Cloverleaf Dinner Roll

My son is still on holiday break, so we decided to bake bread again today. A few weeks ago we had brunch at Au Bon Pain and he enjoyed the Cloverleaf roll with his Chicken Noodle Soup, so I looked up the recipe.

Here's the dough after kneading. I bought the red silicone baking mat originally for rolling dough for cookies, but I decided to use it for kneading dough instead.


Here's the bread after baking. It's not soft like the roll we had at Au Bon Pain, but it tastes good, especially soon after it comes out of the oven while it's still warm.

Here's the recipe from Betty Crocker's Breads:

1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105 - 115)
3/4 cup lukewarm milk (scalded, then cooled)
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 cup shortening or butter, softened
3-1/2 to 3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water in large mixing bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, salt, egg, shortening and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

Turn dough onto slightly floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover; let rise in warm place until double, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. (Dough is ready if an indentation remains when touched.)

Punch down dough and shape into 1-inch balls, tucking edges under to they resemble mushroom caps. Place 3 balls in each greased muffin cup. Brush rolls with butter. Let rise 20 minutes. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake until rolls are golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.