Dinner Rolls To Die For

2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 sachet dry yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm (not hot) water
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (margerine can be used)
1 cup warm milk
4 cups flour

The Method

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until well-combined. (No need to use an electric mixer; I just use an egg whisk.) Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
Add the butter, salt, and dissolved yeast to the warm milk. (I find that if I melt the butter and add it to the milk, that warms the milk enough.) then add the milk mixture to the eggs and sugar and combine well.
Finally, add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon, or a large rubber spoon-shaped spatula. Just mix the wet and dry ingredients until they are well combined. Then cover with a dish towel and set aside until around two hours before you want to bake them. Don't put the dough in the frig - it needs a warm place away from drafts. Leave it for six to twelve hours.

A couple hours before you want to bake them, you'll need to set aside a bit of time to shape your rolls and get them ready for the oven. You can shape them any way you like, from plain to fancy. I'll show you some of the ways I do it, for variety. It's all fun and easy!

This is how the dough will look after it's been sitting on your counter for a few hours. All you need to do to it is punch it down and roll it out (I like to use a pastry cloth, but a floured board or counter is fine) and begin shaping!

Once youv've got your dough out onto a floured surface, the fastest and easiest thing to do is simply divide your dough into pieces, about the size of a walnut -- depending on how big you want your rolls to be (a dough cutter is handy here, or a flat-bladed knife will do) -- then roll them between your hands to form a ball. Then, dip them or brush them with a little butter and put into the pans. You can use a round or square cake pan and just line them up next to each other to make pull-apart rolls, or you can put one in each cup of a muffin pan (making the size of the ball accordingly -- remember, they'll rise again . . . are there any Southerners out there?)

But if you want to have a little more fun, and even flakier rolls, you can make smaller balls, dip them in butter, and put three balls into each cup of the muffin pan to make cloverleaf rolls. My own favorite way of doing it is to roll the dough out to maybe a third to half an inch thick, spread it with melted butter, cut it into three or four sections, and stack them. Then cut a strip about an inch to an inch and a half wide (depending on what size muffin cups you are using) and cut them again into squares (as shown below) and stand them on their side in the muffin pan so that the layers are vertical. They fan out as they bake. (and are luscious and buttery to eat!)

The photos below show these steps. You could experiment with other ideas, such as pretzel shapes, or croissant shapes. Just have fun - they'll be yummy whatever shape you give them! I used small-sized muffin pans for the rolls in these pictures, which, incidently, were photographed by Brendan Gray (my 10 year old grandson, and devotee of these rolls)