Parker House Rolls
Ok. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have housewife tendencies. It’s true. Don’t judge me… that would be rude.
I’ve tried to ignore these urges. I’ve tried to pass it off as a phase… but really? This can’t go on. I’m going to have to own my housewife tendencies. Now seems like as good a time as ever to fess up.
See… yesterday afternoon I put on my frilly 1950′s apron, pulled my hair back, put on my giant fake pearl earrings and made homemade dinner rolls. The apron and pearls are essential, so is a cigarette and a stiff cocktail if I’m to believe what I see on Mad Men.
So there I am in my kitchen, proudly clad in my housewife gear, hand kneading some pretty sexy roll dough, thinking I’ve got it pretty kush when I realize that my housewife fantasy is missing two things… a… um… er… husband… and mud covered children that I have to chase around the house to get into the bath.
So. Ok. Fine. My housewife tendencies are really just an excuse for me to play dress up for an afternoon. And rolls and butter? Just the awesome perk of my extended dress up games.
Pretty pretty dinner rolls. This luscious dough comes together with just ten minutes of hand kneading. They’re buttery and sweet, and have some thickness and weight without being dry and boring. They’re so lovely. You’ll feel all sorts of impressed with your abilities.
This recipe is a classic. Parker House Rolls are said to have originated in the 1870′s (whaaaat!?) at the Parker House Hotel in Boston. Old school.
keepin’ it real.
Parker House Rolls
recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook
makes 20 rolls
3 tablespoons warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 (1/4-ounce) package (2 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 – 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Stir together warm water, 1 tablespoons sugar and yeast in a small bowl until yeast in dissolved. Let stand until foamy, about five minutes. If the mixture does not foam up, throw it out and start over with different yeast. Foam means that the yeast is livin’.
Melt 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) butter in a small saucepan. Add the milk and heat until lukewarm. Pour into a large bowl and add yeast mixture, remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, bread flour, and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.
Stir in 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, dump out onto a clean work surface and begin to bring the dough together into a ball. If your dough is too sticky to handle, add up to 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough is just slightly sticky.
Knead dough until a smooth and elastic dough begins to form, adding more all-purpose flour as needed. The dough will be smooth, satiny and just slightly sticky after 10 minutes. Good job! Form dough into a ball and place in a large, buttered bowl, turning the dough so that the entire ball is covered. Cover with plastic wrap and a towel and let rest n a warm, draft free place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan. Divide dough into 20 equal pieces. Roll each one into a ball and arrange evenly in 4 rows of 5 in a baking pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft free place until almost doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
Using a floured chopstick or the edge of a ruler, make a deep crease down the center of each row of rolls. Let rolls rise, loosely covered for 15 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and place a rack in the center of the oven.
Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and cool slightly. Brush the tops of the rolls with butter and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Cool rolls in the pan for 5 minutes then remove and serve warm. Reheat rolls wrapped in foil in a 375 degree oven if you’d like to eat them the next day with butter and jam. Serious yum.
153 Comments Add A Comment
Yum…I love rolls!
Joy,
I absolutely enjoy reading your blog posts and I am hoping to try many if not all your recipes! I already made the cup cakes from the Sweetheart rose cupcakes post and they were absolutely delicious! I just wish I had more time to bake and cook more!
You are so adorable! :-) I love that you made these in an apron and pearls. :-) And they’re beautiful!!
You cutie…. so funny… when I used to work as a school cook… we had “two aprons” one for cooking…. (the not so fancy one) and one for serving… (the one that wasn’t all buggered up with flour etc… all over it when your done making the marvelous stuff your gonna make!) Just a thought! Since your having a good play!
Soooo maybe you need to start making stuff for the neighbors… maybe then there will be a hubby around (that is if your wanting one… which of course, you don’t have to have to cook….) you have proved that! Keep up that great work! Looks yummy!
