Mennonite Monday - Cherry Rolls

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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This week I made Cherry Rolls (pg 24W) because it was the poll winner last week.  I was a little nervous about making these because I have never attempted baking at this level and I'm not very good at rolling out dough. It either sticks to the rolling pin or the table or I use to much flour and it gets tough.  With that said I was a little skeptical going in, and I told Mike there was a chance that he could take cherry rolls to coffee if they turned out, but I wasn't making any promises.  Luckily, they turned out very well for my first try and he was able to take them to coffee.   

Cherry Rolls

2 Package Dry Yeast 

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup warm water

1/3 cup butter

1 tsp salt

1 cup milk (scalded) 

2 eggs, well beaten

3 1/2 cups flour

Soften yeast in warm water for 5 minutes.  Combine sugar, butter, salt and milk in large bowl.  Cool to lukewarm.  Stir in eggs and dissolved yeast.  Blend in  1 1/2 cups flour.  Beat well.  Stir in 1 cup flour.  Add sufficient flour to knead keeping dough as soft as possible.  Let rise until doubled in bulk.  Punch down and let dough rest 10 minutes.  to shape, roll dough into rectangle.  Spread with melted butter and sugar, fold in half, cut into narrow strips and twist from both ends then turn into a round roll.  Let rise, then bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes (until light brown).  Remove from oven and top (while hot) with cherry pie filling (pineapple or blueberries are also good).  Drizzle with frosting. 

 My yeast set for more than 5 minutes because it took a while to scald the milk and get everything ready, so by the time I was ready to use the yeast it had grown significantly. 

 Mixing the ingredients went pretty easy so, I don't have pictures of that, but it isn't anything out of the norm. 

 Half way through adding the flour. 

 I added flour until the dough started to form a ball, but wasn't extremely thick. 

 The dough was very soft and this was the point when I thought the rolls would be a flop because I kind of shook the bowl after the dough had rose and it just deflated down, which didn't look like good sign.  I went ahead and used the dough and it turned out fine, so maybe it was suppose to be that way.

 The dough rolled out surprisingly well. 

 Adding butter

 Adding the sugar.

 I cut my strips about 1 1/2 inches thick with a knife, which seemed to be a good size. 

  I tried a few larger and a few smaller strips and in the end they all worked the same.

For some reason the server rejected the rest of my photos from making this recipe, so I will end with the final product. I will keep trying to work with the pictures and upload them, but you will just have to wing it until then if you try this recipe.