It isn’t often that a recipe surprises me and gets me this excited! What am I so excited about? I have finally created a delicious spelt dinner roll that is light and airy and isn’t as dense as a brick! What’s even better is that they only take 30 minutes to make from start to finish! These are yeast rolls and typically you have to allow the rolls to proof (or rise) for several hours. Well this recipe takes out all the wait time and will have you just as excited as I am….for real!!
How do I achieve creating these rolls in such little time? I do so by soaking the yeast for 15 minutes. This speeds up the process of the yeast allowing it to rise much more quickly. I simple add the warm water, yeast, Rapadura Organic Whole Sugar
After the balls are formed allow to sit for 10 more minutes and then cook in a 400°F oven for another 10 minutes or until they turn slightly golden brown on the top. Brush the tops with a little melted butter and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds. Serve warm and enjoy!
- 1 cup plus 2 tbsp warm water
- ⅓ cup melted coconut oil
- 2 tsp dry yeast
- ¼ cup sucanat, or rapunzel
- 1½ tsp unrefined sea salt
- 1 large egg
- 3½ cup spelt flour, sprouted spelt flour or white spelt flour (any of these would work)
- poppy or sesame seeds
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- In your mixer bowl combine water, coconut oil, yeast and sugar. Mix and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
- Using your dough hook attachment, mix in the salt, egg and flour. Knead with hook until dough is smooth and soft (about 2 minutes).
- Form dough into 12 balls and place into a greased 9"x13" pan and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
- Bake for 10 minutes or until tops are golden brown.
- Brush with melted butter and sprinkle some poppy or sesame seeds on top.
Halle, what is sucanat, or rapunzel?
YvonneTurner It is unrefined dried sugar cane juice. You can use organic sugar to if you would like.
This did not work for me whatsoever. Dough was very wet, not sure what went wrong. Very frustrating.
I only put 3/4 cup water and then it doesn’t turn out wet and still makes great rolls.
can I use xylitol instead of sucanat? I don’t have a dough mixer, can I use a hand beater to add in flour etc and knead it by hand?
The yeast feeds on the sugar and I don’t think xylitol would work. You could try honey or maple syrup. If you use honey or maple syrup I would start by only adding a few tbsp. If you don’t have a dough mixer that is fine. Just use your beaters and then when it becomes to thick for your mixer, add the remaining flour while you knead by hand. Do not overwork the flour! Only knead until dough forms.
Halle, did you use a sprouted spelt for this recipe? I only have regular spelt and not sprouted spelt at this time.
ericgpete I actually used regular spelt. You could use either one.
I have not had that much luck cooking with spelt, so I can definitely understand how much of a challenge developing this recipe must have been! Your rolls look and sound beautiful – all your hard work has definitely paid off!
Thank you for your submission on Nourishing Treasures’ Make Your Own! Monday link-up. Check back tomorrow when the new link-up is running to see if you were one of the top 3 featured posts! 🙂
Looking forward to trying your recipe. Have you tried freezing the dough rolls and then dethawing and baking? I had never heard of soaking the yeast for an extended period before so was wondering if that would have an effect on the rise after freezing. Thank you for your time! jjs
I love love love spelt 🙂 Yummy!!! The pictures are making my mouth water 🙂 Thanks Halle!!! 🙂 Love it!
I cannot not tell you how excited I am to find this recipe. I’ve made these rolls several times already and I am always amazed at how good they are and how easy they are to make! They are so quick and easy I even whipped up a batch before work one morning! My husband could not believe I’d made them from scratch! I made a batch over the weekend but made 8 rolls instead of 12 so we’d have hamburger buns – baked them a couple minutes longer and they were perfect. Thank you!!!!
So glad you are enjoying the recipe:)
Made these today and they are AMAZING!!! So soft and fluffy and sooooo easy. This will be my go to recipe from now on. THANK YOU for sharing xx
Ditto [email protected]! This is my new roll recipe for SURE!! Shared on reluctanthealthwife facebook page. Thanks!
1/4 cup sucanat? Is that right?
I know it’s been a couple years but in case anybody sees this: I’ve been loving this recipe but it’s waaaay too sweet so I only use like 2 tablespoons of sweetener and it works great.
