This recipe was given to my grandmother by my Aunt Ellen Forney, who taught at East High School in Memphis in the 1950’s.  It’s supposed to be the rolls from Pappy’s Lobster Shack that used to be in Overton Square a long time ago. I think she may have tweaked it a bit over the years, but they are good!

Ingredients:

1 cake yeast, or one envelope of active dry yeast.

½ cup water - lukewarm!

3 eggs

½ cup butter flavored Crisco, melted

½ cup milk, best if room temperature

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

¼ pound butter (½ stick)

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in water for 10 minutes. Drop the eggs into the mixing bowl, one at a time, and add melted Crisco, milk, dissolved yeast, sugar, and salt. Beat well and begin adding the flour a little at a time, but work it into the dough. Knead the dough in the bowl until it is smooth and elastic. Cover and place in a warm place, let it rise until it is double in size, about 45 minutes or so. Punch down the dough, cut off small pieces about the size of walnuts, place into greased muffin tins.  Let it rise again, just until the rolls are as high as the pan, then bake in a hot oven. She usually baked her bread at 400*, and although the recipe didn’t say, that’s what we did. It takes about 8-15 minutes, depending on your oven. Right when you take them out, brush them with melted butter. It makes 18-24 rolls. We put more than one piece in the muffin tin, so it only made 18 rolls - would work better with just one piece of dough in each tin.