Homemade Crescent Rolls

This week has been better on the cooking more, eating out less front - which is a good thing!  However, I haven't made anything terribly interesting.  I made some French bread that I wanted to use for this blog, but it didn't hold it's shape and while it tastes pretty darn good, it's flat and mopey and ugly.  So I'm going to hold off on that recipe until I bake a loaf that looks right!  Right now, I have a very tantalizing carton of strawberries sitting in my fridge that's destine for something sweet towards the end of the week or this weekend - possibly strawberry cake or strawberry cheesecake.

School is trucking along.  I turned in several papers in the past week that were weighing pretty heavily on me.  At this point, I have a 5-7 page paper for Election Law that I'm either going to do on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission or People v. Ohrenstein, which is due at the end of the semester.  I have a 5 page midterm for Organizational Theory that I'll get April 26th and will have a week to work on.  I have a research project for Election Administration that I have to finish up the last leg on and then combine nicely into a notebook to turn in.  And that's it for graduate school.  For school.  Forever (at least until I decide it's time to get my Ph.D. - which will be awhile!).  I'm excited to be so close to done, but there are still several puzzle pieces that need to fall into place for me to graduate and get to this internship.

These crescent rolls were surprisingly easy to make.  Seriously.  You make the dough, roll the dough out like a pizza, use a pizza cutter to cut it into 'slices', and then roll up the slices like you do crescent rolls from a can. As you can see, my crescent rolls are quite fat so I will try to roll them out thinner next time I make this.  While they look and taste very similar to store bought, the texture is very different.  Store bought are flaky while these are soft, like a dinner roll.  But still fantastic with butter and jelly.  These bad boys have a rising time of about an hour, which is pretty good for a yeast bread.  They could easily be made on a week night if you started early enough.

 

(taken with my iPhone)

(taken with my iPhone)

Easy Homemade Crescent Rolls

via Baking Bites

Makes 12 rolls

Ingredients

2 1/4 tsp yeast

1/4 cup water, warm

1/2 cup milk, warm

1 tbsp sugar

2 cups bread flour

1/2 tsp salt

4 tbsp butter, room temperature

Directions

1.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook (or in a bowl with a wooden spoon if you want to give yourself a forearm workout), combine yeast, water, milk and sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes, until foamy. 

2.  Add in bread flour and salt and mix well with a dough hook. Cut the softened butter into three or flour pieces and drop them into the dough, letting the mixer blend them in.

3.  Knead (with a mixer or with a wooden spoon) for about 2 minutes. Cover the bowl and let rise for 45 minutes in a warm place*.

4.  Preheat oven to 400F.  Turn risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Press it out into a circle with your hands, then use a rolling pin to roll it out into an even, 10-inch circle.

Use a pizza cutter or a sharp knife to divide the circle into 12 triangles (just like slicing a pizza).

5.  Starting with the outside edge of one of the triangles, roll the edge towards the center of the “pizza.” Once rolled, curve the roll slightly into a crescent shape and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with all rolls. Cover rolls with a clean dish towel and let rise for 20 minutes.

6.  Melt additional 1 tbsp butter in a small bowl. Brush tops of rolls with butter.

7.  Bake for 14-18 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before serving.

*It's starting to get warm outside so this won't be much of an issue now, but when it's cold in my house I will turn my oven on warm for about 30-60 seconds, turn off the oven, and pop the dough in the oven to rise.