Quite a few here like it less sweet. Glad to see less sweetener is working so well. Thanks for sharing your feedback!
Two “substitution” questions, please:
1) I have some organic coconut palm sugar … can I use that?
2) My daughter is egg-allergic so I was planning on using a flaxseed replacement (1tbsp ground flaxseed to 3tbsp water). Think it’ll work?
are they gluten free?
No spelt is not gluten free.
What can I use in place of the sucanat, or Rapunzel. I can’t seem to find them at the local health food store. Are they a syrup? Could I use molasses or are they granules and could be replaced with coconut sugar?
Thanks Halle
It is granulated and yes coconut sugar or organic cane sugar would work great.
Thanks Halle 🙂
Hmm…wonder what I did wrong…the dough was too wet. I added more spelt but still didn’t help much. My dough definitely did not turn out looking like the pic. Anyone else have to add more flour than recipe calls for?
Julie, did you ever figure this recipe out? i want light and airy spelt rolls, but like you, I had to add additional spelt flour, and mine also fell in the last moments in the oven, so they were night light and airy. Do you know what I’m doing wrong?
Thanks,
Sara
I’ve made these a few times for my husband, who has a wheat allergy, and he absaloutly loves them. The only issue is, they are a little bit small for all the stuff he wants to cram into them. I’m attempting to make them larger today. Any suggestions on cooking time? Much appropriated
I am so glad that you are enjoying them. Just keep them in an extra 10 minutes and be sure to keep checking on them.. Let us know how they turn out.
They turned out fab! I kept to the suggested 10 minutes, but popped the fan on. 6 light, fluffy man-sized rolls 🙂
I can hardly wait to surprise my wife and daughter with these tomorrow. I’ve been the proverbial dog house, because I ate a batch of yeast rolls (not all a once, however) my wife purchased and was saving for Christmas dinner. Oops! Thank you so much for posting this recipe.
How did they turn out! Hope she liked them 🙂
How do you think these would turn out if I let them sit to rise a little for say, a half our or so, if I had the time? Sorry if this is a silly question, I am new to making dinner rolls! 🙂
Does this dough freeze well?
I had the same problem as Julie, my dough was far too wet and sticky. I couldn’t make rolls out of them at all because the dough was just sticking to my hands. I only deviated from the recipe by using honey and not sugar. Maybe I used too much honey? In the end I added approx 1 more cup of wholemeal spelt flour to the mixture to solve the problem and they turned out beautifully. They were very tasty and very light. A great recipe (once I work out how much flour to use). Thanks
I tried this recipe but it was a pool of goo with the measurements posted. I Added at least another cup of flour and it would not form into balls. I stopped adding flour when the dough held a little bit of form. After resting and baking as prescribed, they did not rise and they were still raw. 🙁 I really want this to work. I’m at sea level…are you at a high altitude? Can you post weights of your ingredients and the temp of the water you use….please.
I think some, myself included, maybe reading this recipe as calling for 2 tablespoon of yeast. If you did use 2 tbsp of yeast it would be a mess of goo. it is 2 tsps. You need to use and the rolls are indeed very yummy.
Oh my goodness, how did I miss that! So sorry guys, it is 2 tsp! Will make the change!
Hi, I don’t have a mixer, just my hands. Can I still use your recipe? Thanks!
You could try without the mixer, but I have never tried it before.
I’m really excited to try out this recipe but just wondering about the amount of water is it 1 cup and 2 tablespoons of warm water.
How long do you mix the yeast with the water, etc. before soaking it for 15 minutes (do you mix with beaters or just stir with a spoon for a little bit)? Can regular sugar be substituted for sucanat or rapunzel (what would be the consequence of doing this)? Thank you and I look forward to reading you reply.
Just mix the yeast with a spoon for a 10 seconds. Yes you can use regular sugar, it will work just fine. The sugar feeds the yeast.
Could you substitute the coconut oil for another kind of oil, like canola?
I don’t use canola oil, so unfortunately I can not advise on that.
I’ve used both olive oil and canola oil and both work fine 🙂
I’m wondering if you can refrigerate the dough overnight though for the next day. Going to try that this evening.
