Easy Short-Cut Orange Rolls
As much as I love to bake including involved recipes, now and then, it is nice to come across a simple but delicious new recipe. If that sounds good to you, as it did to me, then you need to give the “Easy Short-Cut Orange Rolls” a try. They won’t let you down on either account. They’re easy and delicious.
Adapted from and inspired by a recipe on www.ourbestbites.com
Click here for recipe
Rolls
1 bag frozen Rhodes® Rolls (unbaked dough, 18 rolls)
1 ½ C (10 ½ oz/298 g) granulated sugar
zest from 1 very large or 2 medium oranges
½ stick (4 T/56 g) salted butter, melted
Glaze
2 C (8 oz/227 g) powdered sugar
½ T butter, melted
4 T (60 ml) orange juice
1 T orange zest
½ t vanilla extract
Thaw rolls until thawed but not risen. You can put bag in refrigerator overnight, or place rolls on a parchment covered baking sheet at room temperature for approximately one hour.
While thawing, mix sugar and orange zest in shallow bowl with fork until sugar becomes a pale orange color.
Take each dough ball and gently stretch to about a 6-inch rope. Dip in butter and then roll in sugar mixture. Tie in simple knot and place back on baking sheet.*
Let dough rise at room temperature until about double in size approximately 2 to 2 ½ hours. As dough is rising, position oven rack in middle position and heat to 325° F (163° C).
Bake for 20 minutes or until lightly brown on top. Rotate pan one half turn midway through baking. When just about done, whisk glaze ingredients until smooth. Let rolls cool until just warm before drizzling on glaze. Rolls will be sitting in a delicious mixture of melted sugar so I recommend transferring rolls to serving plate before it hardens. Rolls are best served warm.
* Note: To make ahead of time, form your knots but don’t let rise. Instead, cover with plastic wrap and store in refrigerator. In the morning, remove from refrigerator and let rise on counter. Bake as described above.
Makes 18 rolls
Click here for Baker's Notes
30 Apr 18 – As a test, I only made ½ a recipe or 9 rolls. Defrosted rolls on wire rack on counter for approximately 1 hr. Dough was defrosted but still quite cold. Rolling each dough ball into a 6-inch rope was a bit challenging. They were too sticky to roll on counter even after I put a light coating of flour on counter. What worked best was covering my hands with flour and rolling it between them. With that method, I could easily get the rope 4 to 5 inches long. I let the dough rest for approximately 5 mins and then re-rolled each until I got them closer to 6-inches. Used zest from one medium orange to make sugar coating which along with sugar made more than enough coating to cover 9 rolls. 2 T of melted butter was just enough to coat the 9 rolls. Tying dough ropes in knots after dipping in butter and rolling in the sugar mixture was also a challenge and a bit messy. I needed to stretch each rope to at least 7 to 8 inches to reasonably tie a simple knot. Used proofer set to 75 to 80° F to let dough rise for approximately 2 ½ hrs. Because I used the proofer and only made 9 rolls, I used the small William-Sonoma (W-S) cookies sheet covered with parchment paper. The nine rolls fit easily although once they rose and doubled in size, it was another story. All 9 touched each other, not ideal. The next time I’d use a larger baking sheet and proof in the oven. Baked in island oven for 18 total mins. I covered them with Aluminum foil at 14 to 15 minutes because they were browning too quickly. Prepared the glaze as written although it took more powdered sugar (1 C) to get the correct consistency. Used 1 orange for zest for glaze which was more than enough. Applied glaze after rolls had cooled completely. The rolls had good flavor. Rolls were chewier than I expected but not in a bad way. I would recommend serving or warming up before serving.