Cloverleaf Rolls

Bread is an essential part of any holiday meal….OK…. who am I kidding, it’s essential to any meal. But for a holiday meal, homemade bread is always a winner. Enter these cloverleaf rolls. They’re so pretty looking and it’s fun to pull them apart and slather each section with a good helping of butter and, of course, a little drizzle of honey or maple syrup doesn’t hurt either.

The really good news about these rolls is that they’re not that hard to make and your guests will be super impressed, because, as I said, they’re so pretty. Plus they’re buttery and crispy on the bottom because you drizzle a little butter in the bottom of each muffin cup. That’s right, you make these beauties in a muffin cup, that’s how you get the perfectly uniform shape.

I should also mention, these freeze beautifully. So if you have leftovers (ahh, which you won’t) or if you want to make these ahead, just pop them in the freezer. I like to defrost and heat them up by putting them in a cold oven. I then set the oven to 350 degrees. When the oven comes up to temperature, I remove the rolls and they are reheated to golden perfection!

Cloverleaf Rolls

1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
5 tsp yeast (2 packages)
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
6 cups flour, plus 1/2 cup
1 stick butter, melted

Mix 1/2 cup water, 1 tsp sugar and yeast together in a glass measuring cup and set aside to rise.

Mix remaining water, sugar, oil, salt and eggs together.

Add 3 cups of flour and mix with a mixer until smooth.

Add yeast when its risen to the top of the cup. ( the yeast gets really bubbly and expands while it sits)

Add 1 more cup of flour still using mixer.

Add last 2 cups of flour and mix with a spoon or the dough hook of your mixer, do not over mix.

Put 1/2 cup of flour on a board and put dough on it.

Knead the dough until flour is worked in. If it’s still really sticky, add a little more flour at a time until it’s just slightly sticky.

Drizzle some oil in a bowl, then add the dough and coat with the oil.

Cover dough with a paper towel and let rise until it doubles, (about 1 hour). To rise, use the proof feature on your oven, if you have it, or heat oven to 200 degrees and turn off, then put dough in.

Once dough is risen, turn out, back onto a lightly floured board and punch down (flatten and fold over).

Divide dough into 24 equal pieces.

Divide each piece into three pieces and form into balls.

Pour about 1 tsp butter into 24 muffin cups.

Place 3 balls into each muffin cup.