Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Back when I invested in the unsung hero of our kitchen I swore that I would use it to make our sandwich bread every week. Noel smiled and nodded, sure that I would make bread for a couple of weeks then abandon the habit once I discovered it was too much work.

Six months later, I’m happy to report that I’m not only still making our sandwich bread, but I’m actually making all of our bread. And Noel is happy about this! After our recent trip to the happiest place on earth, we were in a pinch, and we had to buy a loaf from our old bakery. After exactly one sandwich on the bread we formerly thought was the best on the planet, Noel and I were both ready to chuck the end of the loaf and go back to homemade. I don’t know if it’s a freshness thing or the recipe, but we’re hooked on homemade bread from the mini zo!

But back to making all of our bread–you’re probably wondering how much bread do two people need? Well, it’s not really two people, it’s really just me. I’m a big salad and a piece of awesome bread for dinner person (to any low carb readers out there who may be gasping, my doctor actually tells me this is good for me because of metabolic issues…woohoo!) so I like to have bread around for when the urge for a greens-based dinner strikes. This used to mean keeping a loaf of crusty bread around. But for the past six months it’s meant dinner rolls, stowed in my freezer and ready for a quick thaw and a few minutes in the convection oven.

There are lots of dinner roll recipes out there, and many of them are very, very tasty. Especially this one for Parker House Rolls that I made for New Years Eve dinner. AMAZINGLY delicious!! But also [not so amazingly] something I wouldn’t want to eat on a regular basis. I try to save most of my white flour for cake after all.

But after six months of tinkering, I’ve worked out the perfect stand in. Still delicious, light and fluffy, but made with whole wheat flour, skim milk and a lot less butter. And as a bonus, I get to use a few of my favorite local ingredients–milk, eggs, and honey.

Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

I use my Mini Zo, which can knead up to 3 cups of flour at a time, to do the heavy lifting for me on this recipe. I just love hitting dough cycle and coming back 2 hours later to discover magic. The instructions below are for making these rolls in a bread machine, but if you want to try these and you don’t have one, check out the link above to the King Arthur website; they have a method for making these by hand.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup 100 percent whole wheat flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup potato starch or flour
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup skim milk
1 egg
2 1/2 teaspoons (one packet) instant yeast

Directions:

Assemble all of the ingredients in the bowl of your bread machine. The Zo calls for all wet ingredients to go in first, then for the dry ingredients to be added, with the yeast added last, in a well in the dry ingredients. Set the machine to the dough or manual cycle.

After the machine has completed it’s cycle, remove the dough and cut it into 16 evenly sized pieces of dough. Roll each piece into a ball. Prepare two 8 inch round pans by spraying them with cooking spray. Place 8 balls in each pan, seven around the outside and one in the middle. Cover the pans loosely, and allow them to rest for one hour, or until the balls are almost doubled in size.

Bake rolls in an oven preheated to 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes. If you’re serving immediately, you can brush the tops of the rolls with butter. Or, if you are planning to freeze the rolls for later, allow them to cool completely, then break them apart. Store in a freezer safe zip top bag. To defrost, microwave for 30 seconds before placing in the toaster oven for a few minutes.

Enjoy a dinner roll so lovely, you won’t even remember it’s whole wheat!

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