No-Knead Buttermilk Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls
One of the most popular requests for Thanksgiving recipes this year was for dinner rolls! Who knew? I’ve always been perfectly content with store-bought snowflake rolls, and in recent years, I’ve made a batch of biscuits with honey butter. As delicious as they are, I feel like a biscuit is just sometimes too heavy to accompany an already heavy meal, and that’s what makes these rolls so perfect - they’re light, fluffy, just buttery enough, and honestly really easy to make. The hardest part is shaping the dough into balls, because it’s a high-hydration dough, meaning it’s really wet and sticky. Don’t be afraid though - just flour your hands, tools, and work surface really well and don’t squeeze the dough too much when handling. The lighter the touch, the less they’ll stick. This wet, sticky dough results in the lightest and fluffiest rolls ever, so it’s worth the extra care. Now, I’m not a baker by trade, so I must give credit where credit is due to my fellow Alexandra over at Alexandra’s Kitchen. She is the Queen of Bread in my eyes, and the original recipe for these rolls came from her, I just made a few small tweaks to the ingredients and method. Please do check out her original version of the recipe. She has awesome tutorials throughout the post that will really help if you’re making bread for the first time at home. These rolls can also be made vegan by simply swapping the buttermilk and butter for your favorite vegan brands. Happy baking, friends!
No-Knead Buttermilk Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls - Makes 24
INGREDIENTS
4 cups (512 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping (I only use King Arthur)
1 TB kosher salt (I only use Diamond Crystal)
1 TB pure maple syrup
2 tsp instant yeast
1 cup boiling water
1 cup buttermilk or vegan buttermilk
5 TB melted salted butter or vegan butter, divided
flaky sea salt (I use Maldon)
INSTRUCTIONS
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour salt, and instant yeast.
In a 2-cup liquid measure (or something similar), pour the boiling water over the buttermilk and let stand for 10 minutes. Add maple syrup and give it a stir to combine. The buttermilk will look curdled. This is okay.
Pour the buttermilk mixture and 4 TB of the melted butter over the flour mixture. Stir until a sticky ball of dough forms. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place to rise for 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk. (Note: To create a warm place in your kitchen, simply preheat your oven for one minute, then turn it off. Then put the bowl into the turned off oven for the full rise time.)
Grease a 9×13-inch baking dish. Flour a work surface with 2-3 TB flour, and sprinkle another 1-2 TB flour lightly over the dough and around the edges. Gently coax the dough out of the bowl onto the floured work surface and shape into a rough ball. Use a floured bench scraper to divide the ball into 4 equal portions. Shape each portion roughly into a ball, then use the bench scraper to divide each ball into 6 roughly even portions to create 24 small pieces total.
Using as much flour as necessary, shape each piece roughly into a circle. It’s okay if each piece is a little misshapen. Place the dough balls into the prepared pan, spacing them evenly apart. (I used between ¼ and ⅓ cup total extra flour for the whole rolling/shaping process.)
Let the dough balls rise another 35-45 minutes, or until the dough pieces have puffed to almost fill the pan. Preheat the oven to 375 when the dough balls are almost finished rising.
Sprinkle the dough balls lightly with some flaky salt, transfer the pan to the preheated oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.
Remove pan from the oven and immediately brush the surfaces of the rolls with the remaining 1 TB of melted butter. Let the rolls cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn the pan out onto a cooling rack to prevent the bottoms of the rolls from getting soggy. Serve warm with more butter on the side.
Notes: The rolls can be made ahead and frozen. Follow the recipe all the way through, cool them completely, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, store everything in a freezer bag, and defrost them overnight in the fridge the day before you’re going to serve them. Before dinner, unwrap the rolls and slide them into a clean paper shopping bag. Roll the bag tightly, run it under cold water just to dampen the paper, then pop the whole bag into the oven for 5-10 minutes to warm the rolls through. My Uncle Glenn owns a restaurant and a catering company and he’s the one who taught me this trick for reheating your rolls without drying them out! Just don’t forget about the bag, because it could catch on fire if you do…you’ve been warned!
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