What adjustment in oven temp and cooking time would you suggest for making one loaf of bread instead of rolls? Would a rise period before the 10 minute rest period in step 4 of your instructions be necessary for loaf bread? Your recipe tastes great and the crumb is very light and airy. Thank you in advance and I look forward to hearing your recommendations for this change.
My rolls didn’t rise very much which was kind of disappointing. Did anyone else experience this? Did I work the dough too much? I was pretty sure I kneaded it as little as possible :/ any suggestions are much appreciated 🙂
How old was your yeast? There could have been an issue with the yeast.
As of 1/10/2015 the recipe still reads 2 Tbsp yeast. Good thing I know how bread recipes work and even for a 30-minute roll that’s WAY too much yeast!
I found these FAR too sweet for a dinner roll, although with some chopped dried fruit kneaded in they’d be a tasty breakfast roll to go with tea or coffee. Luckily they go together fast enough that supper was not too terribly delayed while I threw together another batch with only 1 Tbsp sucanat and that was more than plenty as the yeast was foaming madly after just 5 minutes. Usually when I make bread I just put a pinch of sugar in with the yeast – I think next time I’ll cut it down to 1 tsp and see if that’s enough. I’d rather save my sugar for dessert. 🙂
Also, both times I made these it took closer to 20 minutes to bake, not 10 – I use an instant read thermometer to check for doneness(190-195F is target temperature) and at 10 minutes they were still even too gooey to stick my thermometer in. I live in a rental with an elderly stove so I go by my oven thermometer for temperature, not what the display says on the stovetop.
Salsa, it’s very likely that you may not have worked the dough _enough_. Kneading is what creates the strong strands of gluten that trap the gases being released by the yeast, so under-kneaded doughs don’t rise very well. You can compensate for under-kneading with extra-long rise times, that’s why no-knead breads tend to rise overnight in the fridge, but with a quick-rise bread like this you really do need a solid two minutes in a stand mixer (at least – with my second batch I went closer to 5 minutes on medium-low and the dough was easier to work with) or a good ten minutes of hand kneading. It’s not easy to overknead such a fatty dough as this one, especially if you’re kneading by hand. You’re not making biscuits – thrash that dough!
Thank you for such a delicious and tasty recipe, for buns, bread or even a pizza dough. It’s been a huge hit in my family. I had to modify the times only (after a very first under baked attempt) , rather than the ingredients (although I do use coconut sugar instead of sucanat).
I let the dough rise good 35 minutes (instead of 10) and bake the BUNS for about 15 minutes, BREAD about 20-25 minutes and PIZZA dough is done at around 8 minutes (pre-baked). 400F worked great for me, but I live in higher altitude so at sea level I can see 385F or so working fine too.
For those wondering, I did try freezing them and it worked wonderfully! I did sub in olive oil and regular white sugar. I followed the instructions, with the exception of once all the ingredients had been added and mixed, I did NOT let the dough rise. I put it on a cookie sheet and stuck it in the freezer for 24 hrs, then moved the frozen rolls into a bag. When I was ready to use them I places the frozen rolls on a cookie sheet, and covered with a towel and let them thaw and rise for 7 hours. Then I cooked them as per instructed here; at 400 for 10 min:)
Thanks so much Meghan for this information! Glad to see that they freeze well!
Is the crumb firm enough to use this recipe for loaf bread instead of rolls? We like to make toast in the morning and some spelt breads have been too crumbly to pull out of the toaster in one piece. Another spelt recipe was too hard and dense. Thank you for your help.
I try xyitol and it worked fine
I took the time to read all the comments before I made these rolls today.
They were amazing!! Thank you so much for the great recipe. I used the exact amount of flour + 2 extra tsp to put the dough together. I only put in 1 tsp of organic coconut sugar. I shaped them in 8 rolls as others have done and baked them at 400 for 20 min on an oiled cookie sheet. Perfect.
I have never baked with yeast before as I refuse to use all-purpose flour and have thus been unable to make bread until today. I love love love spelt flour. I buy organic sprouted spelt flour at vitacost.com and will be buying more so I can make more of those amazing rolls. My husband was delighted and asked me how long I kneaded the dough and couldn’t believe just 2 min. I did let them rise 30 min on top of the warm tomato sauce pan I had prepared from scratch for my lasagna as my kitchen wasn’t very warm on this rainy day.
