Jordan Rolls Southern Family Recipe
This is my personal roll recipe, that I serve whenever an occasion calls for them. They are pretty easy as far as yeast breads go and I hope your family will enjoy them as much as mine does. I especially like to make them whenever I bake a ham, using the leftover rolls and ham to make little sandwiches with the next day.
Recipe Ingredients:
- All purpose flour
- Sugar
- Salt
- Yeast
- Vegetable shortening
- Two eggs
- Melted butter
You’re also going to need some hot water and aren’t we fortunate to be able to just go get that out of the sink?
Lots of folks don’t have such luxuries.
What Kind of Yeast Should I Use?
I don’t like to use packets of yeast because I have the patience of a nervous lizard so I use the jar yeast which can be purchased beside the packets.
This way I just measure it out. The back of the jar will tell you how many teaspoons equal a packet. In this case I’m going to use four and a half teaspoons.
I’m going to just put the packet measurements at the bottom, though, because that is what most people use.
This little jar will keep forever if you put it in your fridge but I usually go through a few each year – at least.
Measure your sugar, salt, 2 cups flour, and yeast into a bowl.
Cut in shortening with a long tined fork.
You can use a fancy pastry cutter if you want to but that’s just one more thing to clutter up my kitchen so I got rid of it years ago.
After you get your shortening cut up in there real good, add your eggs.
Like so.
Flash was on in this picture so if it looks a little whiter that is why.
Beat up your eggs a bit.
I know they didn’t do anything to ya but sometimes things like this happen with no provocation.
Those eggs were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Beat ’em!
And mix them up in there.
Now we add our melted butter. You want to melt this and then give it time to cool so that it isn’t too hot.
A Good Rule of Thumb For The Liquid Ingredients
The thing about yeast breads that is most tricky to folks is getting their liquid ingredients the right temperature. A good rule of thumb that has always served me well has been to make sure liquids are about the temperature as baby’s bath water. Yes, I stick my finger in the melted butter, it doesn’t hurt anyone.
If it’s as warm as a baby’s bath water, but not hot, then it is a great temperature.
Add the remaining flour.
and the water, again making sure the water is the temperature of baby’s bath water.
If you don’t know what temperature a baby’s bath water is then you could always go borrow a dirty baby, I suppose…
Stir that up good.
It’s going to look like a lumpy blob when you’re done.
Cover that with a towel and let it sit for twenty minutes.
After twenty minutes, it’s going to look like an even bigger lumpy blob.
This is good. You have done well, grasshopper.
Now we need to flour a surface and pour our blob out onto it.
I just put out a sheet of waxed paper to save cleanup and sprinkle a good bit of flour over it so my dough doesn’t stick.
You need to knead..
~pauses and reads that again~ That just looks funny…
How To Knead Dough
Okay, so you need to knead your dough a time or two and what I do is just put some flour on your hands, press the dough into a ball, and then smoosh it out with the heel of your hand. Then put it into a ball again and smoosh it out again with the heel of your hand.
Then wonder what crazy person decided to call that part of your hand a heel because that makes no sense at all to me.
From here there are two ways you can go with these rolls.
Okay so in reality there are countless ways you can go with this but I am going to show you the two ways that I use.
I’ll start with my favorite and the less maintenance one.
My favorite Method for Rolls #1
After kneading your dough two or three times, shape it into a rectangle.
If this doesn’t look like a perfect rectangle to you then squint your eyes until it does…
Cut into strips with a pizza cutter.
And then cut cross wise.
I like this method best because it’s easy and ends up yielding larger and smaller rolls which seem to suit company better anyway.
Spray one 9×13 pan with cooking spray.
Arrange in pan and spray tops lightly with cooking spray.
Cover with towel and let rise for twenty minutes.
~~~~~~~~
METHOD 2 For Jordan Rolls
Pat your dough out into a circle, about twelve inches in diameter.
With a pizza cutter, cut the circle into sixteen pieces.
Spray two 9×13 inch pans with cooking spray.
Roll each triangle up beginning on the big end and rolling towards the point.
Like so.
Space them out a bit and put them in two 9×13 pans.
I spray the tops lightly with more cooking spray to have prettier rolls when they are done baking and to help prevent them from sticking in the next step.
Cover with a towel and place in a warm place for another twenty minutes.
note: My oven is not on in this pic.
After twenty minutes, preheat oven (without rolls in it) to 350.
