Parker House Rolls

Preheat your oven for rising, turn it on to 175 degrees then turn it off when it's heated, this is as warm as it should get.

In a large measuring cup, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar, and yeast.

If you would like to use a stand mixer, mix flour and salt into the mixer bowl that is fitted with an oiled dough hook. Oiling the hook makes sure the dough doesn't climb the hook.

Using the lowest setting, start the dough hook going and slowly add the milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase speed to medium and let your dough hook do the work until the dough is shiny and smooth, about 6 to 7 minutes. The dough should be slightly sticky but if it is too wet to come together into a ball, add an additional 2 tablespoons flour. It should just barely stick to your hands, nothing more. Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form a smooth, round ball.

If you want to do this by hand, mix flour and salt in large bowl. Make a well in the flour, then add the milk mixture, pouring into the well. Using a wooden spoon, stir until the dough is difficult to stir and it's almost a ball in the middle of the bowl. Turn out onto lightly floured work surface and begin to knead, incorporating any loose scraps back into the dough. Knead until dough is smooth and satiny, about 10 minutes, giving those arms a workout and a half! Shape into a round ball.

Take the ball of dough and place in a well oiled bowl, covering it up. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, anywhere from 45-60 minutes.

Now, we don't work with a floured surface as butter is the key to these rolls! Lightly grease a work surface. Divide the dough in half. Take one half and roll the dough into an 8" x 12" rectangle.

Brush the dough with a coating of the melted butter. This gets folded into the center of your buns, so make sure you get a nice butter flavor in it which is why I use salted butter.

Cut the dough in half lengthwise, as shown in the photo. Take one half of the dough and fold over, as shown on the right side in the photo. Make sure that the bottom dough sticks out a little bit from under the top edge, just like shown! Cut into 4 pieces, then repeat with the other side, yielding 8 folded buns.

Repeat with the other half of the dough, making 16 rolls in all. Grease a 9x13 baking pan with butter.

Turn the buns over so that the long end is hanging over the short (this helps with shrinkage so that the top of your bun is the same as the bottom!) and arrange the buns in 4 rows of 4 in the pan. The short end of the bun (the top of the square as shown i the photo) will go along the shorter end of the pan ( the 9 inch side).

Cover the pan with a clean tea towel and let the rolls rise for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, until close to being doubled.

Preheat your oven to 350 °F.

Bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, until they're golden brown and baked all the way through.

Remove the buns from the oven, and brush with the remaining melted salted butter.

If possible, keep the buns together until serving, this helps keep them from drying out and keeps that wonderful softness. Pull apart to serve.