Foolproof 30 minute dinner rolls recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why are my dinner rolls not light and fluffy? ›

Too much flour, or not the right kind, could be to blame. Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.

Preheat oven to 200°F. Then turn the oven off. Boil 2 quarts water and put in a pan on the lowest rack. Put rolls in the oven and let thaw and rise until double in size.

Either, you added too much flour or you possibly used all bread flour. Alternately, not giving your dinner rolls enough time to proof and get puffy before baking could yield dense rolls.

Butter basting: Rolls can be brushed with butter before, during, or after baking. While it doesn't brown the surface as much as egg wash will, it does promote browning and adds a lot of flavor.

Flour isn't going to make the difference. In fact, use a high-protein flour for both, i.e. a “bread” flour. The secret to soft, light rolls, if you're looking for something like a dinner roll, is an enriched dough that contains butter or other dairy, eggs, or both.

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Potato Flakes or Potato Water

Starch helps the dough by trapping the gas from the yeast in the dough and makes the bubbles stronger. This helps the bread to rise and be lighter and fluffier. If you are boiling potatoes, you can use the unsalted water in place of the water in your bread recipe to help out the yeast.

“If the dough has risen too long, it's going to feel fragile and might even collapse as you poke it,” says Maggie. If this is the case, there's a chance you can save your dough by giving it a quick re-shape.

You can also put hot water in a heat-safe dish and place it on the floor of a cold oven (or on a lower shelf). The steam and heat from the water will help the temperature rise just enough that the yeast is active. The steam will also assist in keeping the surface of the dough moist so it will stretch as it rises.

Can you still use dough that didn't rise? ›

If your bread dough doesn't rise, you can still use it and fix it by changing up the temperature or mixing in more yeast. Keep reading for instructions on how to revive your dough and learn the top reasons behind why dough won't rise.

There may be several reasons for a dense, cake like texture in bread. It may indicate the kneading wasn't enough for the gluten to develop properly, or the dough was proved for too short a time or the dough may have been too dry. It is also worth checking the flour you used.

Use a thermometer (I like the Thermapen) to assess the doneness of pan breads, freeform loaves, and soft rolls. A temperature of 190°F at the center will yield bread that's fully baked (soft and moist) but not over-baked (tough and dry).

Brush with melted butter.

Before warming the store-bought rolls in the oven, brush them generously with melted butter. As the rolls warm, they'll soak some of that luscious flavor, making them extra moist and tender.

Rolls that are not light and fluffy can be the result of using too much flour (not measuring the flour correctly, as we mention above), or not using the type of flour your recipe calls for. Another reason for dense tough rolls is overmixing, which will produce too much gluten.

If I am being really precise, I use my kitchen scale to make sure that each piece of dough is about the same size – for an average size dinner roll, I use pieces of dough that weigh about 2 ounces each.

Yeast – Before you start baking, check to make sure that your yeast hasn't expired. If it's not fresh, the rolls won't rise, and they'll be dense and flat instead of soft and fluffy.