Grandma Ruby’s Sunday Best Rolls

From the kitchen of Great Grandma Ruby Bunker Twitchell Norton and passed on to her daughter Lois Faye Twitchell Harward and then to her daughters!

In a large bowl mix:
One package FAST ACTING yeast & 1 Tablespoon sugar mixed together with 1/8th cup water. Let sit until yeast mixture is bubbly.
In a sauce pan, heat1 cup milk
½ 1/2cup butter
Heat milk until butter is melted then remove from heat. Make sure milk mixture is not too hot before adding the following --especially the eggs!
½ Add :
1/2cup sugar
3/4teaspoon salt
3 beaten eggs
4 cups flour
Add the milk and egg mixture to the yeast and stir thoroughly. Add four (4) cups flour and stir well. Add enough additional flour so dough is very soft ( maybe another cup of flour). If it is a little sticky that is okay ! Cover the dough with a towel and let rise about two hours. (With the fast acting yeast it just needs to raise til double in bulk.
When ready to roll out, spread flour onto surface and pour out a portion of the dough onto surface and knead gently! This recipe does NOT take much kneading . You just need to work in enough flour so the dough is soft and not sticky. Roll the dough into a large circle about 1/8” thickness. Using a pizza cutter cut the dough in half and then fourths, eighths, and so on, forming triangles. Dip one side of the dough in melted butter then roll up starting at the widest end to the smallest forming a crescent. Let rise til double about 1 -2 more hours, depending on the warmth of your kitchen. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.

**One package yeast contains 2 1/4teaspoons yeast, so if using yeast in a jar, you will need to use that much. By using “fast Acting” yeast, it greatly decreases the time it takes for these rolls to raise. (I often use 1 TBPB when I am in a hurry and need the rolls to raise a little faster.
These rolls are so good you will want to double this recipe. On Thanksgiving we usually four times the recipe to have enough rolls for turkey sandwiches the next day.

A bit about the history of these rolls and my life at Thanksgiving
When Grandma Ruby made these rolls, she did not have “Fast Acting” yeast, so it required a much longer time to make these rolls, but they were ALWAYS worth the wait! I remember many Sundays of going to Grandma Ruby’s for dinner where we always sat with the crystal and china and silver. Grandma always made a roast and always made her famous rolls. Wow, now that I am grown, I realize how much work she went to.
I remember my own Thanksgivings at home. My mother always set a beautiful table with her silver and china and crystal. In the little dining room or front room. We always started with fresh fruit cocktail served in a little muffin cup with a little seven up poured over the fruit. Then we started with the dinner after that. Mom would work hard in the fall to make fruit cocktail and freeze the fruit so it would taste fresh for Thanksgiving, as it wasn’t practical to buy fresh fruit at Thanksgiving time. The other thing I remember so well, were the pies. My grandmother and mother both made incredible pies, and there was always Lemon Meringue and of course my favorite was the Mincemeat pie. My mom and Grandma always worked to bottle the Mincemeat, and because I was spending time with them, I loved it so much. None of my children love the pie like I do, so I guess the passion will die with me, but my memory of watching my mother and grandmother make the mincemeat is a warm memory in my heart and probably why I love the pie so much.