Aunt Shirley’s Famous Dinner Rolls (and a Bun in the Oven Announcement!)

My Aunt Shirley is basically the baking queen. This is her famous dinner roll recipe! So light, so fluffy, SO much heavenly buttery goodness. Who needs dinner when you’ve got these dinner rolls?? I could eat the whole batch.

We’ve got all KINDS of buns going on today. Not just the yeasty kind…

The baby kind too. ( ^^12 weeks. This was about a month ago.) Here’s the already-waddling oven in which the bun bakes:

(And there’s Charlotte at her dance recital last weekend. Isn’t she so cute??)

Yay! Eric and I are SO excited for baby #3, and don’t even get me started on the kids. Charlotte wants a girl and Truman wants a boy (of course). We find out in a few weeks.

(Any guesses? I’m clueless. I didn’t get the gender-intuition-gene. I thought Charlotte was a boy and Truman was a girl.)

So now you know why I have been almost completely absent the last couple months. I get super sick for my first trimester. Like, the-thought-of-food-makes-me-actually-hurl kind of sick. I basically lived on milk and cereal for months. (I’m not exaggerating. Some days me and the kids would go through an entire half gallon of milk. Baby won’t be hurting for calcium…)

When food makes you sick but your entire job revolves around food, you are kind of forced to take a break, hence the radio silence going on here at The Food Charlatan.

When I drove from Sacramento to Philadelphia, I was still feeling pretty awful. But by the time I got home and left for Seattle, I was mostly better, with just a few setbacks here are there. Now I’m almost completely back to normal, if not fitting into any of my clothes by 19 weeks is normal. Hallelujah!

We are due on November 8. Guess when our multi-family Disneyland trip was scheduled for? November 14. Ooooops. Sorry family. (We managed to reschedule for October. Will they give me a wheelchair at 35 weeks pregnant you think?? Please say yes.)

Who already knew I was pregnant?? Come on, some of you ladies guessed, right?

My cousin Amber brought her mom’s dinner rolls to our Easter get together this year, and I literally ate nothing else. If you think I’m exaggerating, then you have never had morning sickness before. It really is possible to ignore ham, asparagus, jello salad, and all kinds of other amazing food when faced with queasiness and an entire pan of dinner rolls.

I begged for the recipe and now you lucky kids get to try them too! I love them because they have 2 full tablespoons of yeast and are SO fluffy and light. The flavor is just amazing. My Aunt Shirley uses Crisco in her recipe, but if that’s not your thing, I’m sure butter would work too. The shortening makes them SOOO soft though, and I used butter-flavored Crisco, so no flavor sacrifices.

Check out some step by step photos below the recipe. If you make these, I’d love to see them! Tag #TheFoodCharlatan on Instagram!

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Aunt Shirley’s Famous Dinner Rolls (and a Bun in the Oven Announcement!)

Serves Makes 24 rolls     adjust servings

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 2 cups milk
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 cup butter-flavored shortening OR real butter
• 1 egg
• 5-6 cups all purpose flour, spooned and leveled**
• 4 tablespoons melted butter, for brushing

Instructions

1. In a small bowl or coffee mug, microwave the 1/2 cup water for 20-30 seconds, until it is lukewarm but not hot.
2. Add the yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar and stir. Let this mixture sit for 5 minutes. Watch it so it doesn't overflow!*
3. In a glass measuring cup, microwave 2 cups milk for 1-2 minutes until it is warm but not hot.
4. In a large bowl or stand mixer, add 1/3 cup sugar, salt, and shortening, and 2 cups of the flour. Stir together with a wooden spoon.
5. Add the warm milk, yeast mixture, and 1 egg. Mix well and let rest 5 minutes. At this point I started using the dough hook on my mixer.
6. Add 4 cups of flour, one cup at a time, mixing in between. Use your best judgment to continue adding flour until the dough is smooth and pulling away from the sides of the bowl, up to 5 or even 6 cups. Don't add so much that the dough becomes stiff. It should be soft and rather sticky, but still workable. The less flour you use, the more tender your rolls will turn out. See notes.
7. Once all the flour has been incorporated, knead for 5-6 minutes, using your hands or the dough hook.
8. Grease a large bowl well with oil or butter. Scrape all the dough into the bowl, shape it together, then turn it over so that the top is greased.
9. Cover loosely with a tea towel or plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
10. Punch down the dough. Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball (pinch one end with your fingers).
11. Place the rolls in 2 well-greased pans. I used one 9x13 pan and one 2 quart casserole dish.
12. Cover the pans with tea towels and let them rise in a warm spot for another 30-45 minutes, until doubled in size. When they are almost done rising, preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
13. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown all across the top.
14. Remove from the oven and brush with melted butter.
15. Eat hot!

by The Food Charlatan

Recipe Notes

*If your yeast mixture is NOT getting foamy, then abandon ship! You killed your yeast with too hot water probably. Better to start over now than wind up with sad flat rolls in 2 hours.

**My aunt's recipe says to use 4-5 cups of flour, and that's what I had originally published. Dough is finicky, and how much flour you need to add depends on a lot of different factors. But I consistently use at least 5 cups of flour when I make this, and sometimes up to 6 or even 6 and 1/2 cups, so I've changed the recipe to reflect that. You are going to have to use your best judgement here. It should be a very sticky dough, but you do want it to come together. Use the least amount of flour that you can in order to get it to form into a workable dough. 

All images and text © The Food Charlatan

If you make this recipe, share it on Instagram using the hashtag #TheFoodCharlatan so I can see it!

Proof your yeast to make sure you don’t kill it. There is so much yeast in this recipe that you have to move fast before it overflows the bowl!

When the dough has been kneaded, it should still be pretty sticky. You want to be able to work with it, but don’t dry it out with too much flour.

Don’t run errands during your one hour rise, because you will be late and this will happen.

Separate the dough into 24 pieces and shape them by gathering it and pinching with your fingers, then make the pinch the bottom of the roll.

I’m fussy and like to use a scale. Each roll should be about 2 ounces. On the right you can see just how fast these rolls rise. Both of these weigh 2 ounces, but you can kinda see that the one on the right has started to puff a little, even though it had only been a couple minutes.

Here’s the spacing situation when you use a 9×13 inch pan.

This is a 2 quart casserole dish, so the rolls are more squished, but it worked great.

Pull them out of the oven when they are a nice golden brown all over the top!

More stuff you will like!

Imagine eating these rolls with a little pot of this Cinnamon Honey Butter. HEAVEN:

Buttery Sweet Potato Rolls:

Big Fat Crescent Rolls: Bad picture. But these are amazing rolls.

Roll recipes from other bloggers!

The Very Best Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls from Five Heart Home
Heavenly Rolls Recipe from Lil Luna
Fluffy Sweet Rolls from Cooking and Beer