Recipe for "yeast-rolls"

NAME

     YEAST-ROLLS - An utterly reliable recipe for yeast rolls.
     I believe this recipe started its life  on  the  back  of  a
     Fleischman's  Yeast  package,  but it has been memorized and
     modified for about ten years now.  It is the  most  reliable
     yeast recipe I've ever seen: it's never failed on me, and it
     always does an amazing amount of  rising  (my  family  calls
     them mushroom rolls).

INGREDIENTS (Makes 24 rolls)

     1.2 kg    all-purpose flour
     50 g      sugar
     10 ml     salt
     15 g      dry yeast (each package is about 1 Tbsp)
     120 ml    milk
     350 ml    water
     60 g      butter
     1         egg
               vegetable shortening or more butter

PROCEDURE

          (1)  Combine 2 cups of flour, sugar, salt,  and  undis-
               solved yeast.
          (2)  Heat milk, water, and  butter  until  liquids  are
               very warm (50-55 deg. C).  Add to dry ingredients.
          (3)  Beat 2 minutes at medium speed (I've never used an
               electric  mixer,  by  the  way.   Just  stir until
               things  are  evenly  combined  and  not   terribly
               lumpy.)
          (4)  Add egg and 200 g flour.  Beat  at  high  speed  2
               minutes.   Add  enough  additional flour to make a
               soft dough.  This is where  the  arm  muscles  get
               their exercise!
          (5)  Grease top of  dough  (with  butter  or  vegetable
               shortening).   Cover  the  bowl and refrigerate it
               overnight.
          (6)  Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces.  Shape them
               into  balls,  and  place  each in a greased muffin
               cup.
          (7)  Cover; let rise in a warm  place  (25-35  deg.  C)
               until doubled.  This will take between 1 and 1 1/2
               hours.  Towards the  end  of  the  rising  period,
               preheat the oven to 200 deg. C.
          (8)  Bake at 200 deg. C for 12 to  15  minutes.   Store
               the  rolls  tightly  covered-that is, if there are
               any left.

NOTES

     This  is  the  first  really  good  yeast  bread  recipe   I
     discovered  when  I started making bread in the sixth grade.
     Done carefully, it can approach a  delicate,  cakelike  tex-
     ture.  It doesn't have to be shaped into rolls, of course --
     try it in a regular bread pan, or in fancy shapes.
     I use Fleischman's dry yeast.  I suppose cake yeast  can  be
     used, but it always seemed like a nuisance to me.

RATING

     Difficulty: easy.  Time: 1 hour of work spread over 2  days.
     Precision: measure the ingredients.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Jean Marie Diaz (aka AMBAR)
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology
     Cambridge, MA
     "I choose this place to call my own;
      The only grace I've ever known.
      I never tire of legends grown;
      We dream too much, and time has flown...."