I will be making them again. What a success!
Wow, I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed them so much! Thanks for sharing!
Today, I made more bread rolls, with the same success as before. I shaped 3 of them in hot dog buns for my husband.
Then I decided to make some bread. Having perused and compared many spelt flour bread recipes, I realized the basis was always the same, so I decided to go ahead with yours. I mixed the dough, added hemp seeds, chia seeds and black sesame seeds. I let it rise for an hour and 15 minutes until doubled in size, punched it down lightly, shaped it in a bread loaf.
I carefully oiled a 9 x 5 in glass pan and put the dough in. I let it rise another hour till it filled the pan. I painted the top with melted coconut oil and generously sprinkled more sesame seeds on top. I baked it at 400 for 40 minutes. I checked the bread after 32 min, the inside temperature was 160 F. After 7 more minutes, it reached 200 F.
It has a lovely texture and crumb and great flavor!
I will definitely make more. I just wanted to share the results with you and your followers.
Next time, I am going to substitute one cup of the spelt flour with barley flour.
Lovely recipe, Halle, I am grateful.
This sounds wonderful Sybil! Thanks for sharing!
Hi, do you mean fresh yeast or fast action / easy bake dried yeast, please? Thank you 🙂
Dry yeast. I bought mine that is in a small jar and it worked great.
I subbed with refined sugar (I know shame on me!) And butter instead of oil. They came out great, next time I might try almond milk instead of water.
Thankyou Halle.
Ive just had 1 of your rolls, straight out of the oven. I too made 8, and baked for 20minutes.
I made the dough in bread maker following my manufacturers instructions, and the dough turned out superb.
Just a tad sticky when taking out dough from fridge next day, sprinkled over flour to mould into balls.
Just wandering Halle, is sugar absolutely imperative in making bread dough? Just a tiny bit sweet.
Just thinking might omit for next time.
Happy you enjoyed them. Sugar aids in feeding the yeast, you certainly can try to make them without, but I have not tried that. If you do, please let us know how they turn out!
You certainly do not need as much sugar as this recipe calls for. I’ve made this recipe about a dozen times now and I am perfectly happy with only 1/2 teaspoon of sugar – as-is, the recipe is FAR too sweet to be a palatable dinner- or sandwich-type roll for me, although it makes a pretty good sweet bun with some dried fruit, chopped nuts, and 1 tsp mixed spice (or just cinnamon) added. Sugar really isn’t NEEDED for yeast bread at all (classic French bread contains only flour, water, yeast and salt); it does make things a little easier to give the yeast some extra “kick”, especially if your yeast is not as fresh as it could be, but a pinch is plenty enough for that purpose. I do also find spelt flour, especially sprouted spelt, to be a titch sweeter than regular whole wheat flour so it doesn’t need much added sweetener. Try it again with 1 tablespoon of sugar, and if you’re happy with that, cut it down to a teaspoon.
Thanks Mary for all these awesome tips. Good to know that 1 tsp works just fine!
Dear Halle, those are the best rolls I’ve ever made, and so easy, too! I’ve doubled the recipe this time (the second in 4 days, they went so quickly..) used honey and olive oil, placed them a bit further apart, and baked them for 20 minutes, with a pan of water at the bottom of the oven. They turned out crusty and perfectly round. Thank you!!
So happy you are enjoying the Tali!
I have used half the ingredients, used honey instead of sugar and rapeseed oil instead of coconut. Cup is such a lose measurement that after much research i have used the following amounts (equivalnt to exactly half of you recipe measures):
warm water 120ml
oil 40ml
1/2 tsp yeast
45ml honey
0.75 tsp salt
1 egg
flour!! hm… when i used exact ahlf of recipe which was 273g, dough was so watery it would be suitable for pancakes rather than forming balls.
What is cup?? plus cup of liquid is not a cup of dry stuff?? Help
Hi Halle,
Can you leave the dough to rest overnight ? I am very excited about this recipe but I always leave the dough overnight to give the yeast a proper time to work while also adding all the benefits to the digestive system 🙂
Regards,
Nikki
If this was using wild yeast, such as a sourdough, I would say go for it. But being that it is dry active yeast, I think it might over proof.
