Alabama Orange Rolls

When you want a delicious, ooey gooey sweet roll for breakfast, the first type of roll you probably think of is the classic cinnamon roll. And while cinnamon rolls are definitely amazing, might I suggest you try something a little different and go with these orange rolls instead? They're still ooey and gooey and sweet, but also offer a little extra tang and don't veer into the too sweet territory.

Now, like any yeasted dough, you're gonna have to plan ahead for when you want to eat these. These aren't a roll you can just bust out in a half hour, there are multiple rises and waiting for them to cool before glazing... all of that good stuff. If you want to start making them in the morning, they're more of a brunch situation than breakfast, if we're being honest with ourselves.

The original recipe for these rolls calls for using a dark 9-inch cake pan, and you can see I most certainly did not do that here. A dark pan will cook them faster than a light pan, and will also give you crisper edges. Now, personally, I prefer the roll to be soft all around rather than hard on the outside and gooey on the middle, so I was perfectly happy with the light pan results. But if you enjoy the hard outside and soft middle type of thing, you might want to try a dark pan. Either way, they'll turn out delicious, though. So if you love rolls and you love orange, get to it!

Alabama Orange Rolls
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 8
Prep time: 03:00
Cook time: 00:45
Total time: 03:45

Amazing brunch rolls that have just the right amount of sweet and tangy orange flavor.

Ingredients:

Dough:
• 3 cups (15 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (1.75 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup orange juice, warm (110 degrees F)
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces and softened
• 1 large egg plus 1 large yolk
Filling:
• 1/2 cup (3.5 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons grated orange zest
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Glaze:
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup (1.75 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. For the Dough: In a stand mixer bowl, whisk flour, sugar, yeast, and salt together. Add orange juice, cream, butter, and egg and yolk. Using the dough hook, knead on medium speed until dough comes together, about 2 minutes. Increase speed to medium-high and continue to knead dough until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes longer. Dough will be nice and soft.
2. Transfer dough to lightly floured counter and knead until smooth ball forms, about 30 seconds. Place dough in a greased large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
3. For the Filling: Combine sugar and zest in a small bowl. Transfer dough to lightly floured counter. Roll dough into 16 by 8-inch rectangle with long side parallel to counter’s edge. Spread butter over surface of dough using small offset spatula, then sprinkle evenly with sugar mixture. Roll dough away from you into tight, even log and pinch seam to seal.
4. Grease 9-inch cake pan, line bottom with parchment paper, then grease parchment. Roll log seam side down and cut into eight 2-inch-thick slices using a serrated knife. Place 1 roll in center of prepared pan and others around perimeter of pan, seam sides facing center. Cover with plastic and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees.
5. Discard plastic and bake rolls until golden brown on top and interior of center roll registers 195 degrees, 40 to 50 minutes. Let rolls cool in the pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes.
6. For the Glaze: Once rolls have cooled for 30 minutes, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until large, slow bubbles appear and mixture is syrupy, about 4 minutes.
7. Using spatula, loosen rolls from sides of pan and slide onto platter; discard parchment. Brush glaze over tops of rolls and serve warm.

Recipe from Cook's Country

Honey Butter Pull Apart Rolls

 

No holiday meal is complete without some rolls, am I right? Now, you could go the normal dinner roll variety, or just buy some at the store, but what fun is that? For Thanksgiving, I made these delicious pull apart rolls. To be honest, I've always loved the store-bought version of these my grandparents usually have at their holiday functions, so I figured why not try to make them from scratch?

There's something fun about being able to pull apart your roll into bits that are already supposed to be pulled apart, you know? It's a tactile experience. As a note, my rolls may be a bit poofier than yours may turn out. I had to let mine sit on the counter before going into the oven for a bit, so they started rising again thanks to the yeast. It may have just made them even fluffier and more delicious, but I guess I'd have to do another batch to be sure. Oh darn!

 

As you can see from the below photo, it can also be quite pretty. The below roll is from all of the scrappy end pieces when I was cutting up the dough. I thought oh this one will be the runt of the litter and be a bit sad, but instead it turned out looking something like a flower, almost. Really, you could get creative and make all of you rolls look like flowers, I'm sure, but you can also just be more precise in your cutting and have all of your rolls be "regular" like the one above.

Now, this may seem like a lot of work, but they're actually quite easy to make when you get down to it. The only thing is the time issue. Because you are working with yeast here, it's not like you can just make these on a whim to have in a few minutes' time. But I don't think you'll be disappointed if you do decide to make these! They're delicious right from the oven, and days later when you microwave them for about 30 seconds. Yum!

