Monday, November 17, 2008

The Best Ever 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

It was my turn to make the dinner rolls for our weekly Sunday dinner and I didn't have any white flour. I'm not afraid to use all whole wheat when I'm only feeding my family, but when I want to impress the in-laws, I always like to make sure that the recipes I chose are up to par with the rest of the daughters-in-law. No, I'm not competitive at all. With no white flour, however, what was I going to do? I was going to have to suck it up, bite the bullet and use all whole wheat...



I went to my favorite place to find recipes, allrecipes.com, and found something that sounded good. It had a high user rating (something important to my when I'm searching for recipes), so I thought I'd give it a go.

You cannot believe how amazing these rolls turned out to be!

Here are the ingredients I used:

4 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
3 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, beaten
10 cups whole wheat flour (as finely ground as possible. If you don't have a wheat grinder, try putting your store-bought wheat flour in a blender, a cup at a time, until it is powdery.)

Step 1: I first dissolved the yeast in the warm water and let it sit for about ten minutes. If you're not sure how warm warm is, click HERE.

Step 2: I then added to the yeast mixture the sugar, salt, butter, eggs, and 5 cups of the flour. I stirred this until it was mixed well.

Step 3: Next, I stirred in the remaining flour, one cup at a time, until the dough was soft and pulled away from the bowl. I dumped it out onto my floured counter and kneaded it for ten miinutes. If you're not sure how to knead, here is a video I forced asked the 16-year-old boy to help me make that will show you how.



Step 4: I then put the ball of dough in a large, greased bowl, covered it with a damp towel, and set it in a warm place to rise in until it was doubled in bulk. (For more on how to find the perfect warm place to raise your bread, click HERE.) This could take anywhere from one to two hours.

Step 5: I punched down the dough, kneaded it for one minute to get the air bubbles out, then tore it in half, then tore each of those halves in half until I had 16 balls of dough. Then I tore each of these pieces into three pieces, rolled them up into neat balls, placed them on four cookies sheets (12 on each one), brushed the tops with melted butter, and let them rise, covered with damp towels, until doubled in bulk. (You should have had 48 balls of dough.)

Step 6: At some point in the rising process, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees, then baked them for about 12 minutes. They should be light golden brown.

Here's what mine looked like...


Yeah I know, kind of plain, but it was easy...and delicious! If you would like your rolls to look fancier, like this...


(Photo by www.allrecipes.com)

...just click HERE for instructions at allrecipes.com.

It was hard to believe that these rolls were 100% whole wheat flour. They were light, soft, and looked like this when we tore into them...


These are going to make a perfect addition to our Thanksgiving dinner. Best of luck with this!

I am pleased to list this post at...

-Tip Junkie's "Talk to me Tuesday",
-5 Minutes for Mom's "Tackle It Tuesday",
-Tammy's Recipe's "Kitchen Tip Tuesday",
-Blessed With Grace's "Tempt My Tummy Tuesday",
-Mary's "Tightwad Tuesday",
and -The Lazy Organizer's "Talk About Tuesday".

Check out these blogs! You're going to love 'em!

If you liked this post and would like to join me here on a regular basis via email or other reader, please...
Subscribe
(You'll be helping to pay for at least one of the nine kid's college tuition.)
OR... bookmark or share this post by clicking the little beauty below... Thank you for your visit!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am glad to hear they turned out well. I love baking with whole wheat. They look delicious.

Christine - Tutorial Addict :) said...

I LOVE allrecipe.com! I use them everytime I get to 5:30p and have NO IDEA what's for dinner ;-) Those rolls look GREAT! Thanks for the recipe and the very detailed instructions!

Live.Love.Eat said...

Oh how I wished I did dough! They look great.

Dreamer said...

Yumm, ther is nothing better than the smell of fresh baked bread in your nice and toasty house!

Carla said...

Thanks Jen! Adding this to my 'must make wheat recipe from Jen file' :)

Anonymous said...

Another great recipe! Thanks for sharing. I also use that recipe site. Seeing the roll opened up totally made me crave one.

Susie said...

What a yummy tackle:-)

Hesses Madhouse said...

Oooh. Yum! Thanks! You're the best, Jen! Definitely doing this.

Rhonda said...

Jen you are single-handedly teaching me how to use my wheat storage! Thanks a ton..I love whole wheat and whenever I can use whole wheat breads, pastas, etc.

Have you ever made your own pasta? I'd love step by step to learn that!

Andrea said...

Oh my goodness! I am always looking for 100% whole-wheat recipes that are actually good. These look great! I'm bookmarking this post. Thank you!

BTW, I've tagged you...Here are the details: http://chocolatefingerprints.net/?p=650

Tiffany said...

This looks really simple! Thanks for sharing. We are trying to use more whole wheat products. I have bookmarked this to refer back to!

~gail~mooselovingmamabear said...

I love your blog; so glad that I found it.

I've been baking w/ wheat for many years and love it... LOL I even "sneak" in soft wheat into my Christmas sugar cookies...LOL Your rolls look amazing...

I've added you onto my blog, so as Arnold once said; "I'll be back"...

TFS...

Anonymous said...

Oh these were just lovely! It was all we could do to not eat the whole batch!!!

The kids really enjoyed helping me make this...wonderful post! Thank you!

Daniel Perkins said...

Wow! These really were delicious. Very soft and moist. I started with a half batch and they were gone in minutes! I made another batch right away. Plus I got to try out my new wheat grinder I got for Christmas. My kids loved these! Thanks for posting your results and taking all of the guess work out of it.

Daniel Perkins said...

Wow! These really were delicious. Very soft and moist. I started with a half batch and they were gone in minutes! I made another batch right away. Plus I got to try out my new wheat grinder I got for Christmas. My kids loved these! Thanks for posting your results and taking all of the guess work out of it.

LeAnn said...

I just started grinding my own flour and I was looking for some good recipes. This one came up. I mad it today and they turned out fabulous!!!! Thanks for sharing the recipe.