Shamrock and Snake Rolls for Saint Patrick’s Day
This is an easy, one-rise recipe for rolls that we found at cooks.com some years ago. We use it for quick rolls and hamburger and sandwich buns and here are using it to make shamrocks and snake rolls in honor of the legends attributed to Saint Patrick. They tell us that the holy saint used the shamrock to teach the idea of the Holy Trinity and that he drove the snakes from Ireland.
Quick rolls
2 ¼ teaspoons of dry yeast (or one package)
1 cup lukewarm water
1 egg
¼ cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
¼ cup oil
3 cups of flour
Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water in large measuring cup. Beat in egg, salt and oil. Divide this mixture between 2 bowls. Color one bowl of yeast mixture green. Then, add 1½ cups flour to each bowl and beat until smooth. Place each in greased bowl and let rise until doubled.
For each shamrock, roll the dough into 3 balls, make a stem and place on greased cookie sheet:
For the uncolored dough, roll in sections and stretch dough out on a greased cookie sheet to resemble a snake:
Then, we brushed each snake with beaten egg and used poppy seeds for the eyes.
Bake at 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes or until golden brown.
When cooled, we pushed skewers into the shamrocks and poked through styrofoam in the bottom of our basket.
We covered the styrofoam with a cloth napkin…
…and put our snakes around the bottom of the basket.
Legends say that Saint Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland…
…and it should be easy to make these “snakes” disappear….
Saint Patrick, pray for us.
