The mad holiday dash is right on our doorsteps, making now the time to get serious with your menu planning. Assuming it’s fallen with you to do the cooking yet again (lucky you!), you’ll be dusting off your old recipes and doing the usual inventory management.
At some point, you’ll face the same dilemma as millions of other households:
Do I go for store-bought dinner rolls this year, or make the effort to bake my own?
Frankly, it’s not really an option in my home. If I produce a batch of store-bought dinner rolls at this time of year, I’d be exiled. Disowned. Disgraced for all eternity.
All of which is actually quite the compliment, as my dinner rolls tend to be the hit of the whole shebang. Fresh from the oven, fluffy as can be and drenched in butter, they’re epic…period.
But what I can say for sure is that it wasn’t always this way. I had to experiment with dozens of different recipes before nailing it with this one formula. Mostly due to the fact that unlike most, I prefer baking dinner rolls with no yeast.
Why Dinner Rolls with No Yeast?
Let’s not beat around the bush here – yeast gives you gas. Sure, it’s packed with a huge dose of iron and B vitamins, but it can also leave you feeling bloated and uncomfortable.
There are ways to slow-proof dough over the course of two or even three days to combat this particular problem. But let’s face it – who has two or three days to dedicate to baking a batch of dinner rolls over the holiday season?
Not me – I’ve better things to do!
So, having experimented with a variety of ‘dinner rolls no yeast’ recipes, I found most to be uninspiring at best. As it turned out, I (and whoever I was ‘borrowing’ my recipes from) was totally over-complicating things.
Keeping things simple apparently holds the key to baking the most delicious dinner rolls ever, with no yeast necessary.
Equipment
How to Avoid Dinner Rolls Disaster
What’s great about leaving yeast out of the mix is how it actually makes the whole process much easier. I’m no expert, but I’ve found it completely impossible to go wrong with this fast and easy formula.
Prior to which, I was no stranger to baking blunders with yeast included in the mix.
Over the course of my various trials and errors, I also learned a handful of other important lessons. Specifically, the mistakes I was making that were severely compromising the result.
Whether you go with this super-simple recipe or freestyle with your own tweaks and additions, here’s how to avoid the most common dinner roll disasters:
1. If the Dinner Rolls Dough Doesn’t Rise
First up, dough that doesn’t rise is usually indicative of one of three things. The temperature of the dough and the surrounding space may be inappropriate, the texture of the dough isn’t right or you’re using an incorrect quantity of baking powder (or yeast). The science of baking bread calls for pinpoint precision where proofing dough is concerned, so avoid straying from the recipe with this aspect at least.
2. Where the Rolls Come Out Like Leather
The goal is to produce fluffy and cloud-like dinner rolls – not those that give you jaw-ache. Rolls that come out like leather are usually attributed to either using the wrong kind of flour or too much flour. Likewise, getting carried away when mixing the ingredients together can also result in a tough roll. Kneading dough is a careful balancing act – not too much, not too little. Chances are that if your rolls are coming out tough, you could be over working it.
3. When the Rolls Look Dry, Pale and Unappealing
This is by far the easiest issue to turn around, and can be a fairly forgiving process. When dinner rolls come out looking dry and pale, generally indicates you didn’t treat them to enough egg wash. A liberal dose of egg wash prior to baking is essential for that glorious golden brown exterior. Either way, you can (and definitely should) treat your rolls to a luxurious brushing of melted butter or olive oil, right before serving. Not just delicious, but a great way of covering up any errors you made along the way.
4. When You Don’t Have Enough to Go Around
Last but not least, the only thing worse than disappointing dinner rolls is not having enough of them to satisfy everyone’s appetite. This is where forward planning can help, while at the same time saving you a ton of time and effort. Always be mindful of the fact that dinner rolls – both in the form of cooked rolls and raw dough – freeze fantastically well. You can either freeze the dough or freeze a bunch of rolls and pop them in the oven for a few minutes after thawing them. It’s always better to have more than you need than to risk disgruntled guests!
FAQs
If you don't use yeast or other leavening in your bread dough, the bread will be dense and will not rise. As others have said, there may well be a subtle taste difference since yeast forms carbon dioxide gas and alcohol. There are many breads that are unleavened and most are flatbreads.
