Okay okay, so maybe that title is a little bit of a lie. I made these into knots, so they’re not really rolls. But people don’t search for “dinner knots” on google (that sounds kind of awful), so I stuck with rolls. To be fair, you could totally make these into regular ‘ol rolls. They would be amazing. And it would save you like 6.5 minutes of prep time.

OR. You could spend the 6.5 minutes turning this easy dough into something that will make your guests/husband/wife/kids go “wowwwww”.

So yeah. Knots.

Do you want to know what’s going on in that photo up there? I do.

I’m brushing the baked rolls knots with some melted roasted garlic butter. Um, yes.

And that up there ^^ is roasted garlic. I don’t roast my garlic like most people do – you know, a whole head of garlic in the oven covered in foil for an hour. And that’s because I don’t usually want a whole head of roasted garlic every time I want roasted garlic. So, instead, I do it like I learned in my favorite Mexican cookbook, Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen.

To roast the garlic, all you do is put some cloves (skins on) in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat and let them cook for about 15 minutes, turning every now and then. The goal is to get them to blacken just a bit on each side. When they’re done, the clove will be nice and soft and the skin will just fall off. Voila! Roasted garlic in just the right proportion.

This recipe uses roasted garlic twice – first in the dough itself, and second in the melted roasted garlic butter that gets brushed on top. SO GOOD.

Moving on. The dough. If you’ve ever made any kind of bread before, this recipe will be a breeze. Pretty standard. If you’ve never made bread before, this is a good place to start! If this is your first time and you need help with the recipe, just email me and I’ll be happy to help you out! I love making bread.

The dough is a really soft, easy to work with dough. Not too sticky, not too stiff. It also has some amazing flavor components in it, like Italian herbs, roasted garlic, nutritional yeast (uh huh), and a bit of olive oil.

Can never have too much of that olive oil.

The trick to these knots is rolling out the dough like I show below. When you do that, it is SO EASY to make the long ropes. This was something taught to me by the awesome people over at King Arthur Flour (who also inspired this recipe). Instead of having to make long ropes from little balls of dough, with this method you actually start with the shape you’re trying to achieve in the end. Duh!

(also, can we talk for a minute about how cute my new rolling pin is?! Amazon says it’s $30, but I swear I got it at Bed Bath & Beyond for $15. Booyah.)

If you’re not making these into knots and you’re doing rolls instead, you’ll skip this part. See recipe instructions. 

So after you roll it out, you cut it into 1″ wide strips, make those into more round ropes, and tie the knots. Hopefully these pictures help you understand how to tie them because explaining this might be a bit difficult. Here we go!

How to make bread knots:

Step 1: Create rope by lightly rolling the strip of dough horizontally.

Step 2: Make a knot like you’d make the first knot when you’re tying your shoe.

Step 3: Take the end that comes out the bottom and bring it over the top into the middle. Take the other end that comes out the top and wrap it under the bottom. Pinch to secure.

Step 4: Gently adjust so that it looks pretty even.

Step 5: Repeat until you get better at it and run out of dough. Ta da!

Ok, so now we have to talk about it. Thanksgiving is a week from today. I know you didn’t want to talk about it because you’ve been avoiding thinking about 1) the traveling, 2) all the family time, or 3) all the food you have to make, but it’s here. We have to talk about it.

When your grandma tells you that you should bring over a nice appetizer for Thanksgiving, you should bring these. When your aunt tells you that you should bring a side dish, you should bring these. When your sister tells you that you should bring a salad, you should say screw off and bring these. Because there are never too many enough rolls on the table on Thanksgiving, and there certainly aren’t any as delicious as these.

Ok, we talked about it. We’re done.

One thing I didn’t mention, but that you probably noticed from the title is that these are vegan. If you’re not vegan, you can just use regular butter, and substitute 2 Tbsp finely grated parmesan cheese for the nutritional yeast. It’ll taste the exact same –> i.e. amazing.

Ingredients

for the rolls:

• 3 cups (12 3/4 oz) all-purpose flour
• 4 Tbsp potato flour*
• 1 Tbsp white sugar
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp dried italian herbs
• 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 2 Tbsp (7/8 oz) olive oil
• 1/2 cup (4 oz) lukewarm water
• 1/2 cup (4 oz) almond milk*
• 3 cloves roasted garlic, mashed

for the roasted garlic butter:

• 2 cloves roasted garlic, mashed
• 2 Tbsp melted butter (I used Earth Balance)
• sea salt

Instructions

1. Place all the garlic cloves (5 total) in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Cook, turning every few minutes, until blacked in spots on all sides. Let cool, then remove the skins.
2. Combine the flour, potato flour, sugar, yeast, salt, herbs, and nutritional yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer*. Add the remaining bread ingredients, including the 3 cloves of mashed garlic, and mix together to form a shaggy dough (a Danish Dough Whisk is the best tool for this job).
3. Attach your dough hook to your mixer and knead on medium-low speed for about 10 minutes, until a smooth dough forms*. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and use your hands (I recommend oiling them with spray oil) to shape into a ball. Oil the same bowl and place the dough in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, until doubled in size.
4. When the dough is done rising, turn out onto an oiled cutting board. Use your hands to press into a rough rectangle, then use a rolling pin to roll it out into a 13″x10″ rectangle. Cut the dough the long ways into 1″ strips.
5. Follow the instructions and photographs in the text above to tie the knots. Arrange them on a baking sheet about 2″ apart, then spray with spray oil and cover with plastic wrap completely.*
6. Let rise until very puffy, about 1 hour. 20 minutes before baking time, preheat oven to 350°F.
7. Bake for 17 minutes, until golden brown on top.
8. While the rolls/knots bake, combine the melted butter with the remaining 2 cloves of roasted garlic.
9. When the rolls are done baking, transfer them to a cooking rack and brush with the roasted garlic butter. Enjoy immediately!

Notes