Whole wheat dinner rolls

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I have started to formulate a menu in my head. Since I have my baking textbook now, I want to make my own dinner rolls and decided to try out a recipe this weekend.

I took a recipe for white sandwich bread and followed the suggestion to include white whole wheat. This was done by substituting 3/4 of the flour with white whole wheat and using bread flour for the remainder. In my recent experience, white whole wheat has had a good flavor and hasn't had as strong a flavor as traditional whole wheat. So I was thinking I could get away with a whole wheat roll that didn't taste too strong.

I combined the ingredients and kneaded the dough in my stand mixer and let it rise. I had to let the dough ferment for several hours since my house was only about 65 degrees. Once it had finally doubled, I portioned the dough into 1 ounce pieces and rolled them into balls. I placed three into each cooking spray- coated muffin well for cloverleaf rolls. I didn't have the correct amount for all the rolls, so I ended up making two that only contained two pieces of dough. I wanted to try the cloverleaf set up for something a little fancy looking without too much extra effort.

I let the dough proof and used an egg wash consisting of an egg yolk and milk, which is supposed to make for a softer crust. A harder crust can be made using a whole egg and water. I baked the rolls until they were a beautiful golden brown. After removing from the oven, I added some butter to the tops to make sure the crusts really were soft. Are you seeing a pattern here? My husband can't stand very crunchy crust, so I do what I can to make sure it stays soft so the bread will actually get eaten!

The rolls looked perfect, but did they taste good? Now that is the important part. The crumb was fine and consistent, no tunneling or other sign of incorrectly mixed bread. The whole wheat taste did come through a bit more than I expected and I do not think it is what I am looking for for Thanksgiving dinner.

Also, the three one ounce balls of dough per roll made for very large rolls. I think I will go for three 1/2 ounce balls instead. I think I will test out another recipe before Thanksgiving. My book also has ones for soft dinner rolls and milk bread, which sounds lovely. Hopefully I will have time to test out at least one of those before Thanksgiving, otherwise I may just fly blind and hope that it works out!!!!