Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

I love that this recipe uses whole wheat, but still tastes light and tender like a white bread roll. And is there anything better than a dinner roll? Okay, cake, but bread is awesome. Goose and I tease all the time that we could live on bread and water and be perfectly happy. From the time you put the yeast in the water to sit until the rolls come out of the oven is about a two and a half hour process. Not a quick bread, but totally worth it.

You will need:

1 cup less 2T warm water
1 package yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1T butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup plus 2T whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
*****************
2T melted butter




Dissolve yeast in the warm water with a tsp of the sugar. Let stand for 10 minutes or until creamy.



Mix together the rest of the sugar, salt, the 1T of melted butter, egg, and whole wheat flour in your mixer bowl. (Use the dough attachment.) Add the yeast mixture and mix.





Add the white flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. At this point you can turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8 minutes or keep it in the mixer and mix at a medium speed for about 6 minutes. Watch it and periodically pull the dough off of the dough hook.



Form the dough into a ball...



Take the dough out of the bowl, oil the bowl lightly, and then put the dough back into it, turning lightly to coat. Cover with a damp cloth and let it rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.





Punch down the dough, cover, and let it rise until doubled again, about 30 minutes. Punch it down again and divide the dough into 8 large balls. Put the balls onto a lightly greased parchment covered cookie sheet.



Let rise, uncovered, in a warm place for 40 minutes or until doubled.



Bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with the melted 2T of butter.







Oh, man. I have to make these again soon! It is worth turning on the oven in this suffocating heat for these babies. They taste even better than they look, too. Okay, one more picture.



Enjoy!