Cloverleaf Rolls

Learn how to make Cloverleaf Rolls - tender and buttery yeast bread rolls that will be a beautiful centerpiece at your table. Serve with butter and they just melt in your mouth. 

Beautiful, tender and buttery, these rolls will be a star at your dinner table. Of course, you can enjoy them with your meal, but you can also slather them with some butter and jam and they become dessert.

I love how simple they are to make and they look so pretty with that cloverleaf shape. All you have to do is put three small balls of dough in your muffin pan and they rise up and bake up into such a statement piece.

You can even make them in advance if you're making them for a special meal and then reheat them in the oven for about 10 minutes and they are just as fresh as the day you made them. Both my husband and toddler loved these rolls. I had to make several batches to make sure the recipe was PERFECT and they sure didn't mind eating them. 

Ingredients:

½ cup milk, heated to 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit

¼ cup warm water

2 ¼ teaspoons instant dry yeast

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoon salt

8 Tablespoons butter, plus an additional 1-2 Tablespoons for brushing on the hot baked rolls

Instructions:

Preparing the Yeast Dough:

Combine the warm milk and water with the yeast, sugar, egg and egg yolk (discard the 2nd egg white).

Add the flour and salt a cup at a time, until a dough starts to form and most of the flour is incorporated.

Add the 8 Tablespoons of butter, 1 Tablespoon at a time, on medium-low speed, until all the butter is incorporated into the dough. (Honestly, if you add the butter along with the wet ingredients, it will work out just fine too. I've tried it both ways.)

Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth.

Place the dough into a buttered or oiled large bowl, cover it with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let it rise in a warm place until it doubles in size, about 45 minutes - 1 hour.

Shaping the Cloverleaf Rolls:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Brush a 12 cup muffin pan with 1 Tablespoon of melted butter or oil.

Divide the dough into three parts and then divide each part into 12 sections.

Roll each of the sections into little balls and place 3 of the little balls into one muffin cup.

Let the rolls rise for 20-30 minutes until they double in size.

Baking the Cloverleaf Rolls:

Bake the rolls in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.
When you take the rolls out of the oven, brush them with the remaining 1-2 Tablespoons of melted butter while they are still warm. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Storing the Cloverleaf Rolls:

Store them at room temperature, covered. They freeze really well too. Place them in a freezer ziplock bag or an airtight container and freeze up to 3 months. 

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