Honey Wheat Rolls

I wanted to keep working on my yeast breads, so this weekend I opted to make Honey Wheat Rolls using a recipe from King Arthur flour (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/honey-wheat-rolls-recipe). As usual, the recipe was easy to follow.

I added almost all my ingredients to the bowl of my stand mixer and got to the potato flakes, which I had a box of in the pantry. It turns out, I only had about 1/4 cup of potato flakes. Since I already added everything else to the bowl and didn't feel like going to the store, I just went with what I had. I added a bunch more flour to make the dough into a nice soft ball and transferred the dough to a greased glass bowl and covered for the first rise.

I got caught up in errands and other things, so the first rise was for about 5 hours, much longer than the suggested time. I divided the dough into 16 pieces (I am loving my kitchen scale...it came to the rescue again!) and placed them into the 9x13 pan for the second rise. I intended to let it rise for the suggested 1.5 to 2 hours, but right as I was about to turn on the oven, my dogs were whining for their afternoon walks. So again, the rise went longer than it should have, about 3 hours before baking. By this point, the rolls had grown to completely fill the pan. I knew the rolls would all run together when I baked them, but that didn't matter to me.

I followed the baking instructions, but my rolls never turned a mahogany brown. I baked them a little extra without the foil at the end, but the color wasn't turning, so I pulled them out of the oven anyway to prevent over browning on the bottom.

The end roll was quite tasty, despite not being as pretty as they could be. They are a bit sweet, but I like it that way. In the end, the extra rise time and the lack of sufficient potato flakes did not seem to be a bit deal. I am sure they would have turned out even better if I had followed the directions a bit more closely, but to be honest, I like the rolls good enough as they are.