Can these rolls be ” veganized” by using a flax egg?
Hi
I have made this twice and it’s a disaster ? Like raw and not rising at all! This is a very expensive exercise. Inused coconut sugar.. Help please!!
How old is your yeast? Your dough is not rising at all.
How old is your yeast? Your dough is not rising at all.
Hi Halle, thank you so much for that recipe. I tried it yesterday. I am a total novice to bread making from scratch and have always been intimidated by it, but this recipe was wonderfully easy. My rolls turned out great!
I stopped buying bread and using regular wheat for over 3 years and been making variations of all kinds of flour “stuff” to eat with breakfast protein and lunch. Muffins, pancakes, bread machine ….These rolls with Sybil’s further instructions to make it into a loaf?! Grreat!!!
Oh glad to hear I can use much less sugar too.??
Hi,
Thanks for this post. Do you use regular yeast of instant rapid rise yeast?
Hi Liana! I use instant rapid yeast.
If using fresh yeast how much should I use for this recipe?
Disaster. I have no idea why the dough was so sticky and couldn’t form balls without putting flour on the big dough ball to make into smaller balls in the baking dish. Very frustrating!!! Won’t make this again.
Sounds like you might have added too much liquid. Sorry it didn’t work out for you.
Hi Halle
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this recipe. I make it almost weekly. I turn it into many things. A couple of things I learned to make this recipe beyond successful. I have been baking bread most of my adult life but only in the last few years have had to switch to spelt as regular wheat and gluten is too much for my digestion. In bread baking I have always let the yeast rise by itself first with just the water and sugar. I think it makes for a more digestable result, so my recipe takes a little longer but worth it. Also, I’ve learned to work lightly and quickly with this dough. I don’t have a mixer so I mix with a spoon.
As soon as the basic recipe is mixed I let that rise again before turning it into whatever I’m making. When doubled in size I usually make half into regular rolls and “roll” out half for something special. I keep flour right next to me and keep flouring my hands again working lightly and quickly, usually no problem. I spread the dough out on a plastic cutting sheet and then put cinnamon and sugar with a little butter, roll it up and cut into rolls and bake. Delicious and I have something to bring with me when everyone else is eating donuts.
I usually freeze my finished product or at the very least keep in refrigerator. It gets a little crumbly by the end of the week but still great. I’ve never tried freezing the rolls before cooking so I might give that a try. I think the problem with the liquid absorption is because of the lo gluten content of spelt and maybe thats why working lightly and quickly and the extra raising helps. Today I’m making “Pepperoni rolls” with the recipe. Can’t wait. Thanks again.
Hi Carolyn! Thank you so much for all these terrific suggestions! I can not wait to try some of your variations! Thanks so much for helping us out with this recipe, I always like to hear others ideas! 🙂
I made these just now and they are delicious! I used the flax egg and they came out light and fluffy! Thank you so much for such a great recipe!
Glad you enjoyed them and happy to hear that the flax egg worked!
I’m going to try your recipe tonight. Thank you! It looks so yummy!
Also, just thought you may want to know that you have some ads on your site that I find inappropriate. I don’t know how much power you have to filter them, but I just thought you may want to know.
Fantastic rolls. Also for me they will be the go-to recipe. I added more flour because I replaced the sucanut with 1 tbsp of rice malt syrup. They had to stay in oven bit longer than suggested time. So with a bit more tweaking they’ll become the perfect quick roll 🙂
Loved the rolls, travel and refrigerate & freeze well. Tried to get the Nutritional information on these rolls but could not. Could you please share where I can find the information? Thank you
I don’t have coconut oil on hand, could I use butter instead?
I think butter would work just fine.
Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. I LOVE it. I made them tonight and they turned out lovely – light and fluffy, ALMOST a baking soda biscuit texture, but still yeasty and spongey. So. Good. I only had 3 cups of spelt flour, so I topped up the last 1/2 cup with coconut flour. It worked great. 🙂
So happy you enjoyed them Carol and thanks for sharing your variation…sounds delicious!