Hi,
These rolls sound yummy! How can I make them in the morning and then bake/serve for dinner? Possible to refrigerate or freese the dough?
thank you for your wonderful site,
Linda
I love carbs, but was never into dinner rolls. But these look fantastic. I may have to give in and give these a try. I wish I had a nice Jessie Steele Apron (http://www.jessiesteele.com/index.php) which I first saw at the store I used to work at. But I don’t want to dish out the dough for it (haha, dough!). I have an $8 apron from Wal-Mart. It is though a cute shade of sky blue. So it’ll do for now until I decide that I don’t care if I pay $40 for a piece of cute cloth that’s just gonna get dirty! It still makes me feel housewifey despite also lacking in the husband/children department. That’s ok, one day I will have the awsome apron, the husband and mud covered children!
I would have loved to see a picture of you in your housewife’s outfit, ofcourse with the drink and cigarette in your hands! ;-)
The rolls look delicious. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I am sure the apron and pearls made the rolls taste even better. They look amazing!
I would say being a housewife is more fun when you’re just playing, definitely (Not that there aren’t fun bits to the wife and mother thing, but the apron and pearls stuff is more fun when it’s not EXPECTED of you). Gorgeous rolls!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who works with their iPhone right next to them! Haha
These look so delicious. I’ve been looking for a good dinner roll recipe and might just have to try these over the weekend.
Joy,
Do you know of a good article (or perhaps an introduction to a book) about the different types of flours, their histories, and their uses? My husband tried making rolls recently from an old family recipe, and his mother told him to use cake flour instead of A-P because of the gluten content. Her explanation, which I can’t remember precisely, was that flours produced in the South had a different gluten content from that of flours produced in the North, and what they used to use for bread in the North is closer to cake flour today. I’m not sure if I got that quite right, but I’d love to know more about it, especially since your recipe here requires bread flour (and originated in Boston). I was going to suggest that my husband try this recipe next, as the rolls he made were, unfortunately, a complete flop.
Thank you so much!
Just made these yesterday with my High School Baking students. They LOVED them, must try your recipe next time as they are much prettier.
You know you have housewife issues when you start hoovering in pearls. Those rolls are really cute but the first thing I thought was they kind of look like bottoms…just saying.
Thats ok, I recently made chocolate meringues that looked like cute little poops.
these look divine! and why is the smell of yeast dough SOOOOOO heavenly? i might suffocate inhaling the next batch of bread i make since i love the smell so.
yum yum yum! I’m still afraid of yeast though.
Oh so that’s how they got those crease in the middle. looks like cute tushies to me :)
I too am a lover of Mad Men. From me to you — the whiskey on set is actually Apple Juice, and the cigarettes are just herbs. :)
I love the little roll smushed between the bigger ones! I’d eat him first, then move on to a few of the bigger guys.
I really need to get myself a cute ruffly apron, I’ll be on the hunt for one now.
I just made them – they are yummy! – but mine turned out pretty flat. Any ideas as to why? They rose the first time just fine, but I couldn’t coax them to stay in their little ball shape very well. Hmmm…
Love this post! Some times I am freaked out by my domestic tendencies as well. I just enjoy being in the kitchen instead of the office.
Joy, you’re the cutest. I have a collection of aprons that I wear and do gussy up in heels while baking but need to be mindful of where I walk as there are always dogs hovering. Have you seen the aprons at http://www.hiphostess.com ? Girly to the max. Thanks for sharing the love.
Oh. my. God.
I. love. yeasty parker house rolls SO SO MUCH.
Again, for another great post,Thank You.
you are so cute, joy! thanks for the vintage recipe- how cool is that? i need to go find some pearls.
ps. i’m making your sea salt and poppy seed crackers today and i am over the moon about it.
I have never baked anything with yeast on my own before! Only in high school in cooking class! I want to get over my fear and try it soon! This post is kind of a kick in the butt to get me to actually attempt it! Thanks Joy!
I, too, came to a similar realisation about my housewife tendencies. At first I tried to fight it… now I am embracing it to perfection! It means a lot of good cooking/baking!
I actually have a recipe for this from The All-New Best Recipe cookbook…but these look like they may taste better. So much for “Best Recipe” huh? Hehehe. They look fantastic! Thanks so much for sharing. And I absolutely LONG for a frilly vintage apron. Lust after one actually!
