Bakers Extraordinaire: Festival of Breads, Part II

Kansas Wheat photo

RaChelle Hudsmith didn't receive a bouquet of roses as winner of the National Festival of Breads' Home Baker division. She didn't need one: She'd created her own "roses" with her Chai Ube Rosette Rolls. 

RaChelle, a baker from North Logan, Utah, was one of eight finalists in the 2019 National Festival of Breads in Manhattan last Saturday, June 8. There were four finalists in the Home Baker division and four in the Food Blogger category.

Photo from the Festival of Breads website

When I talked to her during the baking competition, RaChelle said that the love of cooking and baking is in her blood. She grew up in the kitchen alongside her mom and grandmas, learning while standing beside them at the kitchen counter.

Besides being chosen as the home cook winner by three professionals, RaChelle also won the People's Choice Award as festival goers tasted her rolls and dropped money in a jar, all of which went to feed the hungry at Flint Hills Bread Basket.

 

Perhaps the popularity contest was due in part to one of the ingredients. Purple sweet potatoes - or ube - looked like a perfect choice for festival-goers who love all things purple in Wildcat Country. The dough is also flavored with chai, a seasoning blend that RaChelle's family loves.

While this was RaChelle's first trip to the breads festival as a finalist, she is no stranger to cooking and baking contests. 

"Cooking contests came into my life when I was going through some trials and struggles. The cooking contests brought some positivity and a new focus into my life. I think all of us have issues of one kind or another. We all need to change our focus from our hardships to other things that bring us happiness and confidence.”

--RaChelle Hubsmith, interview with The Cache Valley Daily

By day, RaChelle is a real estate appraiser for Cache County, Utah. But her side gig as a cooking competitor also brings in some cash. She has competed three times at the World Food Championships and has many other food competitions on her resume.

Being a cake decorator and having an artistic eye has come in handy when competing in food competitions, she says.  For example, she used a cake decorating method for shaping fondant to shape her rosettes.

She rolled out her dough with a rolling pin.

She then used a circular ring to cut perfect circles.

To make the roses, she stacked three circles and rolled them up in cinnamon roll fashion. Once rolled, she cut them in half and placed each part in a muffin tin for rising, then baking.

For a video demonstration on how RaChelle shapes the rolls, go to this link on Facebook or visit the National Festival of Breads Facebook page. I happened to be standing there as they were filming the segment, so I got the demo, too!

Once out of the oven, RaChelle brushed the tops with a butter and honey mixture.

RaChelle's rolls weren't the only breads that were easier to shape than the finished product appeared. According to Wheat Foods Council-funded research, there’s been a surge in demand for European-style artisan bread.

Chicagoan Kristin Hoffman’s entry — Tart Cherry, Pecan and Rosemary Boule — offers a great example of that style, said Cindy Falk, a nutrition educator at Kansas Wheat and chair of the National Festival of Breads baking contest.

“She bakes it in a Dutch oven and dusts it with rice flour, so when it comes out of the oven, it’s really crusty like a true artisan loaf,” Falk explained.

Kristin was the only baking competition novice among the eight finalists. The creator of the baking blog, Baker Bettie, Kristin was invited to attend a Kansas Wheat-sponsored bloggers event in June of last year. Even though Kristin grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas - which is home to some of Kansas' largest grain elevators - she had never been on a combine or in a wheat field until last summer. Her experience enticed her to enter the new food bloggers division of the National Festival of Breads.

While Kristin hasn't been part of the food competition circuit, she is no stranger to the kitchen. As a college student, she saw the Food Network show Good Eats, in which host Alton Brown explains the "why" behind baking and cooking. The science of the kitchen eventually led her attend a culinary institute and become a chef.

Her round bread loaf may look fancy, she says, but the ridged bowl does a lot of the shaping work. And, with a few strategic cuts in the risen dough, the visual effect becomes even more attractive.

"It's a lot easier than it looks," Kristin said as she made slashes in the bread. "I want to develop recipes that my readers can duplicate easily."

Finalist Brenda Watts, of Gaffney, S.C., also believes in dramatic shaping to increase visual appeal. She used a star-like pattern and Italian flavors in a large, centerpiece-worthy round bread, Sicilian Star Bread.

