Happy Thanksgiving Includes Grandma's Buns

Well, I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. This week Andy's dad and step mom were in town so we were able to spend Thanksgiving with them and our good friends, the Seifert's. I was able to accomplish baking this morning...with Andy's help of course. Every year for Thanksgiving my grandma makes her famous buns and I would look forward to these very tasty buns every year when I lived in WI. So, I thought to help make this Thanksgiving feel like home it would be a great idea to make this tradition known as grandma's buns. I have heard for years how hard these are to make and I have never made them myself and I have never watched my grandmother (or my mother) make these awesome buns. I figured I could do this...piece of cake...as long as Andy was up to helping me. Word got around that we were making the traditional grandma's rolls and all of a sudden there was pressure on the rolls to turn out as everyone was looking forward to them.

First I had to get grandma's recipe from my mom, so I called and ended up with a thirty minute explanation of how to make them. I then asked for her to email it to me since I was driving home from work and couldn't write anything down. When I get the email it was literally four sentences long and was nothing like the 30 minute detailed explanation I got over the phone. For measurements I got something like "use 1/2 a small bag of flour." Ok, that is not a Rachel Rae recipe, but as you can tell it's a grandmother's old school recipe. There was also an ingredient for cake yeast and my mom said it might be hard to find, but I will find it in the refrigerated section. Mmmm...after two grocery stores we couldn't find it. Andy hit up Google and found out Red Star Cake Yeast is a midwest thing and is not sold anywhere else. It's actually made in Milwaukee, WI. At first I thought we are screwed because grandma said we have to use the exact ingredients and brands she had listed. Red Star's website said that since it's not sold all over the nation we can substitute for the regular packaged yeast, so we were back in the game.

My mom warned me the rolls would take 3 - 3.5 hours to make, so we got up this morning and started at 7:30am...however, we did not finish until noon. So my mom's timing was slightly off. Let's just say that after 4.5 hours of baking I was exhausted. I couldn't imagine making a whole turkey meal for a slew of people.

I am glad Andy helped me with the recipe as we made a great team together. I got everything mixed and prepared and Andy kneaded the dough. I really wasn't interested in that part so I played the "my shoulder and neck still hurt" and I am not sure if he felt bad or if he really just wanted to knead the dough, but either way I didn't have to. Here is a picture of Andy kneading the dough. I promised I wouldn't get his face in the shot as he was not camera ready.


I will admit we had to make two batches of dough because we didn't think the first batch would turn out for two reasons: 1. the potato water was not hot enough to melt the shortening and 2. I measured the salt wrong as I used the teaspoon instead of the Tablespoon...oops! I am glad we decided last second to make the second batch of dough as that one turned out much better than our first batch. Here are both of our batches rising.



After the dough had risen two separate times it was time to shape the dough into dinner roll sized balls, covered all the pans and let the dough rise again. After we had the first pan put in the oven we left the rest of the balls on the counter. I asked Andy if that is smart because of the dogs and he agreed it wasn't but would watch them while I started to get ready to go to the Seifert's house. While getting ready I still had to pay attention to how long the buns had been in the oven. After about 15 minutes I head to the kitchen to check on the buns and pass through the living room where I find Andy on the couch watching football...I guess he was done guarding the rolls, or he started to trust our beloved doggies. I turn the corner and find one of the towels pulled back with the buns exposed, Madison's paws on the counter and she grabbed for two dough balls. As I yelled "Hey," Madison dropped the dough balls on the floor and went running because she knew she was in trouble. So, out of 5 dozen buns we lost two due to doggie interference. The rest of them survived. Grandma's buns were a huge hit at Thanksgiving and everyone was asking how to make them. After I explained the process nobody was interested anymore. Here is the final picture of the famous buns.