Sourdough Brown Butter Herb Dinner Rolls

The perfect fluffy dinner roll to accompany your Thanksgiving feast this year! This roll is bursting with the flavors of caramelized butter and herbs. 

Quick and easy- just throw this dough together in the morning and let it proof. It’ll be ready to shape a few hours before dinner time. Make ahead and freezing is also an option so they’re ready to go whenever you want! 

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Ingredients:

200 g bubbly active starter (3/4 cup 1 Tablespoons)(fed 1:5:5 night before) 

113 g (1/2cup) butter, browned and cooled (save half for brushing) 

375 g (1 1/2  cups) whole milk, warmed to 80 degrees

25 g (1 Tablespoon and 1 teaspoon) raw honey

30 g (2 1/2 Tablespoons ) white granulated sugar 

6 grams (1 teaspoon) sea salt

550 grams (4 1/4 cup)  bread flour 

1 egg yolk 

Herbs:

1 tsp thyme, dried or fresh

1 tsp rosemary, fresh or dried

Topping:

1/4 cup (57 g) browned butter, warm

1/2 tsp thyme, fresh or dried

1/2 tsp rosemary, fresh or dried

Brown your butter:

Place 1/2 cup (113 g) unsalted butter over low heat in a saucepan. Stirring occasionally, allow it to foam and create golden specks. Remove from heat, and allow to cool to room temperature (don’t use it too hot). 

Note: you can skip the browned butter if you’d like and just melt butter and allow it to cool to room temperature. 

Fit your stand mixer with kneading arm. Add your starter, milk, honey, sugar, salt, 57 g browned butter (half of what you made) and egg yolk to mixer bowl and whisk together. Add 550 grams of bread flour, rosemary, and thyme and knead for ten minutes. This dough is high hydration so it’s important to work the gluten at this stage. 

Spray a straight edge container with oil. Transfer dough to oiled straight edge container (bowl will also work). Perform a few sets of stretch and folds to work dough into a ball. Cover, and allow to double in size (proofing 100% in volume). I allowed my dough to proof 6 hours in the oven with the light OFF, for a warmer environment (80 degrees). 

Spray a surface with coconut oil, and remove dough from container. To evenly weigh rolls, put your empty container on your scale and tare it to 0 g. Weight the total of your dough, and divide your total by 12. My rolls each weighed approximately 100 g. Remove your dough and weigh out 12 rolls. Roll and shape out your rolls. A bench knife is really useful for this, I use (https://amzn.to/3Yu9Rl1).

Spray a 9x13 cooking sheet with coconut oil or olive oil. Transfer rolls to pan in 3 rows of 4. Cover loosely with a damp towel or plastic and allow to proof until doubled in size, about 2 hours at 80 degrees.

Preheat oven to 375 F. When oven is hot, bake rolls for 35 minutes and tops are golden brown. Internal temperature should be between 195 F and 200 F.

While rolls bake, prepare herb butter. Slightly warm remaining browned butter, and add 1/2 teaspoon rosemary and 1/2 teaspoon thyme. Whisk together.

Brush butter mixture over rolls immediately after removing from oven. Enjoy!

Overnight refrigeration option: you can shape these rolls, and immediately cover pan and transfer to refrigerator. Dough should be good up to 48 hours in refrigerator. Once you remove from refrigeration, follow proofing and baking instructions. You may need to allow for additional proofing time for rolls to double as dough will be cold. Putting in a warm environment will speed this up (oven with light on).

Freezer/partial bake option: another option is to freeze rolls after partially baking. Instead of baking full 30 minutes, reduce to 20 minutes and allow rolls to cool completely. Reserve butter topping in refrigerator. I have a lid that fits my pan, that works best to prevent freezer burn. 

When you want to reheat, remove rolls from freezer and allow to thaw about 1 hour. Preheat oven to  375 F, and bake 20-30 minutes (internal temperature should be between 195 F and 200 F). Please note: baking times may vary depending on your oven so gauging by internal temperature is helpful. If tops are getting too done, cover with foil and bake to desired temperature. Warm your butter topping until melted. Brush immediately with browned butter topping. Enjoy!