rise in a warm place for about 2 1/2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Bake the rolls until golden brown. Should take about 7-8 minutes (but slightly longer OK if needed to get golden brown).
Serve hot. 

Miss Kitty and the Sweet Potato Rolls

Once upon a time in the Land of St. Honore' Elle had been missing seeing some of her friends. One was Miss Kitty, a delightful, intelligent and funny woman who is a fantastic cook and a huge Giants fan. Now that baseball season was over and Elle was putting work into perspective, she invited Miss Kitty and her hubby over for lunch. Sweetie wanted to plan the main course, so Elle gathered the last tomatoes of the season for the mixed greens salad and then she decided to make some dinner rolls that suited the season.

She started them the night before so that they could retard in the fridge overnight. On the day of the luncheon she carefully divided the dough into 24 pieces and created plump round dough balls which baked up, after rising, into the most beautiful golden rolls! One of the best things was that the house was fragrant with the delicious smell of freshly baked bread when the guests arrived for lunch. There was plenty to eat and even extra rolls to take home.

Plus, Miss Kitty brought dessert...a decadent chocolate hazelnut mousse cake! The sun was shining, good conversation and laughter flew around the table, and we basked in the small luxury of good food shared with good friends. St. Honore' would have been please with both the rolls and the cake...Elle, Sweetie, Miss Kitty and PowerMan were!

Of all the people who read the blog, Miss Kitty is probably the most enthusiastic. Her feedback is always such an encouragement, so Elle decided to create a dinner roll just for Miss Kitty.

The finished rolls were golden in color from the mashed yams, soft, warm, just slightly sour from the sourdough starter and very tender. (Since the photos were taken later, at night, the rolls may look a little more golden than they were, but not by much!)

The starting point for the recipe was the recipe for Sweet-Potato rolls found in The Fannie Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham, but many things were changed to make this special for Miss Kitty.

Garnet yams were used instead of sweet potatoes, a sourdough starter was the base instead of dry yeast (although a little commercial yeast was added), mashed potato flakes added to the tenderness. The dry milk was left out because none was in the pantry, and butter was used instead of shortening...bah on trans fats! Last, but not least, some of the proportions were changed and some white whole wheat flour was used instead of all regular flour.

Do you have someone you'd like to surprise with some fragrant, soft, totally decadent rolls, glowing with autumn gold? Try this recipe and see if they, too, want to take home some extra rolls...always a compliment to the cook! Thanks Miss Kitty! Hope to see you soon.

Sending this along to Susan at Wild Yeast for her weekly Yeastspotting event...a fabulous wonderland of yeasted bread recipes...check it out!

Sourdough Sweet Potato Rolls
Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book by Marion Cunningham
Makes 24 rolls

1 ½ cup sour starter (or a smaller amount of starter that has been fed with a 100% hydration flour-water mixture to equal 1 ½ cups total, and then let sit at room temperature for 2 hours to mature)
½ cup warm water
¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
2 Tablespoons dry mashed potato flakes
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
3 ½ cups flour (I used a mixture of 1 cup King Arthur White Whole Wheat and 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour)
1 egg, slightly beaten
½ cup cooled, cooked, mashed sweet potato (I used Garnet Yam instead)
5 tablespoons butter, softened

Place the starter in a stand mixer bowl.

In a small bowl mix the barely warm water and the active dry yeast to proof for 5 minutes.

In a medium bowl whisk together the mashed potato flakes, sugar, salt and flour(s). Set aside.

Add the proofed yeast to the sourdough starter in the stand mixer bowl and stir with a wooden spoon to blend. Add the egg, sweet potato or yam mash, and butter and stir with a wooden spoon to blend.

Attach the dough hook to the stand mixer and put the mixer bowl in place. With mixer running on low speed, add the dry ingredients to the sourdough mixture, starting with ½ cup at a time and finishing with a Tablespoon at a time until you have a soft dough. Knead with the mixer for 5 minutes.

Turn the dough out into an oiled container big enough for rising the dough. Turn dough over to coat with the oil, then cover lightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight or at least 4 hours.

Remove from the ‘fridge and let sit at room temperature to warm for at least ½ hour, or until dough is no longer cold.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Punch down and shape into a rough square. Using a sharp knife or a bench scraper, cut the dough into four even pieces. Set three of the pieces aside and take the remaining piece and divide into 6 pieces. Using floured hands, shape each piece into a plump ball, pulling the edges under. Place an inch apart in greased cake pans. Repeat with each large piece of dough until you have 24 balls of dough in the pans. Cover each pan with oiled plastic wrap and cover with a tea towel. Let rise an hour or two until doubled in size.