Honey Butter Pull Apart Rolls
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 1 Dozen Rolls
Prep time: 01:25

Cook time: 00:15

Total time: 01:40

The perfect rolls for a special holiday meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups hot water
• 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 ½ to 4 cups bread flour
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 3 Tablespoons honey
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray - set aside for now.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the water, yeast, and sugar. Let sit until frothy, about five minutes.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, salt, 2 cups of flour, and the yeast mixture until combined well.
4. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and isn't too sticky.
5. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until elastic, about 8 or so minutes. As a tip, I used about 3 1/2 cups flour in the bowl, then probably added another 1/2 cup when kneading to keep it from being too sticky. You can use a stand mixer with a dough hook, but I did it by hand.
6. Place the dough in the greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and keep in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour.
7. After doubled, punch down the dough and lay on a floured surface. Roll out the dough until about 20 inches by 12 inches.
8. Preheat your oven to 375°F.
9. In a small bowl, mix together the butter, honey, and salt, and brush the dough with half of this mixture.
10. With a pizza cutter (or a knife if you don't have one), cut the dough lengthwise into sixths, and crosswise into twelfths.
11. Make stacks of four dough squares and place each stack into a greased muffin cup. They should have the ends of the stacks placed down into the muffin so you will see the layers.
12. Brush with the remaining butter mixture (I had a little extra that I used later to butter the rolls once they were done baking) and bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown. Serve warm.

Recipe via High Heels and Grills

Flaky Butter Pull-Apart Rolls

Anyone who knows me in real life knows this for certain: I love rolls. Let's be honest, I just like breadstuffs in general. But rolls? I mean, hold me back. I suppose I should add a caveat - they have to be soft and buttery and delicious. Those hard rolls you have to practically break a tooth getting in to? No thanks. That is not what rolls are about.

You want to see some good rolls? LOOK:

(Ignore the vitamins in the background. It's just real life.)

These are so good. If I hadn't been having some kind of weird stomach issue, I surely would've eaten way too many of them. That being said, they are sort of time intensive. But oh so worth it.

Flaky Butter Pull-Apart Rolls

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 Tablespoons (1 packet) instant yeast
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened and cut into chunks
• 5 to 6 cups bread flour or all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, for glazing

Cooking Directions

1. Grease a 10-inch round springform pan with nonstick cooking spray. Surely you can use a different size pan and still make these, but what's the fun in that? Place the pan on a baking sheet.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer (using the paddle attachment), mix the water and yeast briefly and then let stand until the yeast has dissolved, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the sugar, salt, eggs, stick of softened butter, and 5 cups of flour until the dough forms a soft mass. Switch to the dough hook and knead on low speed for 8-10 minutes, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and shape into a ball, with your hands! It shouldn't be very sticky, but if it does a little, just make sure your hands are either wet or covered in flour. Spray a large bowl with non-stick spray, and place the ball of dough in the bowl, turning the dough over so both sides are coated. Cover loosely (I'd recommend a towel) and allow the dough to rise until almost doubled in size, about 45 minutes. If you've got a drafty place, just stick it in the oven. The OFF oven.
4. Punch down the dough to deflate it, then leave it alone to rest for 20 minutes. Return the dough to the lightly floured work surface. If the dough looks like it rose back up at all, gently deflate it. Divide the dough into 12, 14 or 16 equal portions and roll into balls, then place them in the pan. You might think they won't all fit, but rest assured, they will, just squeeze 'em on in. Brush the tops of the rolls generously with the melted butter and then dust with flour. Cover the pan loosely and allow the rolls to rise for 20 or 30 minutes, until very puffed up.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F. Place the round pan (which is on the baking sheet) in the oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden brown. You may want to line the baking sheet with parchment if you don't want melted butter all over it, just FYI. Lift the round pan off the baking sheet and let cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then unclasp the springform pan and remove from the rolls. Serve at room temperature or still warm. Delicious!

Recipe via Happy Go Marni

In photos:

Water and yeast bubble.

After you've added in the sugar, salt, eggs, stick of softened butter, and 5 cups of flour, it'll look shaggy like so.

Oh look, it's a bread dough alien! This is after it's been kneading with the dough hook, more Tbsp of flour added in.

Place the alien dough onto a floured surface and shape into a ball.

Place that ball into a non-stick-sprayed large bowl.

Let it rise for 45 minutes. It'll have risen, like so.

To get this many rolls, I put the dough back on the floured surface, cut it in half with a pizza cutter, then cut those halves into 8 pieces each, rolled them up, and voila, 16 rolls.

Holy CRAP, that is a LOT of butter.

My! How much they rise in the oven! Mine could've really used probably a few more minutes in there, the middle was still a bit doughy.

Doughy, but delicious nonetheless. Mmmm.... seriously, if you like these types of soft rolls, you'll love these.