Easy Dinner Rolls

I guarantee "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" if you set these down on the dinner table

Here’s a great Thanksgiving recipe for you: Easy Dinner Rolls. Hot, soft and buttery. I mean, it’s a side worth looking forward to. Serve them with some top notch quality butter to just really drive it home. The recipe is at the bottom of this email. It’s behind a paywall because it took me a long time and many tries to get this recipe really right. So you could feel confident making these for your big day. Every once in a while I like to take a moment and explain the paywall thing and the reasons behind why I charge for some recipes. If you’d like to become a paid subscriber it is $5/month or $40/year and you’ll get access to ALL past paid recipes and you can cancel at any time.

We all know that timing is everything with the holiday meal. Oven real estate is in high demand and needs to be expertly scheduled. For me, this means many of my meal components need to have the feature of being made ahead. The rolls are no exception. I’ve designed these rolls so that they have a few options you can choose from if you don’t want to make them start to finish in one go:

1. The dough can be made up the point where you place the shaped rolls in the pan and kept in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 12 hours. 3 hours before you plan to bake the rolls, remove from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise at room temperature for about 1-2 hours. *This is my favorite make ahead option.

2. The dough can also be frozen. Make the recipe up to the point when you shape and place the rolls in the pan. At this point you can cover them tightly with plastic wrap and freeze up to 2 months. They can either stay in the baking pan or once frozen they can be popped out of the pan and into a freezer bag. 6 hours before you plan to bake them, remove them from the freezer, place them into the baking pan (if not there already) and cover with a clean dishtowel.  Let them thaw and rise for about 4-5 hours, or until puffed. Bake as directed in the recipe.

3. The finished rolls can be frozen as well. Let the finished rolls come to room temperature, place in freezer bags, then freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then reheat in a 300°F oven for about 10 minutes or until warm.

The bake time on these is 20-25 minutes. So to ensure they are hot when they hit the table, they should be the last of your baked items to enter the oven.

What I’m Loving This Week:

1. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz: It’s the new book I’m reading and I’m so into it. Don’t you love that feeling when your’e reading something so good you cant wait to get in bed at night to find out what happens next?? This is that kind of book. Power through the first 65 pages or so… it gets really good.

2. Piaule: This is not applicable to everyone, everywhere in a geographical sense. But my husband took me away for the weekend. I say “he took me away”, not because we don’t have joint finances. But because he found and booked the place and convinced me to bite the bullet, find childcare and go away for 2 days without our kids. WOW am I happy he did. We went somewhere so beautiful, so peaceful, SO relaxing. If you’re the area and you like good design and doing abso-freaking-lutely nothing but relaxing, this place is for you.

3. Talbot & Arding: Another hyper-local suggestion. But if you do happen to be in Hudson, NY ever this specialty food shop is a must visit. It’s basically my dream business to own. Part specialty food store and part takeaway. Their branding is great, the quality of goods is great and the whole vibe is very “Olivia”.

makes 12 small rolls

• 1 cup whole milk