Crescent rolls

I got on a baking kick this past week.

First it was banana nut bread made from an old Alabama cookbook. Scrumptious!

Then I decided to make some garlic bread sticks to go with our spaghetti dinner. I've never made these before and didn't have a recipe in mind, so I used the one in the West Bend bread maker pamphlet.

Here's their basic "dinner roll" recipe:

• 3/4 cup warm water
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 Tb milk
• 3 1/2 Tb sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 Tb butter
• 1 1/2 tsp bread maker yeast (from jar)

I put the stuff in and set it to dough cycle. When the dough was ready, I split it in halves, one for the garlic bread sticks and the other for some kind of dinner rolls.

The sticks I made first, rolling them into little snakes and setting them on a cookie sheet to rise. When they had risen for about an hour, I brushed them with a mix of olive oil, garlic powder, and salt. I baked them at 350 for about 12 minutes. They turned out wonderful, and tasted almost like Olive Garden bread sticks!

While the sticks were rising, I got to work on the rest of the dough. Since we were having company the next night and I was going to serve roast and vegetables, I decided to try making some crescent rolls to go with them.

I split the dough into two balls, then rolled each flat with my handy marble rolling pin (LOVE IT!). Once they were about 1/8 inch thick, I cut each circle into 6 pie-shaped wedges. Then I rolled each wedge like a typical crescent roll, and wet the point to make it lie down.

Here's a picture of the baby crescents ready to go:

I put them in the fridge immediately, and pulled them out the next day after work to rise. After an hour, I put them on the pizza stone, brushed them with melted butter, and popped them in the oven to bake at 350 for about 17 minutes. They plumped up so nicely! When they came out, I brushed them with more melted butter.

That night, we four ate the WHOLE DOZEN of them! I guess they were a hit. Too bad I didn't have one left to take a picture of, though. : )

I'll definitely be using this recipe again. I like that it didn't require a lot of butter, which made the rolls a lot less fatty than their Pillsbury counterparts. Now, I won't say these rolls are HEALTHFUL by any stretch, but they are a good alternative and cost less to boot.

Have a good weekend everyone!