This recipe for soft, buttery pumpkin dinner rolls makes 12, but it's easily doubled if you have at least a 6-quart mixer. These are the perfect, soft, savory dinner roll. With a hint of pumpkin and some poultry seasoning to enhance it, they are super buttery and delicious. NOTE that this dough needs to be refrigerated overnight, and then the shaped rolls will need a few hours to rise before baking, so plan accordingly.If you still have some bits of leftover Thanksgiving, pile them on a split roll and make yourself a little sammich. You'll be glad you did.
3oz1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons water (cold or room temp)
2teaspoonsactive dry yeast
2Tablespoonssorghum syrup or honey
8oz2 scant cups bread flour (I use King Arthur)
8oz2 scant cups all purpose flour (I use King Arthur)
1.25oz1/4 cup malted milk powder**
1teaspoonpoultry seasoning
1 1/4-1 ½teaspoonskosher salt
5oz1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened but not greasy
To Finish and Bake
2-3Tablespoonsof milk
Parmesan cheese(block, not the green can)
Instructions
Combine the pumpkin, water, yeast, sorghum syrup or honey, flour, malted milk powder, poultry seasoning, and salt (in that order) in the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix with the dough hook until all the flour is incorporated. The dough will be pretty stiff at this point.
With the mixer on medium low speed, begin adding the softened butter, about a tablespoon at a time, until it's all incorporated. Make sure one addition of butter is completely incorporated before adding the next. Once the butter is all in, you'll have a very soft dough/stiff batter. Knead on medium/medium-low speed for about 10 minutes.
Pour/scrape the finished dough into a greased bowl. Spray the top with pan spray or brush with oil, cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, remove the dough from the fridge and portion into 12 buns. Each will weigh right around 3 ounces. If you have a scale (and you really should) weigh the entire amount of dough and then divide by 12 and scale the dough accordingly.
With oiled hands, shape each piece of dough into a smooth ball. Tighten it up a bit by rolling it between your hands on the counter. This doesn't work so well with this dough, so just do the best you can. Don't bother to flour or oil the counter. Just use your bench knife to occasionally scrape up any bits of dough that stick to it.
Place the rolls about 1/2" apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. You could also place them in 3 rows of 4 in a parchment-lined 9"x13" pan. Spray the tops of the rolls, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit at room temperature until doubled in size. This could take several hours, especially if your kitchen is cold. The dough will spread more than it rises, but that's okay. All the dough balls should be touching and sort of stuck together by at least 1 1/2" on all sides (or the sides that are touching, anyway). To speed the process along, you can let them rise in a warm place, and if you run out of time, you can always refrigerate them and finish later.
When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F.
Brush the tops of the rolls with the milk and then Microplane some Parmesan evenly over them.
Bake until golden brown. Some of the cheese will have browned too, but not all of it. This should take about 30 minutes. I baked mine for 15 minutes then rotated the pan and baked another 10 minutes. It depends on your oven. The internal temperature of the rolls should be 200F.
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack until just warm. Serve them immediately or reheat once they're room temperature. Store cooled buns in freezer bags. I thaw mine for a few seconds in the microwave and then heat them for a couple of minutes in the toaster oven.
Notes
**You can also use dried milk powder in your rolls. I like the flavor the malted milk powder lends.