Bake in preheated 400 degree F. oven for about 15 – 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on racks.

BBBs Go Long

No, we're not playing football. We're baking the gorgeous long loaves of Brunkans långa.

Gorel from Grain Doe has given the Bread Baking Babes an excellent challenge this month…from scratch graham flour sourdough. It was pretty painless and produced a bread that is out-of-this-world wonderful! You can really taste the wheat flavor, it is slightly sweet, chewy, has a great crust, open crumb


and makes fantastic toast, but is perfect to eat plain, without any adornments. This recipe makes a LOT of bread…two long loaves.

I enjoyed the first loaves so much that I made a half of the recipe using a sourdough graham starter that is a combination of the regular graham starter and my own starter (see end of recipe). It was SOOO good that I baked the half recipe two more times after that with the combo graham starter. The first time I just made one loaf using the dough as it spilled out of the container after it's night in the fridge, then shaping it lightly so that it was a long loaf...but only one long loaf! Two was way too much bread for Sweetie and I to manage and it is so delicious that we found it hard to not eat it all.

The second time I made two baguette shaped loaves, cutting the single long loaf in half and pulling the edges under.

The third time I made two pans of rolls,

glazed with an egg yolk wash.

Unfortunately I think the yeast I was using was too old, so this batch wasn’t as light as the other three, but still delicious if a bit more leaden than I would have liked.

As you can see I really, really like this bread. It has a wonderful, rich wheaten flavor that is hard to resist. Thank you Gorel!

Before we get into the specifics of this great recipe, I would invite you to visit the other Bread Baking Babes to see how they fared with the long loaves. Links are to the right at the top of this blog.

I also want to remind you that you, dear reader, are invited to help the Babes pick their Anniversary challenge for February 2011! We are hoping that in November you will send in suggestions and requests for a bread that you think we should bake to celebrate another year of great Babe bread. So scour your recipe books, check those magazine piles, print outs and bookmarked blogs to find the perfect bread recipe. Details will be provided in November on where to send them. So many breads....so little time!

Since this has the the bread I've been baking, over and over, for the last few weeks, I'm finally sending this to Susan at Wild Yeast for her weekly Yeastspotting event. This is where you will find a weekly collection of bread baking delight and inspiration. Ohhh...great place to get ideas for the Anniversary challenge. She has an archive of bread links that will amaze and delight! Susan also recently posted a video for the most fascinating way to shape a baguette to make rolls that are hooked together...check out the dragon tail shaping...it's way cool.

My bad, I forgot to mention that you can be a Buddy by making this yummy bread, posting it and sending the URL, etc. to Gorel, our delightful kitchen hostess of the month. DO become a Buddy! You have until September 29th.

A little bit of backstory: Brunkan is a nick name for Brunkebergs bageri (the bakery of Brunkeberg, situated in Stockholm), and ”långa” means ”the long one”. When they bake this bread at the Brunkeberg bakery, it is more than two feet long – hence the name. This bread is from the book ”Bröd” (Bread) that Heléne Johansson published last year and which contains the most popular breads in her line.


Brunkans långa

Graham flour* sourdough:

Day 1, morning:
Mix 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour
with 120 g/120 ml/0,5 cups water.
Cover with cling film and leave at room temp.

Day 1, evening:
Add 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour and
60 g/60 ml/0,25 cups water.
Mix, cover with cling film and leave at room temp.

Day 2, morning:
Add 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour and
60 g/60 ml/0,25 cups water.
Mix. By now, the sourdough should be a little active (bubbly). If not, add a teaspoon of honey, some freshly grated apple or a teaspoon of natural yoghurt. Leave at room temp.

Day 3, morning:
Feed the sourdough with 60g/100 ml/0,42 cups graham flour and
60 g/60 ml/0,25 cups water.
Mix, cover with cling film and put in fridge.

Day 4
By now, the sourdough should be ready to use. If you don’t want to use it right away, you can keep in the fridge if you feed it as above a couple of times/week.

*Graham flour can’t be found everywhere. If you want to recreate an exact substitute, here’s what to do, according to Wikipedia:

Graham flour is not available in all countries. A fully correct substitute for it would be a mix of white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ in the ratio found in whole wheat. Wheat comprises approximately 83% endosperm, 14.5% bran, and 2.5% germ by mass. For sifted all-purpose white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ having densities of 125, 50, and 80 grams/cup, respectively, one cup of graham flour is approximately equivalent to 84 g (~2/3 cup) white flour, 15 g (slightly less than 1/3 cup) wheat bran, and 2.5 g (1.5 teaspoons) wheat germ.


