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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Auntie Vi's Italian Olive Oil Rolls

The Orphan Reds have never made bread before. They are fascinated!

We're using my Sicilian auntie's recipe for Italian Oil Rolls.

I've had this, her handwritten recipe, since I was in my twenties:

Italian Oil Rolls
Makes 1 doz.

Ingredients

1 pkg. dry yeast, or 1 cake compressed yeast
1 cup water (warm)
2 T sugar
1 ½ t salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 egg
3 to 3 ½ cups flour

Directions
  In large bowl soften yeast––sprinkle in warm water with sugar.
When yeast is soft, add salt, oil, and egg.

Gradually add flour, just enough to make soft dough.
Knead until smooth and elastic (10 min.)
Place in greased bowl, turning dough to grease surface.
Cover and set in warm spot.
Let rise until double, about 1½ to 1 3/4 hours.

Shape 12 rolls in muffin tins.
Cover.
Let rise about ½ hr. to 45 min.

Bake in preheated 350ยบ oven. about 20 min.


UPDATE: Success!

3 comments:

  1. Looks and sounds like such good food (even though don't eat grains)! It's wonderful to pass on family recipes. I was talking with younger women a couple times this past week. One, who will soon be married, appreciated my mentioning how food is tied up with emotion. The other spoke about trying to write down a recipe while watching the relative, who uses handfuls and pinches, bake the dish. It's great to make the effort to inscribe such things!

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  2. Hi, Deanna!
    Food is such a powerful carrier of memory, for better or worse. (I have horrible, indelible memories of my mother insisting I eat chicken livers when I was little. UGH!!!)

    I'm grateful my auntie is a recipe-writer! Her mother, my Sicilian grandmother, never wrote recipes down--she cooked by feel,
    the handful-and-dash style you mention.

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  3. I have not made bread in years! My masters' degree is in Grain Science (yes that is a real degree) from the school of Agriculture at Kansas State. Since my desk was in a lab we were constantly baking bread but then again we had the mixers, flour, proofing units and a great oven. To have warm bread with butter from the dairy science department we were in heaven!

    Before my dad died, I was able to ask him for my grandmother's cookbook which was basically a journal in which she wrote down recipes. But her recipes are just lists of ingredients with no mixing instructions. I really wanted her sugar cookie recipe which were the best-not as much sugar. My dad told me that everyone then basically just provided the ingredients as they assumed you knew how to mix them and bake.

    So get those recipes while you can!

    Kirsten

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