My secret to great pulled rolls? A dutch oven.

You know a Dutch oven it's great for making large chunks of crusty artisan bread. But it is also an ideal container for a more unexpected baking: detached rolls. Here's why.

The biggest benefit of baking bread in a dutch oven is that it traps ambient steam. from moisture to dough and keeps it close to the crust. This trapped moisture keeps the crust supple and prevents it from hardening too quickly, which allows the bread to rise to its maximum potential as it bakes. Baking in a Dutch oven ensures that an artisan bread has maximum oven spring (as well as a nice crispy crust), but it's also a great tool to use to get tall rolls with a fluffy crumb, as the steam keeps the surface rolling with moisture at the beginning of baking.

Indeed, for most dinner roll recipes, you'll see instructions to brush the top with milk, water, egg wash, butter, or something similar; this is to keep the crust moist and pliable while the bread is baking. If you steam the rolls, you can skip this step (although I still brush with butter after baking, because butter).

Proven Dutch Oven Dinner Rolls — You can try the rolls directly in the pot.

It's not just about steam, though: a Dutch oven also holds and transmits radiant heat well. This heat retention contributes to even baking and proper crust formation, meaning you can get a dinner roll that's soft and fluffy on the inside but has a nice crisp outer crust, in comparison with a wet skirt (because nobody likes a wet skirt). This also means that the dinner rolls are baked all together so that the sides are still soft and peel off into translucent sheets as you tear them apart, which is honestly one of life's greatest joys. In other words, this baking method offers the best of both worlds: You get a crisp outer crust, but also the soft, fluffy texture of the rolls that come apart.

As a bonus, the Dutch oven makes an ideal proofing room. Bread needs a warm, moist environment to prove, and I've found the inside of a Dutch oven with a lid placed somewhere cozy like in front of a warm oven or in a dough riser matto be just the ticket. This benefit is unique to rolls: When we bake artisan bread in a dutch oven, we preheat the dutch oven before putting the bread inside – since the bread is bigger and has more mass, the oven needs more heat to start . But one of the best parts about making dinner rolls in a Dutch oven is that you don't need to heat it first. The smaller, flatter mass of dinner rolls transfers heat much more efficiently, so you can simply try the rolls in the Dutch oven with a lid, then pop them directly into a hot oven.

Brush the melted butter over the baked Dutch oven dinner rolls — More butter is always welcome.

Do you want to start? Try this recipe for Dutch Oven Rolls for Dinnerwhich incorporate dried milk into the batter for an extra-soft texture and a layer of melted butter at the bottom of the pot for a crunchy bottom crust. But this method is not limited to dinner rolls. You can try it with brioche buns, bread buns with milk, monkey bread (like Breakfast Monkey Bread in my book, Baking bread with children) – pretty much anything you can put together to bake that you want to be soft and fluffy. Look for a roll recipe that's meant to be baked in an 8″ or 9″ round pan and use the baking instructions in Dutch Oven Rolls for Dinner recipe as a guide.

While buns are always a gem of the holiday table, they're a great back pocket recipe year-round: They make amazing lunchbox sandwiches, leftovers, or just a quick snack. Break out the dutch oven for Golden Pumpkin Dinner Rolls — and keep it all year round Soft sourdough rolls AND Whole Wheat Dinner Rollsalso.

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