Buttered Rosemary Rolls

What is it with December and baking?!? With X-mas and New Years around the corner there is so much festivity in the air! And here in Gothenburg, Sweden, the whole city seems to have decked up in all colors and lights, getting ready for X-mas - Jul as they say here. The stores are full of offers, a whole range of baked goodies are on the aisles, offers on all baking items, colorful lighting everywhere you see... If it is like this in the beginning of December, how good it will get in another couple of weeks!! I'm just waiting to experience it....

December is also the month of baking! Baking a variety of goodies, eating a lot of variety special food, not bothering about any calories, and just enjoying. After all, it is Christmas, and winter. Winter makes you crave for good food more than ever. 

Champa of Versatile Kitchen, celebrates the month of December as the month of baking with s few fellow bloggers. Last year, they posted a baking recipe everyday of the month!! And I, with a lot of work and commitments then, was left looking at all those goodies and just drooling... and hoping i could do it sometime too! And that 'sometime' came this year!! When she announced a Bake-A-Thon this year too, i was excited and agreed immediately. It is quite relaxed this time, with a post coming up thrice a week as opposed to everyday. So here comes the first post of my Bake-A-Thon - Rosemary Dinner Rolls.

Saw it on the Pioneer Woman and had book marked it. I've started liking Rosemary these days and made these, with a no knead rolls recipe, again from the same place. They turned out awesome and very soft and we just loved it. I felt the sugar was a bit more, and have given the recipe with adjusted measures. Increase it if you like sweet rolls. It is quite an easy one, with not much of kneading required and yields super-soft rolls that you'll love.

Here's it...

Rosemary Dinner Rolls

Preparation time: ~30 min + ~15 min + resting time

Baking Time: ~25 min

Adapted from: Pioneer Woman – Combined this and this

Ingredients:

Milk - 1 cup 

Sugar - 2 Tbsp (The original says 1/4 cup which is fine for a sweet roll, but for a savory roll like this, 2Tbsp should be good enough)

Olive oil - 1/4 cup

Instant yeast - 1 tsp (or 1 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast) 

All Purpose Flour - 2 cups plus 1/4 cup

Baking powder - 1/4 tsp

Baking soda - scant 1/4 tsp 

Salt - 3/4 teaspoon

For the topping: 

Butter - 2 Tbsp

Rosemary - 1-2 tsp

Chili flakes - 1 tsp, alter to suit your taste

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Method:

• Mix milk, sugar and oil in a pan and scald (heat until just before boiling) the mixture.
• Leave to cool for 45mins to an hour. The milk mixture must be lukewarm at the end of this period. In case you leave it for longer, just warm it till its lukewarm.
• When the mixture is lukewarm, add the instant yeast. (if using active dried yeast, leave it for about 5-10 minutes till frothy and then carry on)
• Then add 2 cups of flour to the mixture. Stir with a spatula, the batter will be quite sticky. Cover and let the batter sit for 1 hour or till double.
• After it doubles, mix the 1/4 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add this to the flour mixture in the pan.
• Mix till everything comes together. It was still very sticky, so i added a little more flour to make it easy to handle
• I divided the dough into two parts and froze one part for alter use and refrigerated the other in a large bowl/box allowing space for rising, overnight to make the rolls early in the morning.

To bake the rolls:

• Take the dough out of the fridge, let it sit out for a few minutes till it is easy to handle.
• Meanwhile, line your baking tin with parchment and grease the sides. I used a 9'' round tin to make 7 rolls - with half the dough.
• Divide the dough into 7 portions and shape them into rolls. Arrange them on the prepared tin. If using a rectangular tray, divide them into even numbers, depending on the size of the pan you use.
• Melt the butter for topping and brish the rolls liberally with the melted butter and sprinkle salt, chili flakes and rosemary all over the rolls.
• Cover loosely and let rise for another 45 minutes to an hour.
• Towards the end of the rising period, preheat the oven at 180 deg C or 350 F.
• Bake for 20 -25 minutes until golden brown.
• Brush the rolls with some more melted butter for a softer crust. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then completely on the rack.

Notes:

• Alter the quantities of topping to suit your taste. If you are not a fan of Rosemary, you may use your favorite herb.
• To bake the frozen dough, transfer it to the refrigerator the night before you bake and follow the same procedure.

These are other co-bloggers in Bake-A-Thon... 
Champa, Srivalli Jetti, Priya Suresh, Veena Krishna Kumar and Preeti Deo.

Check them out too for more baked stuff! Enjoy the Holiday Season!