Brunkans långa
The tall loaf of Brunkebergs bageri
2 large loaves

Ingredients
300 g / 600 g/600 ml/2,5 cups water
562 g / 1125 g/2,48 lb high-protein wheat flour (for 1 loaf: 300 g bread flour, 262 g whole wheat flour)
188 g / 375 g/13,2 oz graham sourdough (see above)
6 g / 20 g/0,7 oz fresh yeast
75 g / 150 g/5,3 oz dark muscovado sugar
13 g / 25 g/0,88 oz honey
15 g / 30 g/1 oz sea salt

Day 1
Mix all wet ingredients in a stand mixer bowl. Whisk together all the dry ingredients in another bowl. With the dough hook attached, add the dry ingredients to the wet, keeping the mixer on a low setting. Work the dough in a stand mixer for 10 minutes. Put the dough in a oiled, plastic box and put the lid on. Leave the dough for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes: fold one side of the dough against the centre of the dough, then fold the other end inwards, finally turn the whole dough so that the bottom side is facing down. Put the plastic box with the dough in the fridge and let it rise over night.

Day 2
Set the oven temp to 250 C/480 F. Leave the baking stone in if you use one.

Pour out the dough on a floured table top and divide it lengthwise with a sharp knife. Put the dough halves on a sheet covered with parchment paper and place another parchment paper or a towel on top. I dusted them with some flour at this point.

When the oven is ready, put in the sheet or shove the parchment paper with the loaves onto the baking stone. Put a small tin with 3-4 ice cubes at the bottom of the oven. (The water releases slowly which is supposed to be better.) Lower the oven temperature to 175 C/350 F immediately after you have put in the loaves.

After 20 minutes, open the oven door and let out excess steam.

Bake for 35 minutes or until the loaves have reached an inner temp of 98 C/208 F.
Let cool on wire.


Second time: Used 1 cup plain flour sourdough starter and added the graham flour/water mixture to it. Each successive day was done just like the recipe. When I made the loaf, I measured out the starter by weight for the first thing into the bowl. There is still a lot of the starter left because I had to feed it twice more than called for…until I had time to bake again. I’ll happily make more of this delicious, versatile bread using the rest of the starter.

Note: the first ingredients listed (not in bold) are the ones I used for the sourdough graham starter (above) which I used for making one loaf. After the dough had risen overnight in a round container with lid I poured it out onto a large, floured board, gathered the ends under to shape it into a long loaf, put the loaf on a baking sheet lined with a silicon mat, sprinkled with a bit of flour, covered it with a tea towel and continued with the recipe as written. It was just as good as the first, but not any better.

Birthday Treat

I know that it's March and the big round number birthday was in February, but it's taken me a few days to process the photos from my birthday treat.

You're probably thinking that the treat was food related...after all this IS a food blog...but no, it was house and garden related and photo opportunity related and SPRING related.

Since the weather around here has been rainy for over a month, spring is late in showing up, but we had ONE lovely, springlike, blue sky day last week and it was, miraculously, on the day of the treat.

Sweetie, our daughter and I traveled a while and arrived at Filoli, a National Historic Trust property south of San Francisco, and directly south of the beautiful Crystal Springs Reservoir.

We were there for the first day of the season and for the Daffodil Days event. We had signed up for the Photography and Painting in the Garden segment, plus the house and garden tour, so had lots of opportunities for beautiful photos.

The first photo at the top of the post is from the gardens and this one is from one of the grand rooms in the house. Both are for Ruby Tuesday. You can see what it is all about over at Work of the Poet. Plenty of red in that flower. There is less on the figure, but that rich Chinese red is especially lovely.

Today's header is also from a photo taken of the meadow of daffodils at Filoli. If the weather had been warmer in the preceding days, there would likely have been more flower in the meadow, but it was still quite beautiful.

If you ever get the opportunity to visit this property, make the time if you love formal gardens, garden rooms, Georgian architecture, or a safe in the butler's pantry to store all the silverware. That safe is almost as big as my whole kitchen. Sigh. Imagine having that much money. Thankfully they got their tax write off and the public got a wonderful place to visit.

Just so you won't think that food has taken a vacation, too, here is a recipe for some Rosemary Knot Rolls that I made for dinner last night. They went very well with our pasta and turkey meatballs and salad.

