Extra Special Rolls

This recipe is from the Southern Living Christmas cookbook I'm going through simultaneously with many others.  There are a lot of dinner roll/bread recipes I want to try from this one.  We had these with the Four Hour Barbecue recipe I just posted.  Lots of times I will make dinner roll dough in my bread machine and go from there, but sometimes I go all the way from scratch.  Just for fun.  These were a lot more work though, and I'm not sure it was worth it.

Extra Special Rolls
4 1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 pkg active dry yeast (this would be 4 1/2 tsp if you buy it in a jar or in bulk)
1 cup plus 3 tbsp milk
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter, softened

Combine 2 cups flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in large mixing bowl; stir well.  Combine milk and 1/2 cup butter in a saucepan; heat until butter melts, stirring occasionally.  Cool to 120 to 130 degrees.  Gradually add liquid mixture to flour mixture, beating at low speed.  Beat an additional 2 minutes at medium speed.  Add eggs; beat well.  Gradually stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough (I never know what's right...I used the whole 5 cups).

Turn dough out onto floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes)(I did for about 2 minutes...it looked fine to me).  Place in a greased bowl and turn to grease top.  Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Punch dough down; turn out onto lightly floured surface, and knead lightly 4 or 5 times.  Divide dough into fourths; roll each portion into a 12 inch circle on a floured surface.  Spread 1 tbsp softened butter on each circle.  Cut each circle into 12 wedges; roll up each wedge, beginning at wide end.  Place on lightly greased baking sheets, point side down.  Cover and let rise in a warm place for 35 minutes or until doubled in bulk.  Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until golden. 4 dozen.

These were a lot of work, like I said.  But everyone really liked them.  We put a bit more butter on the bottoms just before we ate them.  The dough was nice and soft.  Of note, one of my stones was inadvertently left at a house we were visiting on Christmas Eve, so when I ran out of room on my other two stones, I had to use a metal cookie sheet.  The 7 rolls on the cookie sheet all had burned bottoms, and 0 of the rolls on the stoneware did.  So that makes me love my stones even more.  I am so used to using them for everything that I had started to take them for granted, I think.  Nice little reminder.  Sam decided to play food critic tonight, and rated the rolls 4 out of 5 stars.  When he rated one of my jokes 3 out of 5 stars, I told him to get out of my restaurant.  Hahaha.