Feeling Warm and Fuzzy: Dinner Rolls

I spend countless hours blog searching for the perfect recipes. Blogs with beautiful pictures and step-by-step instructions.

The pretty pictures encourage me to create my food just like the picture looks.

What went wrong?

I found this recipe at Mommy's Kitchen, and oh well, you can look for yourself.

My dinner rolls do not look anything like Mommy's Kitchen pictures.

The recipe said to add warm milk, butter, warm water, sugar, and salt along with 2 cups flour in the bottom of my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl.

That is what I did.

And I mixed it for 1 minute.

Then I added the yeast and the rest of the four and mixed for 5 minutes.

I had no idea that my Kitchen Aid mixer has been taking Zumba Dance lessons. My mixer was shaking and dancing all over my kitchen counter. If you look closely you can see the flour trail.

The Zumba Dance mixer turned almost completely sideways because I stepped back to join in. Me and the Kitchen Aid mixer, Zumba dancing. We were doing the hippy-hippy, shake-shake together.

I know you are picturing the craziness in your head. Go ahead laugh....

The only exercise I get is in the kitchen...

And look, the mixer got so into its dancing that it fell apart.

I panicked and almost called 911. Not for the mixer silly, for me. I almost had the BIG ONE!!

There is no way I can possibly function without my Kitchen Aid mixer.

It's a good thing I have a Mr. Fix-it in the house. He promised me that my mixer can be fixed.

I can now go back to breathing....

Now back to my not so fluffy dinner rolls.

The dough turned out wonderful, nothing wrong there.

I covered the bowl with plastic wrap to keep in the heat, as the directions said.

Placed my dough balls in a 170 degree F. oven to raise, turned up the temperature after 20 minutes, and all the while I'm picturing gorgeous golden flaky dinner rolls.

I wanted to have a warm and fuzzy finished product.

Speaking of warm and fuzzy....The Christmas Holiday is approaching quickly.

Every year I take some time to reminisce. I love to think back to my childhood Christmas's.

Christmas when I was a child was so much different than today's Christmas's. I don't remember adults fighting in the check-out lines at stores, and I don't remember them trampling each other to get the last product on the shelf.

Christmas when I was a kid meant so much more.

Do you have a favorite childhood memory? A Christmas gift that you have held onto all these years because it means so much to you?

I have one:
This is my home-made Barbie Town-House (now stored in my basement).

Yeah, it has been through the mill....stains on the carpet, ripped wall paper, and permanent marker colored on the wood. This town-house went through me and my two daughters. It will soon be played with by my granddaughter.

Can you just imagine how I reacted Christmas morning when this town house was filled with home-made Barbie furniture (a beautiful pink bed in the bedroom with matching dressing table, a living room filled with a couch, chair, bean bags, and a counsel TV, a kitchen with table and chairs, kitchen cupboards and a stove), and brand new Barbie's filling each room?

I was the only child ever (that I know of) to receive a hand crafted Barbie Town-House.

And the elevator was functional.

The elevator went to all three floors.

My dad (passed 1986), my mom, and both sets of grandparents created this magical Christmas for me.

Will I ever part with it? Absolutely not!!

And yes folks, I can honestly say, "My elevator goes all the way to the top."

The elevator ran with a rope and pull system with knots placed at the appropriate stops.

So, even though my dinner rolls didn't turn out golden and fluffy (they are edible), I still got to reminisce.

Fluffy Dinner Rolls

3/4 c. milk

4 TBS butter

3/4 c. hot water

4 TBS sugar

1 TBS salt

4-4 1/2 c. flour

1 heaping TBS yeast

Pour your milk into a microwave safe container. Add your butter to the milk and put it in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes.

While the milk warms preheat your oven to 170 degrees F. Turn on the tap to get your water nice and hot. Temperature is important to making these rolls rise quickly. Put your hand in the water to test it. You want it to be just on the edge of unpleasant.

Put your milk/butter and hot water in the bottom of your Kitchen Ad mixer. Add the sugar and salt. Then add 2 c. flour. Let it mix for 1 minute.

Add the yeast. Turn the mixer on and add the rest of the flour 1 cup at a time.

You have enough flour when the dough scrapes the side of the bowl clean. Mix on medium speed for 5 minutes.

Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 5 minutes. You need the plastic wrap to trap the heat.

Take a stick of butter and coat the inside of a 9x13 pan.

Spray your counter, or a cutting board with cooking spray. Lay your dough on top of it.

Take a sharp knife, spray it with cooking spray and cut your dough into 12 pieces (I pinched off my pieces). Make them as equal as you can.

Gently round them into balls, and put them in your buttered pan.

Put the pan into your warm oven. Let them rise for about 20 minutes or until they have risen about 1 inch above the rim of the pan.

Leave your pan in the oven and turn the heat up to 350 degrees F. Bake for 15 minutes. This time includes the time it takes the oven to increase in temperature. Bake until golden brown.

Brush with a little butter and serve warm. Total time: about 1 hour 10 minutes.