As promised, the best rolls ever, and now they can be in your kitchen any time you wish.
Adapted slightly from-
1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 T salt
1 egg, beaten
2 T yeast
2 cups warm water (not hotter than 110°F)
1 T sugar
9-10 cups flour
2 sticks of butter
Take the butter out of the refrigerator. Slice one stick into about 8 little chunks. Leave the other one on the counter (unless your kitchen is blazing hot and will melt the butter if you leave it out for longer than an hour. You just want it nice and soft).
In a microwave-safe bowl, heat milk, 3/4 cup sugar and the stick of butter that has been sliced, for about 2 minutes. There may be some unmelted butter at the end of 2 minutes, but don't fret about it. Put this mixture into the freezer for a few minutes while the yeast proofs.
Put yeast and 1 T sugar in a 2-cup measuring cup. Fill with warm water (what feels comfortably warm to you feels comfortably warm to the yeast and it will be happy) and give it a quick stir. Let it sit for a few minutes while the milk mixture is cooling.
Break out your largest bowl. Tupperware makes a killer-good bread making bowl. It's huge. I hope you have put your muscles on today because we're going to stir these by hand. Or by arm, with a wooden spoon. Anyway, keep the Kitchen Aid in the cupboard. You can do this!
Pour the lukewarm milk mixture into the big bowl and add the salt and the egg and give it a stir, then add the happy yeast mixture. Gradually stir in about 9 cups of flour (put in 2 cups at a time). If it gets too difficult near the end, spread about 1/2 cup of flour on the countertop and knead it in by hand. Now's the time to work out all your aggression and frustrations!
You want to avoid adding too much flour so when the dough is still slightly sticky, spray your big bowl with Pam and put the dough back in the bowl. Cover it with a clean dish towel or Saran Wrap (I have a towel that is used exclusively for covering bread dough).
I turn my oven on for about one minute and then turn it back off again. Don't forget to turn it back off! I actually stand there and watch the digital temperature go from its starting point of 100° and go to 110°F and then I turn it off. I test the rack to make sure it isn't even warm (I don't want to melt my nice Tupperware bowl...again!) and place it in the oven for about 45 minutes or so. When the dough looks like it has doubled in size, remove it from the oven.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Some people say to cover your work space with flour. Resist that urge! Spray it with a little more Pam instead. Dump the dough onto the sprayed countertop and divide the dough into four fairly equal balls. Roll each one into a circle (about 12-15" across). Using 1/4 of that soft stick of butter, spread it over the face of the dough circle. Then pretend you work in a pizza factory and slice it into 12 pieces using a pizza cutter. Roll up each slice of dough into a crescent roll (starting with the crust part of the "pizza" and rolling to the point where you always take your first bite of "pizza"...unless you are very strange and start somewhere else). Make sure that when you put the roll on the pan that the little point is sitting nicely under the rest of the roll or you will have rolls that look more like swans than rolls. Place about 18 rolls on a buttered cookie sheet (you will have about 3 sheets of rolls but don't worry, they WILL get eaten!) and let them rise for about 15-20 minutes on the countertop.
Place one pan of rolls in the oven at a time and bake for 10-15 minutes until they are golden brown. As soon as they come out of the oven, rub a little butter over the top of each roll. Continue baking the rest of your rolls while you enjoy a few from this first batch before anyone else knows you snitched them.