Ooh, baby, those look good.
I’m clearly not taking the right approach to my baking – pearls and a stiff drink would definitely add to the experience!
Don’t forget the red lipstick!
You had me totally fooled into thinking these weren’t yeast rolls that would need an hour+ for rising when you said it only would take 10 minutes of kneading to have them! :(
But…. I love making yeast breads and I didn’t have this recipe. So all is well. lol, thanks for another great one to add to the stack :D
Housework is really under appreciated. I am not really fond of cleaning all that much, but I love a clean house, so clean I must!
Joy,
Well, today while waiting for theses delicious rolls to finish baking,I also decided to dress as though i was from the 50s with light pink polka dot pants and a blouse with heals and of course the huge (fake don’t tell shh) earrings! And i am also missing 2 things.. a husband… seeing that getting married at my age is illegal in about 48 out of the 50 states i decided to skip that one and the kids things relating back to not being married..still it was fun, thanks for the idea, and LOVED these rolls!!!!
I keep joking to my husband that I am going to start wearing heels and pearls while I stay in the house :)
I made your Brown sugar bacon waffles last week.
OH MY HEAVENS! I am still drooling and I am still working off the calories but they were heaven in a fluffy circle :)
Thanks for all your hard work ;)
I would have loved to see you in your little get-up and eat one of those rolls … or 5! ;)I’m about to dress up for Mardi Gras, that’s gonna be fun, too!
Where is the picture of you in the frilly apron and pearls? I would love to see it. Thanks for sharing, I cannot wait to make the rolls for my family.
Yum these look great, thanks Joy! Love reading your blog, and by the way congrats on your bloggie nomination :)
You paint a picture of the housewife I wish I could be at least once a week. Instead, my hair is usually covered in flour, the kids are pulling on my pant leg to find out what’s for dinner, and a stiff drink is far too absent.
Regardless, these rolls would fit into my fantasy evening perfectly!
Love the image I have in my head of you baking. It’s funny since my teenage daughter saw Julie and Julia she is taken with my only string of pearls. I think she will wear them while baking, too. The rolls are lovely, BTW.
I. Love. Bread. And Rolls.
Win.
and 1870?? Whoa.
LOVE THESE! I made them last night and I never knew it was that easy to make little breads like these and they are sooo YUMMY!!
the apron; the pearls; the drink– housewife fashion, for sure.
these rolls will go lovely with my love affair with bread…
Haha I can almost imagine you all houewifey!! The rolls look amazing, and I don’t even like bread!!
Joy, pleassseee come do a cooking class in new york!!!
Just found your blog a few days ago…love it!! You really have a way with words!
I made these rolls today and mine, just like another person who commented, turned out flat. They taste good, but they’re very flat. The dough rose, the balls of dough rose, then when I used the chopstick and brushed them with butter, they flattened out. I thought they may regain their shape while baking, but it didn’t happen. I’m not sure what went wrong?!?!?
Wow, those look so buttery and delicious. Rolls are usually my favorite part of dinner :)
I think I got the bread bugs too. Just the other day I had my first go at making Chocolate Chip & Raisins Hot Cross Buns. And now I am looking at making some nice soft butter rolls.
Will definitely try this recipe Joy!
Thanks
These look fantastic. They remind me of Sunday dinners at my parents house growing up. Add a little honey, and we’re in business.
I followed the receipt and cooked them on my Silpat baking mat. It worked. I will be making these again.
I made these buns last night.
it tasted like Croissants to me, buttery taste.
Anyway, I wanted to ask, do we have to punch the dough after the first poof??
Just wondering- Do I usually have to put the cling wrap and cloth covering the dough by touching the dough? or just cover the bowl and the cloth not touching the dough?
Oh and I used Fat free milk :) just as tasty.
They were SOFT and yummy.
I was going through all of the sites that are going to be in the 55knives book and stumbled across yours. The use of the chopstick to make indentations in the rolls is ingenious. Love the site.