Oatmeal Dinner Rolls

 17 February 2021

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, November 2020

It has been a while since I've had dinner rolls in the freezer. They are convenient to have on hand. For example, if we're having a bowl of soup for dinner it is easy to take out a couple and warm them up to round out the simple supper. There are some recipes for dinner rolls in Bread Illustrated that I still want to try, but when this new recipe was published in the magazine I was motivated. It had some additional appeal because it is a whole-grain recipe with both oats and whole wheat flour.

Making the rolls was straightforward. In the bowl of a stand mixer, old-fashioned rolled oats, butter, and boiling water were stirred together and rested until the butter melted and most of the liquid was absorbed. This technique, tangzhong, helped to keep the bread moist and helped it to stay fresh longer, both at room temperature and when frozen. Bread flour, whole wheat flour, cold water, molasses, yeast, and salt were added. This mixture was stirred using the dough hook to combine the ingredients then kneaded for about 8 minutes. The dough then rose at room temperature until doubled in volume. It was then portioned into 12 pieces (each is 2¼ ounces) which were rolled into balls and placed in a greased round cake pan. Confining the rolls this way caused them to rise up rather than spreading out. After rising until doubled in volume, the rolls were brushed with an egg wash, sprinkled with rolled oats, and baked at 375°. From start to removing the dozen rolls from the oven took a little over 3½ hours.

These are good rolls, worth making again. They are soft, somewhat surprising for whole-grain rolls, but the crumb has a some nice chew to it. There is touch of sweetness from the molasses that pairs well with the earthiness of the whole grains.