Brenda's husband, Mike, was watching the timer on the oven in her festival kitchen while she shaped another bread loaf and chatted with festival goers. He was definitely a one-man press corps, sharing that his wife has competed in the World Food Championships, three times in the Pillsbury Bake-Off and has won a Betty Crocker contest.

"Come stand over here, where I'm standing and smell that bread baking," Mike said. "There's no better smell in the world."

Another trend in this year's entries was the use of natural coloring agents like fruits and vegetables to create uniquely hued breads, Cindy Falk said. Besides RaChelle's use of the purple sweet potato, fellow Utah resident Shauna Havey, of Roy, Utah, used beets in her Beetroot Amaretto Rolls. Shauna, who also competed as a finalist in 2017, has a degree in nutrition, so incorporating healthful items into her baking is a priority. The bodybuilder likes the nutrition, the taste and the pop of color the beet puree provides. 

Shauna was a finalist in the food blogger division and shares recipes on her blog Have Yourself ... a Time. Shauna, like many of the other finalists, is a competitive cook. Just last month, she won second prize in a cornbread contest.  

"The competitions have taken me all over the country and have given me and my family an opportunity to experience different places," Shauna said, as her son, Luke, checked in with her while she was shaping rolls.  "I feel incredibly lucky to have a hobby that has provided opportunities for me to show my kids how other people live, what they eat,  their accents, and all the uniqueness and charm that can be found in each and every place you go. I also love being able to express myself through food." 

Kansas Wheat photo

Merry Graham of Newhall, Calif., who won the Food Blogger division (and whom I featured on Kim's County Line on Tuesday) added ribbons of color to her Danish wreath with fresh blackberries and blackberry jam.

RaChelle's sweet potatoes weren't the only potatoes featured either.  Lauren Katz of Ashburn, Va., paid homage to her family’s love of mashed potatoes by creating her own version of Loaded Baked Potato Bread.

 

Lauren actually offered me a sample still warm from the oven. It was so good! Lauren may look familiar if you're a cooking show fan: She won The Great American Baking Show Holiday edition in 2015. Lauren has won so many contests, they would be too numerous to list here.  Just a couple include the Sutter Home Winery Build a Better Burger contest, and being a two-time Pillsbury Bake-Off contestant. Lauren was the 2017 honoree in the Cooking Contest Central Hall of Fame.

 

Tiffany Aaron of Quitman, Ark., (below) stuffed her bread with apples and lots of spices.

I personally loved her Mulled Spice Apple Cider Crisp Loaves. Tiffany is no stranger to baking. She began selling homemade cinnamon rolls as a sixth grader growing up in rural Montana. With a grocery store and restaurants an hour away, she learned to feed a family by working at her mom's side in the kitchen.

For this year's recipe, Tiffany discovered a mulling spice mixture at a local market. She tweaked the spice ingredients until she could recreate the same warm flavors in a yeast bread. The recipe combines her long-time love of cinnamon rolls with another favorite sweet - apple crisp.

"It's a matter of trying ... then trying again," Tiffany told me. "You rarely get it perfect the first time, and that's part of the adventure - to keep at it until it suits you."

This was Tiffany's second trip to the National Festival of Breads. She was also a finalist in 2017. This year, she brought all five of her children and her husband with her to experience Kansas.

Suzy weighed the dough to make sure they were uniform in size before shaping them.

The tastes of childhood were also a theme for Suzy Neal, of Sautee Nacoochee, Ga., who earned another spot with her Peanut Butter Pretzel Rolls.

Suzy and her husband Clark own Unicoi Preserves, so coming up with a flavor to complement their fruit spreads was second nature to the cook and blogger.

The Neals live in the mountains of Georgia, about 90 minutes from Atlanta. Their location along the Unicoi Wine Trail makes their small batch preserves a natural pairing with yeasty breads, crackers and, yes, wine, she says. Their unique flavors - like salted caramel peach spread and apple cider pepper spread - caught the attention of a regional grocery store, Ingles Market. Both she and her husband blog for The Ingles Table and also share recipes on their Unicoi Preserves website.

Find the winning recipe for Chai Ube Rosette Rolls on the Festival of Breads website, along with recipes from the other finalists. I've shared links to all the recipes if you click on the recipe titles. Or just go directly to the National Festival of Breads website and click on recipes.

