20 | June | 2023 | Bewitching Kitchen

These adorable rolls popped on my Instagram feed, and I fell in love with them so hard that I mixed the dough right away. To be precise, 20 minutes after watching the reel (click here for it). I consider it a work in progress, for reasons I will discuss in the comments…

FLOWER-SHAPED DINNER ROLLS
(from Joyce Mrad)

325g flour
150mL slightly warm milk
1 egg
50g butter, softened
1 tsp instant yeast
30g sugar
1 tsp salt
purple carrot powder or any other natural food coloring, about 1 tsp

In a KitchenAid type bowl, add milk, sugar, yeast, egg, salt, and flour. Mix them together until they form a shaggy mass of dough. With the machine running (dough hook), add the butter in small pieces and knead until smooth. Split the dough in half. Color one half with your choice of natural dye.

Place both dough portions in a warm spot and let them rise for approximately 2hours, or until doubled in size. Once the dough has risen, punch it down. Roll and flatten both dough portions into squares, layering the purple dough over the white dough.

Use a cookie cutter to cut small circles from the layered dough. Take each circle and fold it three-quarters, then fold it in half again, pinching the ends to form petals. When you make five petals add a small ball of dough in the middle. Repeat the folding and shaping process until all the dough is used.

Cover the flower-shaped dinner rolls and let them rise again until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Brush the rolls with milk. Bake them in a 375F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until they turn golden brown. Once the rolls are baked, brush them with melted butter and sprinkle sesame seeds in the middle of each roll for decoration.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I used ebony carrot powder which was very beautiful in the raw dough, but baked to a much less appealing color. I will use something different next time. Also, I believe the rolls will be better if made with a smaller cookie cutter, so that the petals are more delicate and the rolls smaller. The whole recipe gave me just three rose-shaped rolls, so smaller circles are going to work better for this.

The rolls work almost like a pull-apart bread, pretty cool! Not at all complicated to make, and you can always use a single dough for the shaping effect, which will still be nice.