Cranberry Dinner Rolls

My family loves the cranberry rolls they serve at dinner on Carnival cruises, and they’ve been asking me to make cranberry dinner rolls at home for years. We’ve sailed 14 Carnival cruises and spent nearly 100 nights on board, so we’ve had our share of them.

These aren’t the same rolls, though. The ones on board are chewier, and mine are the soft dinner rolls my family loves at home, with a lot of the same cranberry flavor. They’re easy for me to bake and prep, and they’re delicious in their own right.

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A Dinner Roll, Not a Sweet Roll

The dried cranberries add a little sweetness, but they’re still dinner rolls, not a sweet treat. They’re great for Thanksgiving or any special occasion, and honestly for the not-so-special ones too.

My kids dig into them as-is. The rest of us like to add a little butter, and this is about the only time I use salted butter. Every recipe I make uses unsalted butter, including the butter you brush on these.

If you’re planning a Thanksgiving menu, serve them with my Cranberry Orange Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, and Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Bacon. If you’d rather have a plain roll on the table, try my Buttery Homemade Dinner Rolls.

Inspired by Our Cruise Dinners

The rolls that inspired these are the ones the servers bring to the main dining room, not the specialty restaurants like the Carnival Steakhouse. Those are chewier, but everyone loved the addition of cranberries so much that I wanted to add some to my own dinner rolls.

How Much Flour Your Dough Needs

This recipe calls for three to three and a half cups of flour, and that range is intentional. Start with three cups and add more only if the dough needs it.

How to Know Your Dough Has Enough Flour

You want your dough to feel tacky, like the sticky part of a sticky note. It shouldn’t leave a wet paste on your fingers when you poke it, but if it sticks stubbornly to your hands, you need a little more flour.

Watch the bowl while your mixer runs. The dough should gather into a ball around the dough hook and leave the sides of the bowl mostly clean. If it pools at the bottom, add flour one tablespoon at a time until it pulls away.

Why Flour Amounts Vary Day to Day

Flour acts like a dry sponge and soaks up moisture from the air in your kitchen. On a rainy Thanksgiving, your flour already holds extra water, so you’ll need more flour in the dough. On a dry winter day, you’ll use less to get that tacky texture.

How you measure also makes a difference. I spoon the flour into my measuring cup and level it off, because scooping straight from the bag packs it down and gives you more than the recipe needs. You can also weigh it, and the recipe card lists the grams.

How to Make Cranberry Dinner Rolls

Start by plumping the dried cranberries. Cover them with hot water for 10 minutes, then drain them well. Dry berries pull moisture from the dough, and plumping them first keeps your baked rolls soft.

Warm the milk to 105 to 110 degrees. I stir it and check it with my infrared thermometer, since milk that’s too hot kills the yeast. Stir in the yeast with one teaspoon of the sugar and let it sit for five to 10 minutes, until it looks foamy.

That foam shows the yeast is alive. Unless you bake with yeast often enough to know yours is good, don’t skip this step. My Yeast 101 guide walks through how to tell if your yeast is still good.

Add the melted butter, the room-temperature egg, the salt, and the rest of the sugar, and stir until combined. Use the dough hook to mix in three cups of flour on low until a shaggy dough forms, then knead on speed 2 for five to seven minutes.

You want the dough to be smooth and tacky, so add more flour only if needed. You may need to periodically pull the dough from the hook and redistribute it, depending on your mixer.

Turn the mixer to the lowest speed and add the drained cranberries. Mix just until they’re spread through the dough. Adding them last keeps the mixer from crushing them into a paste.

Form the dough into a smooth ball and put it in a lightly oiled bowl, turning it once to coat the top. Cover it with a clean towel or plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm spot for about an hour, until it doubles.

Grease your 9×13 pan while the dough rises. I hold a stick of butter in its wrapper, unwrap just the end, and run it along the bottom and sides of the pan. The milk solids in the butter toast in the oven, giving the rolls a rich, golden bottom.

Cooking spray works fine, and the rolls release easily. You just miss out on that extra buttery crust on the bottom of each roll.

Gently punch the dough down and divide it into 12 equal pieces with a bench scraper. I weigh each piece because I’m a dork like that and it makes me happy, but the rolls turn out just fine if you eyeball them.

Roll each piece into a tight ball and set them in the prepared pan. I find it easiest to stretch the edges toward the bottom and tuck them under to get a nice, smooth top.

Cover the pan loosely and let the rolls rise for another 45 to 60 minutes, until they look very puffy and fill the pan. If you’re making them ahead, stop here and refrigerate them instead.

Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 18 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Brush the hot rolls with melted unsalted butter right away. The butter soaks into the hot crust and keeps it soft as the rolls cool.

Make-Ahead Cranberry Dinner Rolls

You can split this recipe across two days, which takes a lot off your plate on Thanksgiving. Make the dough, shape the rolls, and set them in the pan, then cover the pan tightly instead of letting the rolls rise on the counter. I use my 9×13 with the snap-on lid, which also makes it easy to bring the rolls to a family dinner.

Put the pan straight into the fridge overnight. The cold slows the yeast way down, and that slow rise gives the dough a deeper flavor.

The shaped rolls can stay in the fridge for up to 16 to 18 hours. Any longer and the yeast eats through the available sugars and wears itself out, so the rolls overproof, deflate in the oven, and taste sour.

Take the pan out of the fridge one to two hours before you want to bake. Keep the rolls covered while they come back to room temperature and finish puffing up, then bake them as usual once they fill the pan.

Storing and Reheating Cranberry Dinner Rolls

Keep baked rolls in an airtight container or zip-top bag on the counter, and they’ll stay soft for two to three days. Don’t refrigerate them. The cold crystallizes the bread’s starches, and the rolls turn stale much faster than they do at room temperature.

To warm them up, wrap the rolls in aluminum foil and heat them at 350 degrees for five to seven minutes. The foil traps the steam and softens the crust.

Can You Use Fresh or Frozen Cranberries in Dinner Rolls?

No, stick with sweetened dried cranberries for this recipe. Fresh and frozen cranberries are full of water and very tart, so they make the dough wet and leave sour pockets in the rolls. Any brand of regular dried cranberries works.

Can You Freeze Cranberry Dinner Rolls?

Yes, but freeze the baked rolls, not the raw dough. Home freezers swing in temperature and slowly kill the yeast in raw dough, which leaves you with flat, dense rolls.

Let the rolls cool completely, wrap them tightly in foil, and slide them into a heavy-duty freezer bag, squeezing out as much air as you can. They’ll keep for up to two months.

Don’t thaw them on the counter, since that dries them out. Leave them in the foil and reheat them straight from frozen at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, until they’re warm all the way through.

Can You Make Cranberry Dinner Rolls Without a Stand Mixer?

Yes, you can knead this dough by hand. It takes a little longer than the mixer, so keep kneading until the dough is smooth and tacky.

Skip the hand mixer, though. It isn’t strong enough for bread dough, and it doesn’t have the right beaters.

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