Passing On the Traditions: Part I - Yeast Rolls

I am not a quilter. I'm not a proficient crafter like Marie, Randy's mom. I don't have my Mom's talent with the sewing machine.

But I do like to cook and bake. Kinley and Brooke came to visit the week before Thanksgiving. Kinley didn't have school all week, so it was Grandma-time day care at The County Line.

And it gave me a chance to share time in the kitchen with two curious bakers.

It's certainly not the girls' first exposure to the kitchen. Jill is a wonderful cook and baker, and from the time the girls were little, "helping" in the kitchen has been part of their lives. When Kinley and Brooke come to Grandma's house, they always want to help make the meals.

But this gave us a chance to work together on holiday traditions - yeast rolls and pies. (More on pies in the next blog post.)

I certainly wasn't baking bread at age 4 or 6. True confessions: I was a white-ribbon yeast bread baker as a Pratt County 4-Her back in the day. That's what happens when you only make bread before the county fair.

Jill & Holly's yeast bread adventures started with pretzels. Click HERE for the pretzel recipe they used.

But when Jill was in 4-H, she and her friend, Holly, got interested in yeast breads. And I learned right along with them.

Thanksgiving gave me the chance to bake yeast rolls with a new generation of little girls. We even used the same recipe that Jill and Holly made years ago. (Click here for that recipe and for step-by-step photos on making crescent rolls from a previous blog post.)

 

The girls helped me mix up the bread dough using the KitchenAid mixer that belonged to my late mother-in-law, their paternal great-grandma. Since I got to take it home after Marie's death 20+ years ago, I've told Randy that I will be immediately replacing it if this essential piece of kitchen equipment breaks down. It's just as vital to my kitchen as combine parts are during harvest.

I neglected to get photos of the girls kneading the dough. However, Jill says that Kinley had some tips to share about "how Grandma does it" when they were making pizza dough after their bread-baking adventures. (Sorry, Jill!)

They loved seeing how much the dough had risen after letting it rest for an hour. (Here's a better photo of the actual bread from my pre-Christmas bread baking session.)

They were ready to punch it down:

Look at those faces!

The next step was rolling out the dough. Since I knew we were going to be making bread dough and rolling out pie crusts, I borrowed a smaller roller pin from their house and bought an even smaller one. The medium-sized one and my full-sized rolling pin worked better than the small one for getting the dough even.

Rolling bread dough requires a great deal of concentration (and holding your mouth just right ... she gets that from me)!

They were troopers. We made two recipes of dough - one white and one whole wheat - and they rolled out every bit of the dough.

We used a pizza cutter to separate the dough circles into eight equal parts. That's even hard for me!

Then we rolled each section into a crescent shape.

I told the girls to try and press the end underneath the roll. That probably led to a little more "squeezing" than "shaping" on Brooke's behalf, but we got the job done. And, again, they kept with it the whole time.

Even though their Mommy said they didn't particularly like yeast rolls, they definitely ate their share when they came out of the oven.

And the rest of the family enjoyed them with our Thanksgiving meal, too.

This past weekend, I completed the process again to make rolls for the Moore family Christmas Eve gathering. I made five recipes, using part for crescent rolls. I also made cinnamon rolls for the freezer as a gift for my parents' Christmas, and I used a portion of the dough for hamburger and cheese-stuffed sandwich pockets.

I was ready to be done. I could have used those two extra helpers, don't you think?

Focaccia

 

The weatherman says summer temperatures will return this weekend. Mother Nature did not clear that move with me. I've been celebrating the cooler fall temperatures by digging out soup recipes. I made Taco Soup this week. And last week, I shared Copycat Olive Garden Pasta e Fagioli soup with two families who'd just had new babies. Since it makes a big recipe, we enjoyed the leftovers, too.

To go along with the Italian theme, I made homemade focaccia bread to deliver with the soup. While I still turn on my oven plenty during the hot summer months, bread baking seems more suited to fall and winter temperatures.

Focaccia is a pretty forgiving bread, and it doesn't require expert bread shaping skills to get a good product. It's shaped into a rustic circle or rectangle, so it doesn't matter if the loaf isn't perfectly shaped. (Honestly, no one around here cares if the traditional loaf of bread is "county fair perfect" either. Homemade bread is homemade bread!)

