Gigi’s Company Rolls

This recipe comes from my mom’s (hereafter known as Gigi) college notebook. She was a home economics major in college, so all cooking skills that I have and all confidence that I have in the kitchen comes from her.  An aside, eating raw biscuit dough (the buttermilk kind and not this recipe) never gave me worms as some of my mom’s first cousins told me.

 Gigi’s Company Rolls

(Dictated to me over the phone during the COVID-19 quarantine)

Conversations during the dictation will be in red.

Gigi “Hold on I have to find my cookbook. This is called Company Rolls.”

Me “Okay, what cookbook are you taking this from?”

Gigi “My college notebook.”

Me “😳”

Me “Well, we will use butter.”

Gigi “Butter won’t work. Too heavy. Use Crisco. It is pure.”

Me “🙄. Mom, what do you think they used during the Little House on the Prairie days? They didn’t have Crisco.”

Gigi “They used lard.”

Me “Well, Broken Arm kid used butter and they were delish, and they rose two inches.”

1 cup of shortening(we used butter)

1/2 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 cup of boiling water

2 eggs

2 packages of dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons in one package for those of you who buy in bulk)

1 cup lukewarm water

6 cups flour

Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the first three ingredients (shortening, sugar, salt). Stir until dissolved. Cool. It is very important for the mixture to be cool so that the eggs don’t cook in the next step.

Beat two eggs and add to the cooled first three ingredients.

Dissolve the 2 packages of dry yeast in 1 cup of lukewarm water.  Stir into the first 4 ingredients (shortening, sugar, salt, beaten eggs). Stir all ingredients together.

Stir in 6 cups of flour. You may add more if needed. 

Knead until elastic but not sticky.

Put into a greased bowl. (If you don’t grease the bowl and the top of the mixture, then it won’t rise well as it will stick to the sides of the bowl.)

Let it rest in the freezer until chilled.  My mom likes to do a quick chill. DO NOT FORGET ABOUT IT!

Remove and put in refrigerator.  When ready to use, pull out of refrigerator.

From bowl, pinch out rolls from the bowl mixture.  You don’t need to roll out the dough. Pinch out the amount of rolls you want to make and put the bowl with plastic wrap back in your refrigerator.

Pinch a small portion, about the size of a biscuit. Flatten on your hand. Dip in melted butter. Fold in half. Place in a greased pan(we used an 8” x 8” pan). Let them rise for 1 1/2 hours.  Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Also, Broken Arm Kid, because you called your Gigi yesterday and asked for help with a recipe, she said you will get all of her cookbooks.

Enjoy!