Maple Oatmeal Dinner Rolls

These rolls are soft, hearty, and bring just a hint of maple sweetness to your holiday dinner. Adapted from our oatmeal bread, these are a great way to show off your skills this Thanksgiving (or whenever). They are a soft and airy roll with a nice crust.

The rolls marry the whole grain taste of oats with the sweet taste of maple. They are delicious with butter. They sop up any gravy or cranberry sauce. If you have any left over after a holiday meal- we suggest cutting them in half and using them as buns for small sliders with your leftovers.

Ingredients: 

1 tbsp of active yeast 

1 cup of warm water

1 cup of rolled oats (plus more for topping)

1/4 cup of Polly's Maple Granulated Sugar 

1/4 cup of Polly's Maple Syrup (plus more for topping)

1 egg 

3 tbsp of shortening

1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups of flour (divided) 

This recipe makes 12 large rolls- for 24 rolls- double the recipe.

Combine warm water and yeast together in a bowl, allow the yeast to bloom.

Once yeast is frothy- add your oats, maple sugar, maple syrup, egg, shortening, salt and 1 cup of the flour. 

Mix this together until a cohesive sticky ball is formed. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of flour, working it into the dough with your hands. It should form a soft cohesive dough. If it is too sticky- add a little more flour, a 1/4 cup at a time. 

Turn out this dough on a floured surface and knead for about 6 minutes. 

Place in a greased bowl, cover, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about an hour. 

Take out the risen dough and divide into 4 pieces. Divided those 4 pieces into 3 equal sized pieces. Roll each of these 12 pieces into tight balls. 

Grease a 9x9 baking sheet. Place the dough balls into the pan. Cover and let rise until each ball has doubled, about 30 minutes. They may seem too small before this second rise, but as you can see below they should just about fill the space when done rising. 

While dough is rising, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Once the rolls are done rising for the second time you can lightly brush the tops of the rolls with maple syrup and sprinkle some rolled oats over the top. This gives them a nice look and a brown crusty top. 

Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes, or until well browned. I rotated mine halfway through to make sure they'd brown evenly- depending on your oven you may want to do this as well. Remove from oven and let cool, turn out of pan and divide up. 

Enjoy!