Cornmeal Sesame Batter Rolls

Recipe from Pillsbury "Soups, Stews and Oven Lovin' Breads"
Husband-Tested in Alice's Kitchen
Makes 1 dozen rolls

If you have no experience baking bread, here's a delicious homemade bread recipe that will give you a positive start. There's no kneading or shaping of dough involved. The result is a light and tender roll that will be perfect served along side a soup or stew. The sesame seeds on top add a nice crunch on the outside, but then the roll is quite tender on the inside. The prep will take no time at all and there are very few ingredients. The time involved will mostly waiting for the dough to rise, which will give you plenty of time to clean up the few kitchen utensils needed to make this easy bread. Why not try this with Chicken Tortellini Soup (recipe on this blog) this weekend?

1 3/4 to 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup white or yellow cornmeal (I used yellow.)
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1 cup milk (I used skim milk.)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 large egg
Sesame seeds

Generously grease 12 muffin cups. Lightly spoon flour into a cup measure and then level off so that you have 1 cup of flour. Put the cup of flour in a large bowl and add the cornmeal, sugar, salt and yeast. Blend well.
In a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter to 120 to 130 degrees F. Add this hot liquid plus the egg to the flour mixture. Blend at low speed until moistened; beat 2 minutes at medium speed.
By hand, stir 3/4 to 1 cup of flour to form a stiff batter. Cover the bowl with a towel and let rise in a warm place (80 to 85 degrees F) until light and doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
Stir down batter; spoon into greased muffin cups (I used a 1/8 cup measure as my scoop.) Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap and then a cloth towel. Let rise again in a warm place until light and doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Uncover dough. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from muffin cups immediately.