How can bread rise without using yeast? ›
Baking Soda
It helps breads rise and gives them their light and airy texture. Unlike yeast, baking soda needs an acid to activate it. By adding an acid to baking soda (such as lemon juice or cream of tartar) a chemical reaction occurs that produces carbon dioxide and fills your bread with air — much like yeast does.
How do you make homemade bread fluffier? ›
Add Sugar
Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.
What if I don't have enough yeast? ›
If you are lacking yeast in your pantry or dry goods storage, try combining baking soda and lemon juice. The chemical reaction between these two ingredients will help your recipe rise.
What can replace yeast in dough? ›
In baked goods, you can replace yeast with an equal amount of baking powder. Just keep in mind that the leavening effects of baking powder will not be as distinct as those of yeast. Baking powder causes baked goods to rise rapidly, but not to the same extent as yeast.
What is bread without yeast called? ›
Unleavened bread is any of a wide variety of breads which are prepared without using rising agents such as yeast or sodium bicarbonate. The preparation of bread-like non-leavened cooked grain foods appeared in prehistoric times.
How did the pioneers make bread without yeast? ›
With No Yeast : The Salt : NPR. Bake Bread Like A Pioneer In Appalachia ... With No Yeast : The Salt Bacteria can make a bread rise and give it a cheesy flavor. That's the secret ingredient in salt rising bread, which dates to the late 1700s in Appalachia, when bakers didn't have yeast on hand.
What did the pioneers use instead of yeast? ›
Instead of using a fungus (yeast) to raise their bread, early settlers used bacteria. Yeast was not readily available yet, so they created their own bacteria-based leavening agent with a base of either potato or cornmeal.
What is the secret to a soft and fluffy bread? ›
You want to rise the dough so that the yeast still has enough energy in it to work in the oven to give you a nice, light, fluffy loaf of white bread. Lightly cover the loaf pans with plastic wrap - do not make it too tight as you don't want the dough to rise up and get trapped in the plastic wrap.
What makes bread light and airy and fluffy? ›
Gluten is what gives bread its structure, and a strong gluten structure helps to trap air bubbles during the rising process, resulting in a light and fluffy loaf. It's important not to overwork the dough when making soft and fluffy bread.
Milk powder.
Instant milk powder makes bread dough super soft and fluffy and also helps to give it a good rise. It also contributes to the dough staying nice and soft after baking for a little longer than a recipe that does not use milk powder.
What makes homemade rolls heavy? ›
Too much extra flour worked into the dough while folding and/or shaping can cause dense bread. Over mixing can cause a dense loaf by the weakening and breakdown of the gluten (not likely to happen if you fold dough or hand knead). The flour you used is a whole grain with coarse bits of bran and grain in it.
How to make yeast at home? ›
How to Grow Baker's Yeast
- Step 1: Combine Equal Parts Flour and Water. Measure ingredients by weight! ...
- Step 2: Mix Well. Stir everything together until there are no more clumps of dried flour. ...
- Step 3: Let Sit. Let sit for 24 hours at 70°F. ...
- Step 4: Feed Your Starter. ...
- Step 5: Switch to 12 Hour Feedings.
Too much flour makes dough too stiff to rise properly, creating a dry texture.
What happens if you don't use yeast in baking? ›
Your dough may not rise as tall as you're used to, and you may also notice differences in flavor and texture. Still, if you're out of yeast, don't have time to wait for bread to rise, or are trying to cut yeast out of your diet for health reasons, these substitutes certainly are worth exploring.
What happens if you don't add yeast to dough? ›
NOTE: You cannot bake bread without adding yeast. Yeast is the catalyst that makes bread to rise and form and this is different from cake which does not need yeast. If you don't add yeast, you can not produce bread but biscuit.
What happens if you bake dough without letting it rise? ›
If baked too soon or too late, loaves can collapse and have a dense, gummy center. “There are so many factors that affect rise time, so exact time will vary for every baker.
What happens if you bake dough with dead yeast? ›
After awhile, if stored improperly, yeast cells will die. And if you use dead (or dying) yeast in your bread, it won't rise.
