Gluten-Free Dinner Rolls

Why This Recipe Works

Store-bought gluten-free dinner rolls are tough and bland, and many homemade recipes aren’t much better. We wanted rich, tender, pull-apart dinner rolls, so we started with our favorite test kitchen recipe and substituted our gluten-free flour blend plus some psyllium to boost structure. This approach produced rolls with great buttery flavor, but tasters complained that the rolls were greasy. Cutting back on the amount of butter and adding a small amount of nonfat milk powder lent a rich flavor without any added greasiness. The bigger problem was the texture of the crumb—it was dense and a bit tough. The dough needed more liquid. We tested both milk and water, and tasters agreed that the water worked best given all the butter, milk powder, and eggs in the dough. This helped, but our rolls needed something more. Up to this point we had been relying solely on yeast, and we wondered if adding a chemical leavener would create a more open crumb and further tenderize our rolls. We tested various combinations and found that 2 teaspoons of baking powder plus the standard packet of yeast produced rolls with the desired airy crumb. We had one more trick up our sleeve. In other kitchen tests, we discovered the tenderizing effect of lemon juice in our pie dough, so we made one last batch of rolls with some lemon juice in the mix. These rolls were perfect—pillowy soft with a light crumb and rich buttery flavor.