Pumpkin Dinner Rolls
November 18th, 2008
Tammy’s Pumpkin Dinner Rolls are very popular amongst Menu Plan Monday participants — I see them linked all over, and I’ve thought about making them many times. There’s just one thing that has stopped me in the past: I was afraid of working with yeast.
Today, I conquered my fear. Success was mine! Except that, aside from being able to say I have now made a yeast bread, I won’t be passing out samples — they didn’t turn out as I’d hoped. That’s my fault, not the recipe’s: I mistakenly bought a large package of straight whole wheat flour rather than the white whole wheat I usually buy. The recipe calls for all-purpose flour anyway; the white whole wheat would have been light enough to get by, but using almost 100% whole wheat flour made the rolls heavy and chewy. (I briefly considered running next door to borrow some AP flour, but what kind of crazy person asks to borrow 10 cups at once?) They are totally edible, and A. was happy to eat them split and spread with butter, but they were definitely not a best effort on my part.
I don’t see myself doing a lot of this type of baking in the future, simply because I generally don’t have big blocks of time when I’m in the house and can tackle each step of a yeast bread on schedule. This morning I got A. on the bus, then ran back to the house and whipped up the dough (combine ingredients, knead by hand which took forever, plop in an oiled bowl, throw in oven that was preheated to 170° and then turned off so the dough could rise) in the 25 minutes before I had to take G. out the door. It rose for an hour while I was out, then I punched it down and divided it into rolls. Once on the baking sheets, the dough had to rise for another 30 minutes. Then preheat the oven and bake them. It’s not hard, you just have to be around to take care of each step. I’m usually not.
I do feel compelled to try these again with the right kind of flour, just so I know I can make them successfully.
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Entry Filed under: Bread & Muffins, Thinking Out Loud
I'm Dara, the chick in the kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two boys, ages 3 and 5, and husband. Trying to feed my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Reach me at .
4 Comments
1. chickinthekitchen.com &ra&hellip | November 18th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
[...] This is my kind of crock pot recipe: dump all the ingredients in the crock pot, turn it on and leave it. That’s it. I served it with Pumpkin Dinner Rolls. [...]
2. Ranee @ Arabian Knits | November 18th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I make a very similar recipe using either pumpkin or sweet potato, and I just dump the ingredients in the bread machine. I do between three and four batches at Thanksgiving, roll the dough into little worms and tie them in a knot before I bake them on a cornmeal sprinkled pan. Then, I brush them with melted butter just as they come out of the oven. Heavenly! They are inhaled every year.
3. Your Dad | November 18th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Those dinner rolls look fantastic.
Any leftovers?
4. chickinthekitchen.com &ra&hellip | November 23rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
[...] the freezer and reheated. I also tried a yeast bread for the first time, with modest results. The Pumpkin Dinner Rolls were just OK, and would have been better if I’d made them with all-purpose flour rather than [...]