Anadama Rolls

Friday, 08 June 2007 18:01

I bake these for Thanksgiving and holiday dinners. These rolls and butter seem to to particularly well with turkey. And given the long preparation time, these are best done when one is expecting a long day in the kitchen.

These are not "light and flaky" rolls; these are solid stock.

Don’t expect these rolls to keep for very long; and the butter will go sour within a few hours.

Ingredients

For the dough

1. 2 cups milk
2. 1/2 cup yellow corn meal
3. 1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
4. 1 envelope dry yeast
5. 1 cup whole wheat flour
6. 2 teaspoons salt
7. 2 1/2 cups (approx.) unbleached all purpose flour
8. 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
9. Raisins, dried cranberries, or chopped dates

For use during baking

1. 1/4 cup corn meal
2. 1 egg beaten to blend

For the orange butter (this often makes too much, so you may want to use only half of the amounts shown below.)

1. Two sticks of unsalted butter
2. 2 tablespoons of orange zest

Directions:

Rolls

1. Slowly whisk milk into 1/2 cup of corn meal in sauce pan.
2. Bring to boil over low heat, stir constantly. Keep stiring over very low heat until the mixture thickens into a mush (be careful not to burn the mush onto the bottom of the pan.)
3. Transfer to Large bowl.
4. Stir-in the molasses.
5. Cool to 105°F-115°F (Temperature at which yeast activates – dip finger, touch wrist to see if comfortably warm, then it’s OK.)
6. Stir yeast into mixture and let stand for 5 minutes (mixture should start to foam - this means that small holes will begin to develop - it is subtle, don’t expect bubbles and froth).
7. Add whole wheat flour and salt.
8. Mix in enough of the all purpose flour to form a sticky, but kneadable dough.
9. Kneed on floured surface until soft, elastic, and slightly sticky. Add all purpose flour if very stick. Wait about 10 minutes.
10. Grease large bowl with butter.
11. Add dough, coating it with butter.
12. Cover with towel. Let rise until doubled (about 2 hours).
13. Punch down.
14. Kneed until smooth.
15. Return to bowl.
16. Rise again (2 more hours) until doubled.
17. Sprinkle baking sheet with 1/4 cup of cornmeal.
18. Punch down dough.
19. Add raisins, cranberries, or dates
20. Cut dough into 16 pieces – about 1 1/2" thick x 2" x 2".
21. Form into balls making sure that the berries are on the inside.
22. Place on baking sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart.
23. Cover with towel and let rise (double) about 30 minutes.
24. Brush with beaten egg.
25. Place in center of oven at 375F.
26. Bake until brown and crisp, about 20 minutes.
27. Cool.

Orange butter

1. Blend the soft butter and the orange zest with a fork.