Here at home, we dipped slices of the focaccia in seasoned olive oil, just like at an Italian restaurant. Homemade soup and bread? Yes, please!

While the summer temperatures are coming back for a short stay - ready or not - we know that fall and winter aren't far behind. If you're looking for tried-and-true bread recipes, the Kansas Wheat website has lots of recipes to try.

You, too, could be featured in that collection of award-winning recipes.  Entries for the 2017 National Festival of Breads are being accepted through January 16. The competition seeks the best yeast bread recipes from home bakers throughout the U.S. It’s sponsored by the Kansas Wheat Commission, along with King Arthur Flour and Red Star Yeast.

Adult amateur bakers can submit original recipes for holiday breads, rolls, time-saving and simple breads, and whole grain breads online. Youth bakers, ages 8-17, can also submit recipes for yeast breads and quick breads. All entries must be made online at  www.nationalfestivalofbreads.com and require photos of the entered bread.

Eight adult finalists will participate in the national competition on June 17 next year in Manhattan and receive a $500 cash award. The finalists will visit a Kansas farm during wheat harvest, tour a flour mill and grain elevator and learn about wheat research at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center. The Grand Prize Winner will receive $2,000 cash and a trip to attend a baking class of their choice at the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. One youth grand prize winner will be selected and will receive a $300 scholarship. Two youth entries will receive a runner-up prize of a $100 scholarship.

The focaccia recipe I used predates the national contest. But it was a winner at the Kansas Festival of Breads in 2002. 

Whole White Wheat Italian Focaccia

A 2002 Kansas Festival of Breads winning recipe
made by Naomi Johnson, Great Bend

From the Kansas Wheat website

Ingredients

Sponge
2 cups whole wheat flour*
1 package RED STAR® Active Dry Yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning
2 cups lukewarm water (110-115°F)

Dough
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons dried grated  Parmesan Cheese
1 cup whole wheat flour*
1 ½ - 2 cups bread flour
 
Cornmeal

Toppings (optional): Olive oil, Parmesan or Romano Cheese, Kosher salt, Italian seasoning, fresh herbs

*Contestant used whole white wheat flour in recipe. 

Instructions

1. For sponge, combine in bowl, whole wheat flour, yeast, sugar, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and water. (NOTE:  I used 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning, rather than 1 tablespoon.) Mix 2 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap; let rest 20 minutes.

2. Stir in salt, olive oil, and cheese. Add whole wheat flour; mix 2 minutes. Gradually add enough of the bread flour to form a soft dough. Knead dough 5 to 8 minutes. Place in lightly greased bowl. Cover; let rise until double.

3. Divide dough into two pieces. Gently pull or stretch each piece of dough into a circle or rectangle ¾-inch thick. Place on greased baking sheets or pizza pans that have been dusted with cornmeal. Cover, let rise 20 to 25 minutes.

4. Dimple dough with fingertips every ½ inch. Brush with oil; sprinkle on cheese and, if desired, Kosher salt. Let rest 5 minutes.

5. Bake in preheated 400°F oven 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. During last several minutes of baking, sprinkle with Italian seasoning or fresh herbs. Best served fresh. (NOTE: I sprinkled with Zataar seasoning.)

Makes 2 focaccia (16 servings each).

Focaccia is also tasty with cavatini and a green salad.

***

Today, I'm linked to Weekend Potluck, hosted by these bloggers. Check out the tried-and-true recipes from them and other food enthusiasts!

• Served Up With Love ~ Melissa
• The Country Cook~ Brandie
• The Better Baker ~ Marsha
• Sweet Little Bluebird~ Mary
• Mommy’s Kitchen~ Tina

Resurrection Rolls

"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date.

"No time to say 'Hello," 'Goodbye,'

"I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!"

The White Rabbit was late in Alice in Wonderland. Easter has come and gone, and this recipe would have been more timely before the big day. For several years, I've looked up recipes for Resurrection Rolls, but I didn't actually make them until last Friday, prior to our Saturday Easter celebration in Topeka. 


I could wait until next year and hope that I remembered I had this recipe lurking around in the files. But I had a request for the recipe. Plus, Jill says she likes these better than cinnamon rolls, so I will likely make them again before Easter. 


