Homemade Crescent Rolls (+Video)
These Homemade Crescent Rolls are light, airy and fluffy and are made with simple ingredients! The perfect bread to go with any meal!
A HOMEMADE ROLL RECIPE
If you are a fan of making bread at home then these Homemade Crescent Rolls are just what you need. These are much easier to make than you might think. You do not have to be a skilled bread maker, I promise! I’m going to show you step-by-step just how simple they are and you don’t need a ton of ingredients. You absolutely need to make these rolls at least once! But I promise, once you make them, you’ll be wanting to make them again and again!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
I like to use a pizza cutter. It helps us ensure straight cuts. A sharp knife will also work just fine. If you use a dull knife, you’ll end up dragging the dough while you cut it and it’ll make a mess of the dough so sharpen your knife first.
This makes a total of 24 crescent rolls. They freeze beautifully too so if you don’t need that many, just freeze them for next time!
For this recipe you do. It makes the dough easier to work with and it also enhances the flavor.
Yes. Heat the oven to 375F degrees and place the tray on top of the stove. Alternatively, you can preheat your oven on the lowest setting then turn it off. Turn the light on in your oven, place the tray inside and let it rise in the warmth of the oven.
While they do look similar they are not. Crescent rolls are a bread and croissants are a pastry. The method of making them is different as well. With croissants you are folding butter in-between the layers of the dough to create flakiness and they do not use yeast like crescent rolls do.
These can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature where they will keep for up to 4 days. They can also be frozen. