I have the best memories of food from my elementary school cafeteria. None of it was gourmet, but that square pizza, the brownies, the spaghetti… I sure did love them. And maybe best of all, those fluffy, slightly sweet rolls that we’d get every week. These Lunch Lady Cafeteria Rolls are just like those ones you remember from the school lunch room and they’re easy enough that even a novice baker will get great results.

What Ingredients Do You Need For Lunch Lady Cafeteria Rolls?

It’s mostly the usual baking suspects. You’ll need:

• Bread flour.
• Active dry yeast. Not instant.
• Dry milk powder.
• Granulated sugar.
• Vegetable oil.

And some salt and water!

The milk powder and sugar give the rolls a sweet flavor and lovely texture. It’s somewhere between regular bread and an enriched dough like brioche, but not as rich as the latter.

Can I Use Regular Flour?

Yes. You can substitute all-purpose flour if you need to. Bread flour has a higher protein content and can absorb more water, so you’ll want to initially add just a cup of water to the recipe if you’re using all-purpose flour, and then add more by the tablespoon if you need it. You will still get lovely, fluffy rolls with regular flour.

How Do You Make Lunch Lady Cafeteria Rolls?

Like most homemade yeast breads, these will require some proofing time, so it’s best to plan ahead. While they do take time, the steps aren’t complicated. It’s all about patience!

A stand mixer makes life a little easier, but you can also make these by hand. To start, mix together the yeast with 3/4 cup of warm water and let it hang out until it’s bubbly.

Then, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and milk powder in your mixer (or mixing bowl) and pour in the vegetable oil and rest of the water. Mix it on low for three minutes before you switch to your dough hook and knead it for about 8 minutes, until it’s smooth and springy.

If you’re working by hand, you just want to thoroughly mix the ingredients together until you have a cohesive dough. Then, take that dough from the bowl and transfer it to a floured surface where you want to knead it until it’s smooth. This will take about ten minutes or so.

Place the dough back into a clean bowl and cover it with a clean kitchen towel. Then just set it aside! Let the dough tell you how long — you want it to double in size, but the time that takes is dependent on the temperature of your kitchen. Somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour is a good ballpark.

Once your dough has doubled, grease a 9×13 baking dish with butter or nonstick spray and divide the dough into 24 balls. If you’re feeling precise, you can use a kitchen scale to make sure they’re all the same size, but I’m generally more lackluster about it so my rolls vary in size. They all bake up just fine, even so. (And they taste just as good.)

Place those balls in the prepared baking dish, then cover it with a kitchen towel again and give it a second chance to rise. This should be shorter, about 30 minutes, but you do want to see them double in size again.

Then bake! About 20 minutes at 400°F and they’re done. Only thing left to do is brush them with melted butter and serve. They’re casual dinner rolls — and easy enough to make for everyday dinners — but they’ve become my holiday go-to roll too. They’re better than any roll you can buy in the grocery store.