Bake for about twenty five minutes. Brush with melted butter or margarine when done.
Method #1
Method #2
They both look mighty good to me. Imagine breaking them apart and adding some butter inside and just watch it melt as you take a bite.
Ingredients
- 1/2 C solid vegetable shortening
- 1/2 C Sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 pkg fast acting yeast**
- 5 C all purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 stick butter melted (plus more for brushing baked rolls with)
- 1 1/2 C warm water like a baby’s bath temperature, this is key with working with yeast
Instructions
- Place sugar, salt, 2 cups of flour, and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Cut in shortening with a long tined fork.
- Add eggs, beating lightly with fork before stirring them in. Add remaining flour, melted butter, and water. Stir together well. Mixture will look like a big old lumpy blob.
- Cover with a dish towel and let sit in a warm place for twenty minutes.
- After 20 minutes, turn out onto a floured surface. Sprinkle flour over the top and knead three or four times.
- Pat out into a square that is about 3/4 inch thick (or see method #2 above). Cut into squares with a pizza cutter.
- Place in greased 9×13 pan and cover with towel. Let rise another 20 minutes. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until tops are golden.
- Brush hot rolls with additional melted butter.
Notes
Nutrition
You may also like these rolls recipes:
Pizza Rolls! Who wants the weekend off from cooking??
Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls Quick and Easy
“Strength comes from the inside,
but must be fed on the outside to be able to grow.”
-Richard Manintveld
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I don’t have enough regular flour can I use self rising flour?
You can *but* they are going to rise differently and the texture won’t be the same. It’s much easier to substitute plain flour for self rising than to go the other way around but you can sure try it! You might come up with another culinary creation! 😀 Also, they will likely be a bit too salty. If it were me, I think I’d make the ten minute rolls that call for self rising and hold off on the yeast bread until I had all purpose, and I normally just say go with what ya got so thats saying something! lol
Thank you. I love your recipes
love your downhome attitude and foods, but i hate it when you show a recipe and forget to put “print here”, you don’t do it that often but then i have to write it down, and i am a bit lazy, lol, so glad you are doing so great,
You can “copy and paste” in a Word document and then you won’t have to copy it down.
My finished piece looks like the photo, but they were heavy like biscuits. Not my idea of a “roll”– especially when made with yeast!
I tried this recipe today……not sure what went wrong! I am on my second batch trying to get them right. I have very dense, thick rolls. The flavor is okay, but the texture is really heavy. Can someone tell me what I’m doing wrong? I followed the recipe to the letter…..except for checking temp on butter. Would that make a difference? If butter was too hot? Help!!!
Not Christy here,but I think that I can help. Temperature is very important when working with yeast. All ingredients should be room temperature. Too hot or too cold will kill the yeast. Follow the temperature guide on the yeast.
Follow the temperature guide on the yeast for the water temp. Use an instant read thermometer for accuracy.
Love your site and cookbook. I will be trying your Jordan Rolls for the first time today! We are having “Chicken Planks” (a big hit) rice, pintos and these rolls. I have read through the comments and I think I am ready but wanted to ask if there is a way to make some of the steps ahead of time and then bake rolls at suppertime? Thanks for any help with this! Have a great day!
Hi, what a great site!! I got this recipe from the countrycook and just have them in the oven now, I am so excited to see how they turn out and am glad I visited this site. Great work:)
Christy, (or some other Southern Plate family member), please help! I am obviously doing something wrong here…I have made these rolls twice and had trouble both times. Pretty embarassing for an experienced yeast-bread baker! Both times this roll dough has turned out more of the consistency of thick cake batter than a soft dough. The first time I thought I had measured incorrectly–too much water or too little flour–so the second time I was very careful. However, I achieved the same results and still had to add quite a bit more flour. Has anyone else experienced this? Is the water measurement really supposed to be 1 1/2 cups and not just 1/2 C or 1 C? Advice, please!!! I know these rolls are quite tasty from everyone’s comments, and I’d love to make a successful batch!
I know this is an old comment, but I had the exact same problem. Hold the phone. I think I may have an answer. I just remembered I used soft Winter wheat (White Lily) LIGHT baking flour. I just checked the bag and it says to add 2 T. of the flour per cup to substitute for AP flour. That’s 10 extra tablespoons in the recipe alone!
They’re in the oven now, after kneading in extra flour and smell heavenly! We’ll just have to have Jordan Rolls, again…SOON. Darn! 😉