The rolls represent the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, thus the name. You put a large marshmallow inside a piece of dough and seal it up. After baking, the roll is hollow inside.

If you want to make them with children, grandchildren or a Sunday School class, here is the symbolism:

• The piece of dough represents the cloth they wrapped Jesus' body in for burial. 
• The marshmallow represents Jesus' body.
• The butter and sugar-cinnamon mixture represent the oils and spices His body was anointed with for burial.
• Seal the roll tightly around Jesus' body, like the stone was rolled in front of the tomb to secure it. 
• Wait for the "rising." (Obviously, you're not waiting three days, but you can make that point with the children.)

To speed up this process, you can use frozen yeast rolls that you've thawed instead of making the dough from scratch. I've also seen several recipes that use a can of crescent rolls (and less butter, sugar and cinnamon, since you're only making eight rolls.)

If you're using this for a Sunday School class, you can read the story from the Bible as the rolls are baking. They are so good you won't want to wait until next Easter to make them. And the Easter story is one we should remember every day, not just once a year amidst white lilies and brand new dresses.

Homemade Resurrection Rolls

Makes 32

1/2 recipe Kim's yeast roll dough
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
32 large marshmallows

Make yeast dough as directed. (Click on the above link or use a favorite homemade yeast dough recipe.) Let rise until doubled in bulk. Divide dough in half. Use the other half for crescent rolls, cinnamon rolls or additional Resurrection Rolls.

Divide remaining dough into 32 pieces. Mix sugar and cinnamon together. Dip large marshmallow into melted butter. Roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Flatten one piece of dough. Put marshmallow in the middle of dough, wrapping the dough around and securing the marshmallow inside, making sure it is well covered. Dip into melted butter again and then roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. You can place the balls in muffin cups or place 16 each in two 13- by 9-inch pans. Let them rise until doubled. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes until lightly browned. When you open the rolls, you'll find that the rolls are hollow inside, like Christ's empty tomb. (I did find that the rolls boiled over a bit in the muffin tins, so you need to line the oven with foil if you choose muffin tins.The marshmallow does melt out, making a gooey sauce in the bottom of the pan, which you don't want in your oven.)

***

Today, I'm linked to Wake Up Wednesdays. Click on the link for recipes from across the country.

***

I'm linked to the Country Fair Blog Party hosted by:

Nicole of Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom; Taysha of Dirt Road Charm; Danielle of High Heels and Shotgun Shells and Laurie of Country Linked.

Over the (Crescent) Moon

My bread baking skills were slow to evolve. As a Pratt County 4-Her, I was lucky if my yeast bread entry earned a red ribbon. And, back in my day, 4-H judges didn't mind handing out white ribbons either. I certainly got my share of those in the yeast bread department.

I learned more as the 4-H parent than I did as the 4-Her. When Jill and her friend, Holly, got interested in yeast breads, my personal education began in earnest.

Pretzels provided their first foray into the world of yeast breads. They gave a demonstration called Fit To Be Tied for county 4-H club day and an enterprise was born. Their purple-ribbon talk earned them the right to give the demonstration at regional club days and at the Kansas State Fair. Then they sold pretzels - hundreds of them - at Stafford's Oktoberfest. (Jill's 4-H book says each girl made around 300 giant pretzels.) It was a learning experience for all of us - for Jill and Holly and for me and Tami, Holly's mom. (I recommend pretzel making as a first step for beginning 4-H cooks who want to try yeast breads.)

The year after the pretzel demonstration, they decided to try their hand at shaping yeast dough into rolls and gave another talked called Shape Up! Holly mastered the more complicated rosettes and twisted braids. Jill and I were better at crescent rolls.

From Jill's 4-H Foods and Nutrition story that year:
We showed how to make cloverleaf, crescent, Parkerhouse and rosette rolls. We made somewhere in the neighborhood of 864 homemade dinner rolls while we practiced for county and regional club days, made rolls for our families and prepared entries for the county fair.

That's a lot of rolls. But all of us - the 4-Hers AND the moms - got better at yeast bread baking. What was the secret? Practice. If you only bake yeast bread once a year for the county fair, you're not going to become a master at it.

I'm still not a master at it, but I have become my family's bread baker for the holidays. I still prefer making crescent rolls, and I have some step-by-step photos to help you conquer fear of yeast roll shaping, plus other links for recipes and videos.

