Butterhorn Dinner Roll Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my homemade dinner rolls hard? ›

Too much flour, or not the right kind, could be to blame. Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.

If I am being really precise, I use my kitchen scale to make sure that each piece of dough is about the same size – for an average size dinner roll, I use pieces of dough that weigh about 2 ounces each.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Carbon dioxide is responsible for all the bubbles that make holes in bread, making it lighter and fluffier. Because gas is created as a result of yeast growth, the more the yeast grows, the more gas in the dough and the more light and airy your bread loaf will be.

Too much flour results in a dry, crumbly dough that's unpleasant and difficult to work with. It doesn't stick to itself and tends to fall apart when kneaded.

If you don't have a large 11 inch cast iron pan, you can use a glass baking dish sprayed with nonstick spray. A 9×13 size would work well. It's best to have the rolls all touching each other when you arrange them in the pan, and I'll tell you why…

Arrange the Dough For Baking

Arrange the rolls closer to each other, with enough room for them to expand into each other as they rise and bake. More traditional dinner rolls might be arranged on a baking sheet with lots of space in between so you get little orbs of golden brown goodness that don't touch.

Flat flavor in bread is almost always because of not enough salt. I agree with you that you don't have enough. About 2% of the flour weight. In your recipe with 5 cups of flour (600g) that would be just over 2tsp of table salt (12g).

(Though bread flour can still give you a fluffier, almost cotton-candy-like texture in most buns and rolls.) You could even technically substitute all-purpose flour for bread flour if you add less water, mix the dough more gently and for a shorter period of time, and don't expect the same results.

But not all homemade bread recipes call for bread flour. When it's an ultra-tender, fluffy bread dough we're after—as in our recipes for no-knead focaccia, challah, and cinnamon rolls—we reach for all-purpose (AP) flour. AP flour can provide adequate structure to delicate bread doughs while keeping them soft and plush.

Can you over knead dinner rolls? ›

Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.

Rolls are typically proofed and baked closer together for a softer, “pull apart” result. This makes them great for dipping or eating alongside other food. On the other hand, buns are proofed with space between them, which makes them crustier.

There may be several reasons for a dense, cake like texture in bread. It may indicate the kneading wasn't enough for the gluten to develop properly, or the dough was proved for too short a time or the dough may have been too dry. It is also worth checking the flour you used.

The usual reason why bread becomes too dense is due to using flour with low protein content. When your loaf is spongy and heavy, you might have also put too much flour into it or made the dough in a cooler or too warm setting.

If your dough feels dense and tough to handle when you stop the mixer, it is a sign that it is becoming over-kneaded. Over-kneaded dough can become very hard to work with and produce a more flat and chewy bread.