Liz's Crescent Dinner Rolls

Oh man these rolls are SO good!! Tender and moist and fluffy and gorgeous. Seriously I love them. This recipe is my slightly modified version of "Liz's Crescent Dinner Rolls" from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner: Easy Family Meals for Every Day of the Week by Liz Edmunds. That is a really great cookbook full of great realistic home-cook recipes. My guess is that this dough would also make great pull-apart rolls if you just form it into 24 round rolls rather than crescents.

Liz's Crescent Dinner Rolls

5 - 5 1/2 cups bread flour (I used 5 1/4 cups)
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons SAF yeast or other instant yeast
1 cups milk, warmed
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon warm water
1/2 cup canola oil
3 eggs

2 tablespoons melted butter (for tops of finished rolls)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with dough hook, combine 5 cups flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Mix briefly just to combine. Microwave milk for 1 minute to warm. Add warmed milk, warm water, canola oil, and eggs to the flour mixture and mix. Add 1/4 - 1/2 cup more flour if needed to form a soft dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl (I used 1/4 cup more). Knead with dough hook on medium high speed for 5 minutes. Remove dough, form into a ball, and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick spray and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

Grease a 12-18 inch sheet pan and set aside.

Punch down dough and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 3 equal parts. Roll each part into a circle about the size of a dinner plate. With a pizza cutter cut dough into 8 equal wedges like a pizza. Roll up each dough triangle, starting at the wide end and tucking and pinching the end into the dough. Place the rolls point side down on the greased pan. Repeats with remaining dough. All rolls should fit onto the one sheet pan in 8 rows of 3 rolls.

Cover with a clean damp dish towel or plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick spray. Let rise until doubled in size, about 35-40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375. Bake rolls for 7 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven (this just helps the bottoms to brown). Move rolls to the middle rack and bake for 12-15 minutes or until rolls are golden. Remove rolls from oven and brush with 2 tablespoons melted butter.