Because of preferences for some of the extended family, I make some white rolls (and that's what is pictured in the step-by-step photos). But for better nutrition, use at least half whole wheat flour.  You can use hard red winter wheat flour. Now there is also white winter wheat flour available, which is often more appealing to white bread fans.

A little investment of time and effort will have your holiday guests over the (crescent) moon when you serve them homemade rolls.

Classic Crescent Rolls

2 pkg. dry yeast
2 1/4 cups warm water (105 - 115 degrees)
2/3 cup nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup margarine, melted
2 tsp. salt
3 cups whole wheat or white whole wheat flour
3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add dry milk, honey, margarine and salt. Stir well. Using a heavy-duty stand mixer, beat in whole wheat flour until well blended. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes to allow the whole wheat flour to absorb moisture. (If you do this, you won't have to add as much additional flour and you'll have a lighter dough, so a little patience is warranted here!)

Add 3 cups of all-purpose flour and use a dough hook on the mixer to incorporate the flour. After it has been mixing for awhile, add additional flour, a little at a time, until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Using the dough hook, knead the dough mechanically for 4 to 7 minutes.

Turn out onto very lightly floured surface and knead for just a few more minutes until smooth and elastic. Take care to not add more flour than is needed. (If you don't have a heavy-duty stand mixer, you may knead by hand for 8 to 10 minutes.)

Place dough in a lightly-greased bowl, turning it over once to allow the dough to have a little of the oil (or cooking spray) on its surface. (If a skin forms on the dough, it hampers its stretch and it may cause streaks in the finished bread.) Cover the bowl with a lightly dampened tea towel while the dough rises.

Allow to rise in a warm place (80 to 82 degrees) until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. To test dough for doubled bulk, press two fingers lightly and quickly about 1/2 inch into dough. If the dent remains, the dough is doubled.

Punch down and turn onto a board for shaping. Do NOT have additional flour on your board. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes before shaping. For crescent rolls, use a knife to divide the dough into four equal pieces; you want to cut the dough, rather than tearing it. Roll 1/4 of the dough into a 12-inch circle, about 1/4-inch thick. Using a pizza cutter, cut the circle into 8 equal parts. Pick up each triangle at the wide edge and roll up tightly. Pinch the point to prevent unrolling and lay it point side down on a lightly greased baking sheet. Curve ends of each roll on baking sheet to make the crescent shape. Repeat for each of the 4 parts of the dough, making a total of 32 rolls.

Cover the rolls and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes or until light, golden brown. Turn out onto cooling rack. Brush hot rolls with butter, if desired. (A note to 4-H bakers: Don't put the butter on your hot rolls for the fair. Just use that for rolls for home use!)

Roll shaping 101 via photos:

This is how the dough looks after it has doubled in bulk after about 1 hour.

Turn the dough out onto a NON-floured board. I never add more flour at this stage as it will cause streaks in the finished dough. If you've incorporated the right amount of flour when you were mixing, you don't need more flour.

Divide the dough into four equal parts, using a knife. Don't tear the dough - cut it.

Roll each 1/4 portion into a 12-inch circle using a rolling pin. It will make it about 1/4-inch thick.

Cut each into 8 equal parts using a pizza cutter or knife. (I like a pizza cutter.)

Starting at the wide end, roll toward the point, keeping the roll as tight as you can. Tuck the point under the roll and squeeze it so that the point won't come undone as it rises. Curve the roll toward the center to form the crescent shape.

After the rolls have risen for another 45 minutes to 1 hour, they'll look puffed and ready to go. If you look at the close up photo above, you can see at the curve how the dough has stretched and risen.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes. Keep a close watch. You know your oven. You don't want to go to all this work and then burn them in the end!

For more information about shaping (like shaping into these pan rolls), go to Recipe Tips: Shaping Rolls.

Want other ideas and recipes? Winter is the perfect time of year for experimenting with yeast breads and yeast rolls. You won't mind heating up the house when the winter winds are blowing outside. 

Here are some links for you to explore the world of bread baking:

Kansas Wheat

America's Bread Basket (includes recipes from the National Festival of Breads)

Wheat Foods Council

Homemaking Association and its link to videos that show step-by-step the how-tos of making bread and rolls.