On Thanksgiving I was assigned rolls for both of the parties we were going to. Cinnamon rolls were for one party and dinner rolls were for the other. I ran into a little problem with my timing. It has been SO cold out lately and my house wasn’t as toasty as usual, so my rolls weren’t rising as quickly as I would have liked.
Enter my favorite trick for helping rolls rise faster:
The heating pad.
I placed the heating pad under the rolls and turned it to high. The yeast in the rolls like heat, which makes them rise quickly.
Most of the time, when I’m making bread or rolls, I have the oven on and I can just set the pan of rising rolls on the stove top. Since my oven wasn’t going, this was a great way to get the rolls off of the cold counter top and start doing their thing.
While we’re sharing tips and tricks, I always use my old bread machine on the DOUGH CYCLE to make my bread and roll dough. It saves so much time. I throw the ingredients in, set it to dough, and it beeps at me when it has had enough time to mix and rise.
I know a lot of people don’t bake with yeast because it’s kind of scary. Yeast is tricky because you have to make sure your ingredients are warm, not too hot and not too cold. But, I’m here to tell you that it’s really not that hard. Oh, and once you have your heating pad out you might as well put it on a comfy chair and snuggle up to watch a good show on tv.
Happy baking and stay warm!
