Homemade Rolls for Easter Dinner?

The Bread machine does the hard work - making these homemade rolls a cinch for company dinners.

Mix the following ingredients, then put them into the bread maker:

1 1/2 cups of warm water. Not HOT, not cold, but warm
2 packets or 5 teaspoons of yeast
1/2 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup (heaping) of sugar
3 eggs
3 taspoons of salt


Now add 4 1/2 cups of flour, turn the bread maker on, set to the "dough" setting. When the mixture starts to look like a blob, begin adding more flour, one tablespoon at a time. After each addition, test to see if it's still sticky. If it is, add another tablespoon. When it no longer feels sticky, stop adding flour and leave it alone.

Now you can go do something else for 1 1/2 hours while the bread mixer does its work.

When the dough is ready you'll need a large baking pan - like a lasagna pan or flat cake pan. Grease the bottom and sides well.

When the time is up, sprinkle some flour on a cutting board or well-scrubbed section of counter-top, then turn the dough out onto it.

Start kneading - which means you push it down, fold it over, and push it down again several times. If it gets too sticky, sprinkle on a little flour. When the dough starts to feel like it's pushing back, it's ready.

Pull it apart into chunks about halfway between the size of a golf ball and a baseball, smooth out each piece, and put it in the pan. Keep going until the pan is full. You might have to adjust the pieces a little as you go to try to get them all about the same size and make them cover the pan evenly.

Now grease the tops so they can't dry out, cover the whole thing with plastic wrap or a damp dish towel (NOT a heavy one), and set it in a warm (NOT hot) place for between 45 and 90 minutes - or until the dough is twice as big as it was when you put it in the pan. After about a half hour, turn the oven to 350 degrees so it will be hot when you're ready for it.

Now... put the pan in the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes. When it rings, check to see that your rolls are a nice golden brown. If they don't look quite done, give them another 3 minutes.

When your bread dough feels "dead"

Our house has been sadly lacking in homemade bread for the last few weeks - everyone was just too busy dealing with the snow and cold. But today, Carl got out the flour and the bowls and got busy.

The bread had been rising for a while when he decided he needed to get out to the shop, so he asked me to finish it.

It seemed like it was taking too long to rise, which was odd. And then when I turned it out onto the rolling board, it acted like it was dead. I was wondering if the yeast had been old, but decided to just keep working it and see what happened.

At first it felt stiff and didn't even want to blend together - but as I kept kneading, it got softer and more pliable. It took about 10 minutes, but suddenly it came back to life and began acting like bread dough is supposed to act.

I remember an old logger giving me advice way back when I was a newlywed learning how to bake bread. He said "Knead it until when you punch it, it punches back."

I'm not sure today's bread actually punched back, but it did bounce back when I punched it!

The end result: Darned good bread!

Homemade bread, less an ingredient

Yesterday this old "carpenter turned cook" made a batch of homemade bread. In fact, I made two batches, because I forgot to put everything in the first time.

The recipe I'm using calls for cooking oil, and I left it out. I thought I'd mention it, because it wasn't half bad. Anyone trying to cut calories or cut fats might want to consider making that mistake on purpose.

Meanwhile, I'm finally understanding why my wife used to get so annoyed when she'd ask what I wanted for dinner and I'd say "I don't know." It really is hard to cook "I don't know!"

The worst of it is, I can see she's getting even. There's something in that smile when she says it that looks just a little malicious. I think the woman is having fun watching me try to do what she's been doing for the past 40 years. I KNOW she's having fun when she sits down with a book and waits for me to put it on the table.

Do you think she'd like to have her job back? No? I didn't think so either.

Any of you guys (or gals) have some ideas for fast and easy dinners, shoot them over.