Clover Leaf Rolls (by Casey)

It’s early to mid-morning, and the smell of the turkey that has been cooking for 5 hours is really starting to fill the house nicely.  My Mom is busy preparing enormous amounts of food in the kitchen, and my Dad is down puttering in the garage.  My Mom announces to my sister, my grandmother, and I that it’s time to come over to the table to make the rolls.

We take our seats at the dinner table, still without a table cloth due to the amount of flour that is about to be dumped onto it.  My Mom pushes Grammy Gilman over in her wheelchair since she had a stroke, but she is cheerful as ever and ready to tackle the task ahead.  My Mom brings over a large stainless steel bowl, overflowing with the dough she made last night, and remarks about how much it rose.  Gram’s clover leaf rolls have been a Thanksgiving staple since before I can remember, and since she can’t make them on her own anymore, she’s decided to teach us how to assemble them with her.

My Mom brings over the large can of Crisco, and we are each given a muffin tin.  Gram proceeds to dip her hand into the Crisco and shows us how much to rub into each of the cups in our muffin tin.  We follow suit, and soon we are ready to fill our tins with 36 clover leaf rolls.

My Mom dumps a pile of flour in front of each of us, and after rubbing our fingers in it to avoid getting too sticky, we each rip a huge handful of dough out of the bowl.  Grammy demonstrates how big of a piece to take off of our clump of dough, and shows us how big of a ball we should roll it into.  We give it a try, filling each cup with three equally-sized (hopefully) little dough balls.  Gram’s always come out perfect.  Mine tend to be a little big and I have to focus on making them smaller.  We joke about what a giant roll will come out of some of the cups in my muffin tin.  I always love to hear Gram laugh, and I’m thankful she survived the stroke.

We finish, and even with the flour I have quite a bit of dough stuck to my fingers.  I wash them off and my Mom takes over the clean up after removing the pans so they can rise.  She returns Gram to the living room to watch the parade, and I soon join her and we look at all the cool inflatable characters.

When it comes time to eat, the rolls come out perfect. We joke again about how big some of them got, and how they must have come from my tin.  I take one and begin my annual count of how many rolls I ate this year.

This was 2004.  Gram has been gone for three Thanksgivings now.  Two years ago, I attempted to make her recipe (having only formed them in the past), and while they were edible and enjoyed by Jenn, Stacey, and Sandy, they weren’t quite the same.  I tried them again this year, and taught Jenn and Stacey to be my helpers (oddly enough after having had a stroke myself), and they came out PERFECT.  Grammy Gilman’s tradition lives on, and now I will share it with the Blog World, in the hopes that it will etch itself into the Thanksgiving traditions of other families, too!  Happy Holidays everyone!

Ingredients

2 cups lukewarm water (note: I had it pretty hot, not scalding, but hot)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup shortening
2 packages of yeast
1 egg
3 cups of flour
Additional 3 1/2 to 4 cups of flour

Sprinkle yeast over warn water and let dissolve (note: I did this in a fairly large bowl).
Add remaining ingredients.
Turn on to floured surface and knead till smooth and elastic (note: I gently stirred the ingredients in the bowl until it had a “batter-like” consistancy, with some lumps. I also didn’t measure the amount of flour I turned it onto, I just threw a bunch down and added as needed to get the desired consistancy.  I also turned the mixture onto the flour in small parts until I had a big dough ball.)
You can either shape and let rise, or put the dough in the refrigerator until ready to use (in a greased bowl covered with a wet towel. It will start to rise in the refrigerator) (note: I did the latter and used Pam).
When ready to use, spread Crisco in muffin tin.
Roll dough into three small balls and place into each cup.
Let rise for a hour, and bake.

Rolls: 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes

Or you can make little bread loaves, as Gram sometimes did: 400 degrees F for approximately 30 minutes.

Enjoy!