A New Holiday Tradition?

It has been a really long time since I did a recipe. Honestly, husband's been doin' most of the cookin' with me at the barn more. But despite this being library week and goin' to see the possible cow, I was home enough days in a row to fix somethin' special.
What I did was this. I read, some years ago, on somebody's blog, about making croissants I guess it was. That's where I got the idea anyway to take dough and squash it, butter it, layer it. Except the blog I read it on was definitely not a "you can do this" sort of blog but an "I'm a chef, I'm special" kind of blog. Lawd but I hope that you get that I am not about anything if it isn't that you can do this too. Don't be stupid, be creative, be brave, be persistent, have vision, get along with your family and pay no attention to what the rest of the world thinks and you can do this too!

Well, the rolls are even easier than that. I took my regular bread recipe (and remember, I let a bread machine do the first part of the regular, non-fermented, breads) and changed it a bit. I took a cup and a half of water and warmed it. I usually use a bit more liquid but I wanted a soft dough so I put in more oil that usual, a quarter cup or a bit more. I put in some sugar just because, probably a quarter cup of that too. About four cups of freshly ground hard wheat flour. Two teaspoons of yeast. And I was supposed to put in two teaspoons of salt but I got all distracted and forgot that on this batch. Bread always needs salt. I think that is it. What I usually put in that I didn't was extra gluten because I wanted a soft dough.

I let the machine knead and do the first risin'. I melted butter, got my basting brush, my rollin' pin, a pan and a board all greased up (actually, spray oiled), and turned the dough onto the board. And then I rolled it out to a rectangle. Then I buttered that rectangle, folded it over, found out that it was easiest to butter it and fold it twice for every rolling out, and did that several times. Roll, butter, fold, butter, fold, roll, etc. After about eight times I got to thinking about how many layers I had (2,4,8,16, 32, 64, 128, 256) and I stopped and rolled the whole thing out as thin as I could. Then I proceeded to cut it into triangles, butter those, and roll those up like the crescent rolls that my mother fed me (and guests) on special occassions. Then butter the tops.

Then I let them rise and baked them and you see the results. Light, flakey, buttery, delicious. I sprinked kosher salt on the top of this batch since I'd figured out by then that I'd forgotten to salt the dough. These are definitely good enough to join the brocolli salad and pecan pies as a holiday tradition.