Thanksgiving Week! Homemade Rolls

For the past 3 years, we have been the Thanksgiving hosts for both sides of our families.

I absolutely love it.

It is so much fun to have a houseful of our loved ones.

And, since I'm the host, I just do the turkey.

Everyone else brings the trimmings.

It's a pretty great set up if you ask me.

A couple of years ago I decided that in addition to the turkey, I'd be in charge of the rolls too.

And I wanted to make them from scratch.

If you're only going to bake homemade bread one day of the year, Thanksgiving is the day to do it, don't you think?

I found a recipe in Sunset magazine that sounded pretty straightforward.

I tried it and it was a success.

Now, hot from the oven rolls with Thanksgiving dinner are a tradition.

A simple thing, really.
But something I've always wanted to add to the day.
It's one more way to make the day special.

I haven't made them in a while, so I did a practice run a few weeks back.
Just making sure the recipe is as good as I remember and working out the kinks.
It was also a good time to use my new dish towel as the dough rose.
It looks Thanksgivingy to me, in a non-traditional way.
Isn't it cute?

Like I've done each time before, I change the final preparation of the rolls a bit.
The original recipe calls for rolling the dough and then slicing it into strips.
You then layer the strips in a muffin tin and create pull apart rolls.
I opted for a quicker preparation for my rolls.
I simply rolled them in a ball and placed them in the muffin tin to rise and bake that way.
Much faster.

The rolls came out delicious, as always.

They are light, and springy, soft and the tiniest bit chewy.

They are really, really good straight out of the oven with butter on them.

They are also really, really good the next day with cranberry relish, mayo and turkey.

There was one thing that bothered me this year.

My rolls came out looking a bit like muffins.

I don't know if it was because I let them rise longer in the muffin tins or what, but to my eye the result wasn't perfect.

I think I found an easy solution, though.
This recipe, and a few others I read over the weekend, had directions for putting the rolls together in a glass baking dish for rising and baking.
I think that will be the ticket to ultimate roll success!
I can't wait to try it out.
Here's the link to my roll recipe.
Do you have a must make recipe for Thanksgiving?
Do tell me all about it.


My man will be flying home tomorrow afternoon.
It has been a long 10 days.
I can't wait to see him!
I have a katrillion things to do before Thursday.
And then I'll be enjoying the long weekend with my family.
A post Thanksgiving hike will be in order, hot cocoa and going to see the Christmas trees all lit up on the bay, and oh my, I'll have to start working on Christmas presents.
This time of the year is wonderful but always makes me a teensy bit nervous.
Have a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving, my friends.
Love from,
Greta