About the Gluten Free Dinner Rolls

When I saw the Quick Blender Light Rolls from Joyful Homemaking on Pinterest, I knew it would be a great recipe to work with for adapting to make gluten free dinner rolls.  Because the rolls bake in a muffin pan, there would not be the usual issue to overcome of getting the rolls to hold their shape.  I hope to still do a tiny bit of tweaking (for instance, I’d like to try using honey instead of white sugar), but I was so pleased with my first attempt that I wanted to go ahead and share it with you.

[Edit: I did actually try these again with honey before this post went live, and the rolls didn’t rise as well.  That doesn’t really make sense to me, though; my experience with gluten-full baking says that just switching from sugar to honey shouldn’t keep a dough from rising, so I don’t know if some other factor might’ve been at play – like my kitchen was colder that day or something.  I will keep trying and let you know what happens.]

These rolls will not have the same texture as traditional wheat-based rolls, so don’t be expecting that.  However, I thought they approximated the taste fairly nicely.

(A “trick” I have learned, if you can tolerate some oats, is that adding a bit of oat flour to a recipe will bring the flavor closer to the familiar wheat flavor, when baking something where the taste of the bread itself is the centerpiece.  If there’s another strong flavor added, like chocolate, you generally don’t have to worry about that.  But with plain breads, pancakes, or chocolate-chip cookies, it makes a difference.  If you can’t have oats at all, I think you can just add 1/2 c. rice flour and omit the oats and it should work, but it won’t taste the same.)

Making the Rolls

The original recipe called for warm milk.  I was too lazy to wait on a saucepan or take a trip down the stairs (our microwave is in the living room because we don’t use it often except when hubby wants microwave popcorn), so I actually just ran my milk and oats in the VitaMix until the milk wasn’t cold anymore.  If I’d actually warmed the milk, my rolls might have risen a little more.

Adding the oats to the milk and blending them saves a step over having to grind them separately into flour, so I do that first (to be sure the oats are completely ground up), then add the remaining wet ingredients (and sugar) and blend it all together.

Mix the rice flour (mine was freshly-ground in the WonderMill, so if yours is storebought, the measurement may vary a little since it will have settled) with salt and pectin, then dump in everything from the blender and mix it up.  It makes a wet dough like this:

You will cover it with a lint-free towel and let it rise for 30  minutes.  (Our bread towels were all dirty, thanks to a mouse that got into my towel drawer, so I had to use a cloth napkin.)

I didn’t really notice its having risen substantially after half an hour, but I could feel that the texture was different.  When I dipped my spoon in, I could feel the air pockets.  So use a large spoon and drop the dough into a greased muffin pan.  Don’t stir it down first or anything, just divide it somewhat evenly among the muffin cups.  When I first spooned mine in, it looked pretty much like this:

You can see that the holes were more than half-full, but not quite full.  Cover them with the towel (or napkin) again and let them rise for another 30 minutes.  (This is a good time to preheat the oven to 350.)  After rising again, mine looked like this:

Yay!  They rose!  This is a good sign. 🙂  Now pop them into the preheated oven for 20 minutes.  You should get this:

Gluten-Free Whole Grain Yeast Rolls

Rachel Ramey

These gluten-free yeast rolls will not mimic the texture of a classic wheat-based dinner roll, but they reasonably approximate the flavor.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 40 minutes mins

Course Bread/Breakfast, GF

Ingredients

  

• 1 c. warm not hot milk
• 1/2 c. oats*
• 1 scant Tbsp. instant yeast
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 c. oil
• 3 c. brown rice flour
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp. pectin

Instructions

 

• *Be sure to use certified GF oats, if necessary.
• Blend milk and oats in a blender until oats are well blended.
• Add yeast, sugar, eggs, and oil, and blend again until well combined.
• In a bowl, whisk together rice flour, sea salt, and pectin.
• Add blended ingredients to the bowl and stir to combine thoroughly.
• Cover the bowl with a lint-free towel or cloth napkin and let rise for 30 minutes in a warm spot.
• With a spoon, drop the dough, evenly divided, into the 12 cups of a greased muffin pan. (You don't have to stir it down or anything first.) Cover again and allow to rise for 30 minutes.
• While the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Uncover the rolls and bake them for 20 minutes or until just golden.

More GF Dinner Roll Pictures: