Heirloom Rolls

The story goes that great grandma Sherwood, on my grandmother's side was 'known for her rolls'. She was also known for having social anxiety and always wanted to leave the party early, poor lady.
Even though she wasn't a hit at the party her dinner rolls were.
And so were her daughter's, my grandmother, and my mothers were too.

Wasn't it generationally impossible for my rolls to fail?
Why, oh why, over the years have my yeast rolls consistently been crunchy, heavy, and flat? After all I have Dinner Roll Genes!
Thus for many years it's been purchased Rhoades frozen rolls to the rescue.
Until this year, Until Christmas of 2011, Until my slightly older sister surprised her sisters with spiral recipe notebooks of our mother's recipes.

This past year we cleaned out mom's condo and unbeknowst (that's a word, right?) to us my slightly older sister took all the recipes so she could give them to us. My notebook has a photo of my parents on the inside cover and plastic sleeves containing stained clippings or hand written recipes.

When Christmas finally settled down and I had some time to look through this treasured notebook I discovered page 5..

Page 5 looks like this, I could hardly resist squealing over page 5's upper left hand side recipe.

LOOK..

 It says "buns" at the top and

"rolls" on the bottom.

And it's been used, stained, it's been around.

Could this be the generational secret?

Could my slightly older sister have blessed me with the

Heritage Roll recipe?

I was thrilled.  

As soon as I could get to the store for 'Crisco' (I don't keep THAT in the house!).

I tried them.

In Cinnamon Roll form.

And I would love to show you.

Because, I'm geeked,

I'm roll-geeked.

Into a large mixing bowl put very warm water and the yeast, allow it to rise a bit. Then I added the Crisco knowing it would soften in the water.
Add sugar and egg.
I beat this together then added salt and part of the flour, beating it well, finish up with the remaining 1.5 cups of flour.
There are no instructions with this recipe so I turned the dough on the counter to knead a bit, not very long. 
It does say to put in the refrigerator overnight, I didn't, I just wanted to bake them!  

Time to get rolling  

Simply to have a dough do this, to actually look like yeast dough, and rise like I'm an old fashioned Amish homemaker, or the great granddaughter of my

infamous roll making ancestor,

is, was, thrilling.  

It's so pretty.

This is a 20 x 10ish inch rectangle with some brown sugar sprinkled on top. I didn't measure the

brown sugar, cinnamon and butter

just put on a whole lot of each.

yum

Roll it up and slice into 1 inch thick rolls put in greased pans.

If you put enough sugars and butter on this it will ooze out on the edges. This is good!

Let's just look at 'em shall we?

Notice, they're not flat, lifeless lumps, it's a baking miracle!

Drizzle with a simple confectioners sugar glaze of;

Sugar, couple tablespoons of butter, half teaspoon vanilla and water until of pouring consistency.

Beat well and pour on when the rolls are still warm. 

It will drip down into the crevices and under the rolls, mmm.. bless my sister's heart.

mercy

How could I be so geeked and thrilled over a yeast dough recipe?

It's my family, it's my grandmother and her mother.

Plus this worked, they look like real rolls!

They taste good.

That's the truth.

Dinner or cinnamon rolls

2 cups warm water

2 packages yeast, dissolve in the water, let proof for 5 - 10 minutes 

1/4 cup Crisco

1/3 cup sugar, added to the yeast/water mixture after

Add;

2 teaspoons salt

1 egg

Beat well.

Add 3 1/2 cups flour, mix well.

Add 1 1/2 cups flour, mix well.

Knead for just a few minutes, put in a greased bowl.

Place in refrigerator overnight then bring out to rise further in the morning.

Or in warm location to rise for 2 hours.

Make into rolls and allow to rise the second time before baking.

350 degrees for 35 - 40 minutes

No longer the roll flop.. thanks sis!

Sideline.