These soft and fluffy Hawaiian rolls are the perfect roll for dinner. With its slightly sweetened taste they are perfect for sliders and other sandwiches or on their own. Add a dollop of honey and butter and you are sure to have a hit.
I know that every time I have a Hawaiian roll that one will not be enough. These things are borderline addicting and I cannot get enough. These rolls are great all by themselves fresh out of the oven with a little butter. They also make for great sliders and small sandwiches.Â
In this recipe
One of the things that makes these rolls so unique is the addition of pineapple juice. It is important to make sure that it is pure pineapple juice and not mixed with other flavors. This will help keeping your rolls from picking up the additional flavors of blended juice like strawberry, mango, or orange.
This is an enriched bread. All that means is that instead of just having flour, salt, yeast and water the dough has additional ingredients. These can be ingredients like a sweetener, milk, oil, eggs and the like. This recipe calls for almost all of the above. This will make the bread softer and the crumb, inside, tighter allowing fewer air holes and becoming denser.
By adding additional ingredients to the dough, you will notice that is takes significantly longer for the dough to rise. That is ok and supposed to happen. The yeast does not have as much access to the sugars within the flour. However, by adding honey and pineapple juice it can feast on those sugars too. This is why the rise will take longer. Don’t be surprised if the rise takes from 1.5-2 hours to double in size. With that being said make sure to plan ahead.
This dough is going to be very sticky and slack when you try and shape it. If you do have a kitchen scale I suggest weighing the dough before it rises to get even sized rolls. A trick that I use to make shape the rolls is to have a shallow bowl of flour next to my work area. Cover your fingers in flour and then gently dip the portion of dough onto the flour. This will keep the dough from sticking as your form into a ball.Â
The Best Homemade Hawaiian Rolls
Equipment
- Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
- 9 x 13 baking dish
- Large bowl
- Cling film
- Pastry brush
Ingredients
- 5½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup pineapple juice
- ½ cup honey
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 3 tbsp butter melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- In a stand mixer combine the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the water, honey, sour cream, and pineapple juice and blend. Once the dough starts to come together add the vanilla and eggs. Mix until the dough pulls away from the sides. It might not [pull away from the bottom of the bowl.
- Transfer to a mixing bowl and cover with cling film. Set aside to rise until doubled in size or about 90 minutes. If your kitchen is cooler this might take a bit longer.
- Once the dough has risen place additional flour in a shallow bowl. This will be used for dusting the rolls and your fingers. Divide the dough into 15 portions. The dough will be sticky and this is ok. Dust the portions with the flour and form into a ball. Place the balled dough into the baking dish and cover with cling film and allow to rise again until doubled in size about 90 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F or gas mark 4. Brush the rolls with the melted butter and bake for 30 minutes or until the rolls turn golden brown. Allow to cool and brush again with any remaining butter.
