“Spoon Rolls” Recipe Review

I saw this recipe in the April 2010 issue of Country Living, and tried it within 24 hours.  The concept was too good to pass up.  Trisha Yearwood is coming out with a cookbook this month, and the story featured a handful of recipes from the book.  The one that caught my eye is called “Cousin Peggy’s Spoon Rolls.”


It’s a winner.  I’ve made them three times now, and my family has loved them.   The reason I love them is because they take about 5 minutes to mix up.  Because I use SAF Instant Yeast, I was able to simplify the already simple recipe even more.

Here’s how I made them.

In a large mixing bowl, melt 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter Add 1/4 cup sugar Mix together with hand mixer.

Add 1 egg and mix again.
Add 2 cups warm water and mix.

The recipe calls for 4 cups of flour.

I always use a quality bread flour (the best in my area is Roller Mills Turkey Flour) and add the flour one cup at a time, mixing after each cup.

With the second cup of flour, I also poured in 1/2 Tablespoon yeast.  Mix well.  (This is my only change to the basic recipe.  SAF yeast doesn’t have to be proofed in the warm water, so I can throw it in with the dry ingredients.  If you’re using active dry yeast, you need one packet (1/4 ounce) and you can add it to the 2 cups warm water before you begin mixing other ingredients.  If you want to learn more about SAF Instant Yeast, read here .)

Add the last 2 cups of flour and mix until smooth.

This is where it gets easy!

Transfer dough to a greased, airtight container and place in refrigerator to rise.
Refrigerate overnight or up to three days.  If it gets watery (mine hasn’t) you can add a bit more flour.
Remove from refrigerator and spoon dough into well-greased miniature muffin tins.  You really don’t have to do anything but spoon the dough out.  The recipe says it makes 5 dozen miniature rolls, but mine seemed to fill 4 dozen so I just went with that.


Now transfer to a preheated 350 degree oven and bake for 18 minutes.

Remove from oven and brush with melted butter, sprinkling a pinch of kosher salt on each roll.  This is my personal addition.  I like to do this on all my roll recipes.  The bit of salt seems to make people feel like they don’t need to load the roll with butter or other things.


I’ve shared these rolls with my family and a few friends and everyone loves them!  They have a wonderful texture and are simply delicious.


The down side is that they’re more fattening because of the butter.  My traditional roll recipe doesn’t have butter in it.  I must say, though, that the ease of this recipe is fabulous.  It takes 5 minutes to mix it up, then you put it in the fridge until you want to make them.  When it’s time to make them, it takes about 5 minutes to grease and fill the muffin tins.  So simple.  I also like the concept of baking rolls in miniature muffin tins.  With little children, the size is perfect.  Even my husband, who usually skips the bread, ate a bunch of them.  They would also be the perfect roll to make into tiny sandwiches for a luncheon or a little girl’s tea party.  They make enough that my family all gets some, but we have no leftovers.  For a smaller family, this is a good recipe because you’re not going to end up with too much.

And because no bread recipe makes it into my recipe book unless it’s pretty versatile, I tried making these without refrigerating them.  I mixed the dough as described above, then covered the bowl and let it rise for 15 minutes (which is all that is required with SAF Yeast).  Then I spooned the dough into the muffin tins and baked it.  I did find that baking them this way meant a much shorter baking time because the dough was still warm when I put it in the oven instead of cold from the refrigerator.  So, this way I shortened  the baking time to about 10 minutes, or when there is just a hint of golden brown around the edges of the rolls.  This meant that I had fresh rolls, start to finish, in 35 minutes!  Now THAT is a roll recipe you can start in the middle of dinner preparations if you want to.  Cleanup is a breeze as well.

For perfection, just add homemade strawberry jam.


Many thanks to Trisha Yearwood, cousin Peggy and Country Living  for sharing such a great recipe!  It’s a new family favorite around here.  I hope you’ll try them.  I’d love to hear what you think.