Ingredients:
1 little block of fresh yeast, or 2 packets of dried yeast
5 cups of flour, plus 1 cup or more for kneading (dough is supposed to be very soft though)
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup Irish or other grass fed butter, melted
1 1/2 cups of cooked and pureed Kabocha squash (or any other winter squash, pumpkin, or yam)
1 egg yolk
1 cup of whole milk, warmed up a little
For the bacon rolls alternative:
1 lb. bacon slices, chopped up, fried up and drained
12 sage leaves
Dissolve the yeast in a little lukewarm water, then add with all the rest of the ingredients in a stand mixer and mix it up with your bread hook. (Or just do it by hand.) The dough is really soft and sticky, that's okay.
Scoop it out into an oiled bowl, cover it with oiled plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place for at least one hour, or until almost doubled in size. Then, adding a bit of flour as needed, knead gently with your fists for a minute or two on a well floured board, or just do it in the bowl if you don't want to make a mess.
You can form the rolls easily if you keep your hands floured or oiled- cut the dough into four equal chunks, then cut each of the four again, and then again, for 32 total rolls. You can look up how to shape dinner rolls on Youtube if you don't know how to do this, but take each piece then fold up the edges and form it into a nice ball by stretching the top smooth and tucking the edges under. (for bacon version, squish some of the cooked bacon pieces into the middle of the dough.)
If you have one really big baking sheet they will all fit on one pan, just really close together, but I think doing 16 per regular sized baking sheet is perfect. I also use parchment paper to line the pan because the dough is so soft and I don't like when they stick.
Alternately, you can split the dough into two parts and make 12-16 rolls out of one half, and use the other half of the dough to make cinnamon rolls the next morning.
Let them rise in a warm place until they puff up nicely, mine usually take at least 30 minutes. Brush the tops with melted butter (for the bacon version, place a large buttered sage leaf on top of each, you can make sure it sticks with a little egg white.) You can also dust the plain ones with flour if you like that look.
Bake them at 350 for 20 minutes in a convection oven (or a little more if you make the 12 giant ones) until they are nice golden brown on top. In my regular oven they took almost 30 minutes on 375, so just keep an eye on the color, your oven might be different.
These are so good with nothing on them, but of course they are best sliced in half and served with lots of good honey.
If you're doing the bacon breakfast version, cut them in half and put scrambled eggs and a slice of cheese inside and just a splash of maple syrup to make a breakfast sandwich.
