My oldest son loves the King’s Hawaiian rolls that you can buy at the grocery store. Sometime last week he asked if I could try making those rolls. He has a lot of confidence in my ability!

I actually had a hard time finding a recipe that would work for me. I ended up using a recipe from Taste of Home.  It makes a triple batch and uses potato flakes. I really wanted to use the potato flakes to help make them soft. I don’t have any pineapple juice on hand, but I did have mango nectar, so I used that instead. And I needed to make a large batch because I have a feeling that these will disappear quick. I am even hoping to give some of it away, but I am not sure if that will happen!

Here is the link to the recipe: Hawaiian Sweet Bread

This bake took me about 4 hours total to finish. I took a lot of pictures, so this post will have quite a few of those.

I was going to need all my counter space so I used one of my cabinets as a recipe holder.

My mango nectar, whey, and water mixture. I still have whey from when I made ricotta last week, so I used whey instead of milk.

My candy thermometer once again came in handy for getting the mango juice and milk mixture up to 125 degrees F.

The mixture begins with only 3 cups of flour so after adding the mango juice and milk mixture, the batter was very runny. I am glad I didn’t try to use my handheld mixer for this! The batter would have ended up all over me! Mixing the batter by hand worked fine.

The dough after adding 4 cups of flour. It came together very quickly.

My spatula wasn’t up to the challenge of stirring the dough! It broke! Fortunately, it was a clean break and there weren’t any spatula pieces left in the dough. I guess I should have used a wooden spoon or a sturdier spatula.

This dough got sticky pretty quickly once I started kneading it. I think I added maybe 1/4 up of flour more than in the recipe. This is after about 6 – 8 minutes of kneading.

Here are the pics of the rise progression of the dough. This dough was a monster! This is probably a good thing though since I needed the large amount of dough to make 3 batches of bread.

The dough is ready to be split into 3 parts. It was pretty easy to work with at this point. I think this is my favorite part so far of breadmaking: getting to shape the dough.

I made a 9 x 13 pan of larger Hawaiian rolls, which I am hoping to use for sliders for dinner tomorrow, a loaf pan for sandwich bread, and some mini Hawaiian rolls to taste after baking. I let them rise for another 45 minutes once they were shaped.

Two of the pans after the 45 minute rise. I had already put the mini-rolls in the oven to bake and I wasn’t able to get a picture of them.

The pans ended up needing the same amount of baking time. 20 – 25 minutes. The mini-rolls needed to be moved to the top rack though for about 2 minutes. They were too pale after 20 minutes and needed browning.

In case anyone tries this recipe as a sandwich loaf, I just wanted to let you know that the loaf WILL need longer in the oven than the rolls! I would probably bake it for about 25-30 minutes instead of 20-25 minutes. My loaf had a collapsed and underdone middle.

One of the mini-rolls. These were definitely soft and fluffy! I don’t think they are EXACTLY like the Hawaiian rolls from the store, but they still taste pretty good! I think they might need a little more salt, of all things. I think I will probably try pineapple juice next time and see if that makes them closer to what I am thinking.

My kids keep asking if they can have some of the Hawaiian rolls so I know that they approve! It’s nice to have such willing taste-testers even if I don’t think the recipe came out quite like I wanted!

-Lynn

This Post Has 13 Comments

  1. A_Boleyn

    Your sweet rolls and loaf look great. Even if it’s not Hawaiian sweet bread yet … it will be eventually and each baking session is a learning experience. 🙂

    1. Lynn-Marie

      The nice thing about homemade bread is that it will usually taste better than store bought, even if it’s not quite the way you want it!

      1. A_Boleyn

        I have the opposite issue in terms of volume … I usually have to halve recipes to accommodate a single household. Luckily most breads freeze very well. Good luck on your next batch.

        1. Lynn-Marie

          Sadly, I won’t get to make these after all today 🙁 we are pretty much out of all-purpose flour until tomorrow. I have a lot of bread flour though, and will make something using that instead. Dinner is split pea soup and that kind of soup just has to have a good bread to dip in it!

          1. A_Boleyn

            Sounds like a very tasty soup. I made a pot of brown lentil and sausage soup and had a big bowl for a late lunch. No bread though cause all I’ve got are a couple of ciabatta buns in the freezer and they’re destined for crusty pizza bases.

            You must go through a lot of flour with your mob. I used to go through a 20 kg bag in about 8-10 months. Now it’s closer to 4-6.

          2. Lynn-Marie

            Oh yes, I have to buy the 25 pound bags of flour at the warehouse store because it’s just not worth buying the small 5 pound bags. I use a 6 liter container to store flour and then refill that as needed from the 25 pound bag.

          3. A_Boleyn

            I divided the big bag of flour into 5 lb freezer bags and freeze them away in the basement freezer. My flour canister holds 5 lbs so it’s a prefect size.

          4. Lynn-Marie

            You can freeze flour? That’s interesting to know! Our large bag never lasts long enough for me to freeze any of it but it’s good to know for if I ever decide to buy two 25 pound bags of flour at once.

          5. A_Boleyn

            Yes, many people do it to kill off any possible grain weevil eggs.

            From the net:
            As soon as you bring flour home, seal it inside a freezer bag and put it in the freezer for at least 1 week. This will kill any eggs or weevils that are already in the flour. You can then take the flour out and store it in your pantry in an airtight, hard container or just keep it in the freezer until you need it.

            https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/flour-bugs/

  2. contessagrigia

    We baked a lot of bread last night too. This looks delicious!

  3. Garden Troll

    I am so gonna show this to my mom, she loves these rolls!

Be geeky with us!