The Quest for a Long-Lost Family Recipe

The holiday tradition of trying (and failing) to replicate my late grandfather’s clover-leaf dinner rolls

I have very fond memories of walking home from elementary school each day and stopping at my grandparent’s house. Here my grandmother would feed me an after-school snack of freshly baked bread or buns (courtesy of my grandfather’s work in the kitchen), along with low-sodium margarine (they both had a history of heart disease and high blood pressure).

Now the low-sodium margarine I could probably leave (I don’t know if you have had the misfortune of trying it but it is pretty flavorless and kind of tastes like nothing). However, the bread and buns were something I looked forward to every day, along with the company of my grandparents, of course.

Every Thanksgiving and Christmas my paternal grandfather would be in charge of making the dinner rolls, and we would all meet at my maternal grandmother’s house and share the meal together, complete with turkey, gravy, and all the fixings.

These rolls have held a special spot in my memory and heart. Reminding me of simpler times and truthfully making me laugh remembering just how terrible the low-sodium margarine really was.

It has been more than ten years since my paternal grandmother and grandfather’s passing. Since then my father and I have spent each holiday attempting to recreate the bread and his signature clover-leaf dinner roll recipe with limited success.

One would be too sweet, the next too bland, and most often of all, we would fail to proof the bread and buns properly and end up with hard rock-like rolls that you could chip a tooth with (rather than the soft, fluffy ones from our memories).

This holiday, however, I have come the closest I ever have to recreate the family classic (even though I accidentally forgot to add in the salt while making the dough).

While a little blander than the original (more so than the simple oversight of salt). Also, the rolls my grandfather used to make were a tad bit sweeter. However, I was finally able to nail the crispy outside, but soft inside of the recipe (something that I had been struggling within previous iterations).

The solution to this may shock the faint of heart, and the health-conscious bunch – I dipped every shortening-filled piece individually and completely in butter before adding to a greased muffin baking sheet. The outcome (as long as you don’t think too much about calorie content) was delightful.

The recipe I used was from the Five Roses: A Guide to Good Cooking book, the recipe for “standard rolls”. As I am unable to post a picture due to copyright, I searched the internet for a very similar recipe and found this one from the cooking blog The Seasoned Mom. The only change would be the recipe I used didn’t call for eggs, and only two tablespoons of sugar were used (rather than the 1/4 cup from this recipe).

Looking forward to my second crack at the recipe for this season, tweaking what I already have here but remembering to add salt, perhaps adding an extra tablespoon of sugar.

Here’s hoping by the next holiday season I will be able to continue on the tradition that died with my grandfather, reviving his lost recipe of rolls for the family Christmas Day dinner. Until then you will find me in the kitchen, likely covered in flour, with my nose in three different cookbooks.