Hawaiian Rolls with Honey Cinnamon Butter

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Sponge

  • ½ cup All Purpose Flour

  • 2 Tablespoon dried yeast

  • 4 Tablespoons of warm milk (110°F-120°)

Dough

  • 1 cup room temperature-lukewarm pineapple juice

  • 1 Stick softened butter

  • ⅔  Cup Brown Sugar

  • 4 Eggs plus 2 yolks (reserve whites) 

  • 2 teaspoon Vanilla

  • 5 ½  cups all purpose flour

  • 4 tablespoons of potato flour

  • 2 ½  teaspoons salt


Directions:

  1. Mix together spong ingredients with a small whisk and let sit for 15 minutes (If you are not getting a few bubbles at that point, your yeast may no longer be alive)

  2. Add in Juice, butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla and mix well with a whisk or whip attachment.

  3. Add in flour, potato flour, and salt and mix until a sticky dough forms. (You can use the paddle attachment.)

  4. Switch to the dough hook and adjust flour a couple tablespoons at a time if needed. (Use the dough hook  for this step. Add flour until the dough pulls away from the sides and cleans the bowl) 

  5. Let dough rise in a greased mixing bowl until doubled in size. 

  6. Divide the dough into 32 pieces and form into the desired shape.

    • Classic rolls, roll in a cutting board keeping the side of your hand in contact with the board until it forms a smooth even surface. (Watch video to see how this is done) 

    • Parker House: roll out dough. Cut into circles, place a cube of butter and fold in half and pinch. 

    • Crescent- roll into a flat piece, cut into triangles and roll up. 

    • Make small pieces about the size of a large gumball. Place three in each cup of a greased muffin tin. 


  1. Let rise until ⅓ bigger or doubled in size. Brush with reserved egg white.

  2. Bake at 350°F until golden brown (you can also check internal temperature. It should be around 190°F)



Tips for making Hawaiian Bread

  • Make sure your liquids,(milk, eggs, pineapple juice) are room temperature or warmer. If the eggs are cold, your yeast may not activate. 

  • Don’t get tied up in the time with rise time. It takes a while for these to rise. 

  • You can make these into hamburger or hotdog rolls by making them into a slightly smaller size than what you are used to. Once they rise a bit, they should be the right size. For hamburger buns, I would keep the diameter the same and make them about ½ inch thick. For hamburger buns, keep the length the same and make 1 ½ diameter. 

  • The regular size rolls work great for slider rolls!


There are nine steps to making yeast breads, so you can follow this process with any yeast bread and end up with a good product. 

  1. Scaling (this is the measuring process) In the food service industry, weights are almost exclusively used to ensure a consistent product. When you measure things like flour by volume, you can have a wide variety of amounts depending on who measures when. Weights ensure consistency and an easier to manage recipe. 

  2. Mixing: This stage is exactly what you think. You are mixing together your ingredients. You usually want to use the dough hook for this. You can also use the whip attachment to do your initial mix and then once you add all the flour, switch to the hook.  Like I mentioned earlier, I always mix the warm water, yeast, and sugar before adding flour and other ingredients. For this recipe, the liquid is pineapple juice, eggs, and milk. This helps you jump start the recipe. You can use a mini whisk to mix together. Sometimes the sugar in a recipe is not actual granulated sugar. It can be honey, syrup, or any other sweet ingredient. Artificial sweeteners can’t be substituted for sugar since the yeast need actual calories to eat and then expel alcohol and CO2. 

  3. Kneading: You can do this by hand, but you can also do most of it in the stand mixer by leaving the mixer on medium with the dough hook attachment. This is designed to knead the dough so that you don’t have to work as hard. 

  4. Bench Proofing: This is letting the dough sit until doubled in size in one big ball. You can do this on the counter or cutting board covered in a towel or in the mixing bowl. 

  5. Makeup: This is where you form the loaves or rolls into the desired shape. 

  6. Proofing: This is letting the bread rise in its final form. You are looking for it to go up in size by ⅓ to double. 

  7. Baking: Baking is baking the bread. You want most of your rise to occur before it is baked, because your yeast will die when the internal temp of the bread gets over about 120°F. It will rise a bit in the oven, and this is called oven spring. 

  8. Cooling: Cooling before cutting and storing keeps the bread from collapsing when you cut it and also means that when you store it, condensation will not form in the bag causing your bread to go bad more quickly. 

  9. Storage: If storing more than a day, keep in an airtight container or bag. 


I know it’s easier to buy these, but at least once in your life, try to make them. It’s an interesting process. If you try it, leave it in the comments below!

Erin MercsComment