Butterflake Dinner Rolls are a variation of Parker House Rolls. My favorite thing about them – aside from their deliciousness – is that they can be easily pulled apart into bite-sized slices. They’re tender, buttery, and absolutely at their best served warm.  This recipe comes one of my favorite bloggers: David at Spiced. If you like these rolls, I’m sure you’ll like others of the recipes David posts.  Check him out.

What you need to make 12 rolls:

13¾ oz. bread flour (2½ cups)
1 packet active dry yeast
¾ oz. sugar (about 1½ Tbs)
1 tsp salt
6 oz. milk, warm (¾ cup)
1 egg yolk
2 oz. unsalted butter (perhaps softened, 4 Tbs)
1 oz. unsalted butter, melted (2 Tbs)

Summarized Directions (For the full set of directions, see Spiced.)

Mix all ingredients to form a dough. Let rise. Roll to a square foot, slice into one-inch strips, make two stacks, slice each into sixths. Proof in a muffin tin. Bake at 400°F for about 15 min.

Notes:

1. Nuke cold milk for 30 seconds. Give it a stir with your finger. It should feel lukewarm or slightly warm – but definitely not hot. Plop cold butter into it; this will allow the butter to soften by the time you’ve assembled the remaining ingredients.
2. David’s recipe calls for 1¾ tsp yeast. If you buy yeast by the ¼-oz. packet, one packet will work just fine. His recipe doesn’t call for blooming, and that worked just fine, too. A lot of bakers don’t bloom their yeast. In the olden days, God only knew if the yeast was still alive. “Proofing” literally – and I literally mean “literally” literally – offers proof of viable yeast. Modern production offers us yeast that is reliably alive up to its expiration date, at least to the point that many thoroughly modern bakers take it for granted and don’t bother proofing.

3. Once you’ve got your two stacks of six strips, knock them down sideways. They’ll be easier to cut that way (switch to a chef’s knife). Now that you’ve done this, the dough that’s facing you is the top of the roll.
4. It’s always wise to plan twice as much rising time as a recipe recommends, because there are so many variables that can affect the process. Don’t worry if your rise is slower.
5. Be careful placing the rolls into the tin. They’re slippery. You can deal with some slippage, but if things get really screwed up, you’ll lose your patience and wind up shoving them into the tin any which way – which is kind of what I did. Hey, they’re going to be delicious even if they do look a bit crazy. Taking a lot of painstaking care at this point will result in beautiful looking rolls like David’s. Nonetheless, if this does go really horribly, I found that sputtering out a few goddamnits – not too loud, but like you viciously mean it – will make you feel much better. In fact, after three or four goddamnits, I came to the conclusion that these rolls might look really cool if you went completely bonkers and were totally capricious with the pieces.
6. As an alternative to spraying your rolls with baking spray, you can butter the plastic wrap. (“Propellant” as an ingredient in human food … which pro-business Republican front-runner invented that?)
7. When you think you’re about half-way through your final rise, preheat the oven. It will not only better insure a proper temperature in the oven, but it will heat up your kitchen, which will assist the rest of the rise.

David’s recipe is excellent. (5 / 5) Thanks, David!

I’d make Butterflake Dinner Rolls again in a heartbeat. I have to admit, though, that I do really love the Cloverleaf. The Cloverleaf’s butter is all incorporated into the dough, which makes for a rich, tender crumb. And there’s no rolling. Both rolls are fun to pull apart. I don’t know … they’re both wonderful. You pick.

Butterflake Dinner Rolls

Credit for all images Make It Like a Man!

It’s worth noting that crushing up a Viagra – the pill that finally allows The Man to put a price tag on your bff – and adding it to the dough won’t make it rise any faster. It’s insultingly overpriced, but what really bugs me about Viagra are their commercials … for instance, the one where a sexy woman says, more or less, “The only thing I love more than watching football with the guys is a postgame stiffy.” Oh, so that’s what women want. Thanks for clearing that up, Pfizer. And then they so famouly warn you to call a doctor after four hours, which is so unabashedly one-sided. I think after three hours, you should probably call an ambulance for your girlfriend, asshat. What does any of this have to do with rolls? Bread somehow knows when you have company coming over, and sometimes it just loves to fuck with you and rise slower than you’d prefer. So I started threatening the dough with Viagra. But better sense prevailed when it occurred to me to move it over near the oven.

This content was not written in exchange for anything, nor was it solicited – not by The Bread Bakers Guild of America, and not by the National Association of Wheat Growers.  It was certainly not solicited by David at Spiced. I admire his “one dash at a time” perspective on life, but I lack self-control and always wind up living by the heaping cupfuls – which is why I go straight for the 100-mg size Viagra when I want a party-sized erection.

Keep up with us on Bloglovin’