Rosemary Knot Rolls

Makes 8 - 10 rolls

1 cup sourdough starter at room temperature

3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon olive oil (plus about the same to glaze the rolls before baking)

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups spelt or whole wheat flour

1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons finely minced fresh rosemary (about 2 stalks)

1 tablespoon sea salt

Put the sourdough starter in the bowl of a stand mixer. With a wooden spoon, mix in the buttermilk, olive oil, egg, and 1/2 cup each of the spelt and all-purpose flours. Attach the bowl to the mixer and attach the dough hook. On one or two, mix in the remaining flour, salt , and rosemary. Knead with the dough hook until the dough is fairly smooth and elastic, and cleans the sides of the bowl. Turn out onto a lightly floured smooth surface and knead another few minutes to fully incorporate the rosemary.

Cut the dough into eight or ten pieces. Roll each piece into a snake shape, then tie in a knot by crossing the length over itself about half way and tucking one of the ends through the hole. Lay the rolls on parchment or silicon mat lined baking sheet. Cover with a tea cloth and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Oil the tops of the rolls lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with the sea salt.

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until rolls are slightly browned. Serve warm.

If these resemble a recipe from anywhere else, my subconscious must have retained it because I really didn't consult any recipe while making these.

Oats Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls

If this posts gets a nursery rhyme stuck in your head, that’s OK if that motivates you to bake these rolls. Of course if you forget to add the oats, like I did, it is a more pedestrian Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls.

There is nothing like fresh, warm from the oven dinner rolls at a potluck, especially when you know that the hostess is providing slices of ham and roast turkey. It may not seem as seasonal as candy cane cookies or fudge, but pot lucks are so typical of entertaining during the busy holiday season…the work is shared and we get to make something wonderful to bring. I'm submitting this as an entry for Bread Baking Day # 15, hosted by Annarasa, with the theme of celebrations.

This recipe is based on one of Marion Cunningham’s from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book. In case you have not read this book, it is a wonderful compendium of basic baking recipes, plus riffs on those. I especially like the front and back endpapers which have measurement equivalents, a basic pie dough formula, how to make a piece of parchment into a piping bag, how to soften gelatin and other tips.

Twenty-four to thirty soft, crusty, warm, yeasty dinner rolls are hard to beat. I made mine as pull-apart pan rolls, leaving about 2/3 of them plain on top and adding seeds to the rest. I replaced some of the all-purpose flour with barley flour and whole wheat flour and used my whole wheat starter.

NOTE: To use regular yeast instead of starter, when I add the starter to the other ingredients, leave that out and sprinkle 1 package dry yeast on top of the ingredients, stir, and let stand to dissolve.

A bonus is that your house smells yeasty and wonderful for hours. These would also be great for Christmas dinner, with roast beef or turkey or goose.

Whole Wheat and Barley Rolls
1 ¼ cups milk, warmed
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or ¼ cup0 butter, softened (plus another 2 tablespoons if making pan rolls)
1 cup whole wheat starter – if using dry yeast, see Note above
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup barley flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/13 – 3 cups all-purpose flour

Stir the warm milk, sugar, salt, and butter together in large mixing bowl. Make sure that the liquid is no warmer than 115 degrees F dry yeast, ten degrees less for cake yeast and starter.

Stir in the starter, then beat in the barley flour, whole wheat flour and ½ cup all-purpose flour.

Switch to the dough hook if you are using one. Beat in the rest of the flour on low speed. Continue to knead with the mixer 5-6 minutes or turn out onto a flour surface and knead for 6 – 8 minutes, until smooth and elastic.

Put into a large, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap,a nd let rise until dougle in buld, Punch down and form into rolls.

Pan pull-apart rolls: Melt 2 – 3 tablespoons butter in a shallow dish in the microwave, making sure to cover the dish with waxed paper to keep spatters down.

Take the dough ball and divide it in half. Roll each half into a roughly 12 inch rope. Cut each rope into one inch pieces.

Roll each piece between the palms of your hands into a ball. Continue until all balls are made. Dip each ball in butter, coating all sides, then place in an 8 or 9 inch cake pan, leaving a little room between balls. If desired, sprinkle with seeds.

Cover loosely and let rise until double in bulk.

Bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven for about 15 minutes, or until the tops are a ddp golden brown. Remove from the oven, ease the rolls out of the pan and onto a rack to cool for a moment. Serve while warm with butter.