The Butter Lover’s Dinner Roll

Most of the rolls I grew up eating were either pre-packaged (like King’s Hawaiian) or “brown & serve” offerings from the freezer section. Royce Tanaka’s childhood was just the opposite. While growing up in Hawaii, his grandfather, Masao Teruya, owned and operated M’s Bakery in Wahiawa, on the island of Oahu. Tanaka has fond memories of spending time at the bakery on the weekends while his mother helped out.

Teruya sold a particular baked good that was and still is extremely popular in the Aloha State: the appropriately named butter rolls, made by baking a rich, lightly sweetened yeasted dough in muffin pans with a pat of butter at the bottom. Teruya didn’t invent the butter roll—other bakeries made them, too—but his were Tanaka’s favorite.

The “intense caramelization of the butter into the bread” is what Royce remembers most. “I peeled off the top layer, crispy and hot, and added more butter.” Unfortunately, Teruya did not leave any record of his recipe or techniques, so Tanaka reached out to Milk Street’s My Family Recipe for help recreating his grandfather’s rolls.

Use a combination of fats for the best butter rolls

Butter rolls are reminiscent of Parker House rolls, so we used them as our jumping-off point to develop this recipe. Unsurprisingly, fat is the key to their soft, pillowy crumb. It “shortens” the dough by breaking the gluten into smaller (shorter) strands, resulting in a tender dough. Somewhat surprisingly, butter isn’t the only fat we use in this recipe. A combination of butter and vegetable shortening work in tandem to give these rolls the best possible texture and flavor.

Don’t let the shortening throw you off. Butter is certainly sexier than shortening. It browns well, tastes incredible, and feels like a more “natural” choice than hydrogenated vegetable oil. But hydrogenation is just the process of adding hydrogen atoms to fat molecules. This essentially removes the “kinks” from the long chains, allowing them to snuggle up close so they “stack” and keep their solid shape at room temperature.

And while butter also is solid at room temperature, it’s not a pure fat. Unlike shortening, it contains salt, milk solids and a water content of around 15%. Add too much butter, and your dough will be overly hydrated—high hydration is something we find appealing in pizza dough, but it can lead to soggy dinner rolls.

Butter also has a lower melting point than shortening, which results in “spreading.” This is why particularly buttery cookies tend to flatten out in the oven—great in a chewy chocolate chip, but not what you want in a dinner roll. Using a combination of butter and shortening ensures the rolls keep their shape, without sacrificing tenderness. The two are melted together in a mixture of milk and water. Yeast is added to the liquid and it’s all poured into the dry ingredients to make a supple, elastic dough.

Keep your salt crystals small and your water warm

Kosher salt is our salt of choice when dry brining a chicken or seasoning a soup—it’s much easier to grab and portion—but this is one time we recommend using plain ol’ table salt. Its small crystal size ensures it dissolves fully in the batter for uniformly seasoned rolls.

Another small but important detail is the temperature of the butter-shortening-milk mixture. You want it warm, but not hot—no hotter than 110°F. A warm environment helps yeast do their thing, but high heat will kill them dead. An instant-read digital thermometer is the easiest way to check the temperature, but you can also dip your finger in there; if it feels slightly warmer than body temperature, you’re good to go.

Butter the bowl, butter the bottoms

You’ll know you’re done mixing and kneading when the dough is smooth, stretchy, and clears the sides of the mixing bowl without sticking. Once it reaches this point, it’s ready for a little nap in a well-buttered bowl. Cover and let it rise for a couple of hours. In the meantime, you can prep your muffin tin. Grease the cups with shortening (to ensure the rolls don’t stick) then drop 1/2-tablespoon pieces of butter in each cup (to ensure you get the “intense caramelization” so prized by Royce).

Fold and tuck for easy layers

In addition to buttery, caramelized bottoms, we wanted to make sure we gave Royce the peelable, almost laminated layers he craved. This turned out to be very easy. Once the dough doubles in bulk, all you have to do is turn it out onto a floured counter and divide it into a dozen little rectangles. Fold them in half once, then tuck the corners into the cups of the muffin tin. Let rest one more time, then bake until tall and golden brown. Serve warm (with more butter), but don’t toss the leftovers. They’re brilliant griddled (in butter), especially with a dollop or two of guava jam.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.