Brioche Dinner Rolls

Ditch the store-bought, dinner rolls you serve for the holiday season & make your own: buttery Brioche Dinner Rolls are easier to make than you’d think. And you have the bragging rights to say “I made these myself”. 

Someone asked the question on a cooking Facebook community page “what do you struggle the most with cooking?”. I wasn’t surprised at the top three responses – making pastry, Chinese food & anything with yeast. Making your own bread & having it be not only edible but really good, is something very rewarding. Sure, bread making does have some challenges but nothing that can’t be overcome. Might I suggest if you are going to make these for the hols you have a little practice first. Chances are high the rolls won’t go to waste. 

Yes there is a science to bread making but learning what to look for & the feel of the dough is just as important as the scientific aspects. Flours can vary from season, state, country & brand. Then there’s the whole sea level aspect, although something I’ve never noticed. I’ve lived 5,000 feet above sea level in Montana & at sea level in Florida. Perhaps my perception is skewed but I didn’t ever notice a difference in baking. Or maybe I just know what to look for. Either way, once you get a feel for what constitutes a good dough, the rest is just semantics. I’m not going to chat endlessly about the dos & don’t of bread making in this post: follow my recipe & these rolls will turn out perfectly. 

I can’t write a post about making your own brioche dinner rolls without addressing the carb & gluten factors that has everyone’s ass hairs up these days. If you’re on a low carb diet, chances are you’re not reading this post. In my never-ending quest to lose weight, I’ve tried a low carb diet – it works. But for me it’s not sustainable. I end up ‘cheating’ then the wheels fall off & that’s it: I put the weight back on I lost. It’s such a vicious cycle. One that I refuse to be part of anymore. 

Instead, I choose to eat food I’ve prepared from scratch that doesn’t contain preservatives, artificial coloring or flavors & an assortment of other chemical compounds. If I’m going to eat bread occasionally, it’s going to be bread I’ve made that won’t last into next week but it won’t contain any preservatives or other shit regularly added to our food. Surely if you’re wanting to get healthier & lose weight (the two don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand), then wouldn’t you start by eliminating processed food such as breads, protein bars, meal replacement shakes, artificial sweeteners, energy drinks, sodas & the likes. You get my drift right? Why eliminate whole food groups only to replace them with anything that is not considered real food? More about this in another post because there’s a lot to say on the subject. So much so it’s book writing worthy. 

Let’s get real here: ostracizing bread & other carbs from my diet forever just isn’t going to happen. I’ve tried. Making my own bread, well that can & does happen. Bread is like a slow-cooked stew, a little prep at the start then hours of not having to do anything to it then some attention at the end. You make a dough, you go back to it briefly, leave it alone then shape it & cook. It really isn’t anything to fear. It’s not time consuming. And it is easier than you think. 

I started making bread for my husband’s lunch. In doing so I discovered I enjoyed turning beautiful breads out onto a rack to cool. If you’ve ever made your own bread, you’ll know of the smug satisfaction that comes the moment you take the bread from the oven & know, by god, it’s worked! You actually made bread. That’s how I feel each time I make my own bread. Now some of you might be thinking you have no time to make bread rolls, especially around the holidays. Instead of the six different sides you’re planning to cook, why not opt for just a few sides & make some buttery Brioche Dinner Rolls instead? Or do some delegating. 

Have you tried making your own bread? I’m not bread maker by any stretch but this year I discovered a new hobby. Sure, I’ve had a couple of failures but through persistence I’m learning. At least if you screw-up bread it’s only a couple of bucks wasted. It’s not like you’ve spent half your monthly food budget on that one recipe. Bread making is a discovery of learning: different techniques, doughs, moisture, proofing times & oven temperature, can produce vastly different breads. It also makes you slow down for that capsule of time. Do you make your own bread? Is there a specific bread you’d like to master? Let me know. Until next time, thanks for visiting & let’s chat soon okay?!

Here’s a really easy flatbread recipe to try that only requires 3 ingredients & no yeast.