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salted honey butter yeast rolls

Salted Honey Butter Yeast Rolls

These milk bread-inspired Salted Honey Butter Yeast Rolls are squishy, soft, a little sweet, and a little salty. They are the perfect balanced and delicious addition to your Thanksgiving spread!

  • Yield: 12 rolls 1x

Ingredients

Units Scale

For the roll dough:

  • 1 cup whole milk, gently warmed
  • 3 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp

For the egg wash:

  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 2–3 tbsp water

For the salted honey butter topping:

  • 1 tbsp salted butter, melted
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • flaked sea salt for sprinkling

 

Instructions

  1. Make your roll dough. In a large mixing bowl, combine warmed milk, sugar, and active dry yeast. Cover with a kitchen towel and allow the yeast to bloom for 10-15 minutes. At this point, the mixture should become foamy and smell yeast-y.
  2. Add bread flour and salt to yeast mixture and mix by hand with a dough hook attachment (or spatula) until it forms a shaggy mass. Hook up your mixing bowl to a stand mixer and knead on low with the dough hook for a minute or two. You can also knead by hand. Add softened unsalted butter in 2 1-tbsp chunks and continue to knead for 10 minutes, until the dough is a shiny ball and bounces back when poked.
  3. Turn out dough into a large, clean mixing bowl coated in neutral oil. Cover well with plastic wrap and allow the dough to proof at room temperature for 1-2 hours, until at least doubled in size.
  4. Punch down proofed dough and turn it out onto a floured work surface. Using a dough cutter, cut the dough into 12 roughly equal sized pieces. I eye ball the size of my dough pieces but you can use a kitchen scale for precision. Shape each dough piece into a ball by pinching the bottom and rounding. Place 12 dough balls into a buttered 9 x 13 pan.
  5. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to proof at room temperature for 1-2 hours, until dough balls are nice and puffy/pillowy.
  6. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Make an egg wash by beating 1 egg + water in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, gently brush the surface of all your proofed rolls with egg wash.
  7. Bake rolls at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.
  8. Remove from oven and make honey butter topping by whisking melted butter with honey. Brush on honey butter mixture and sprinkle with flaked sea salt while the rolls are warm.
  9. Rolls are best served warm. Enjoy!

Notes

  • These rolls can be made the day before–simply make dough through Step 4 and do the second proof overnight in the fridge. Place unbaked rolls on the counter while the oven preheats to come to room temp, and baked as instructed.
  • All purpose flour can be substituted for bread flour in a pinch, but will result in a less squishy/chewy roll.
  • Rolls freeze well, fully baked, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap.
  • Author: Caroline Crockett
  • Category: bread, rolls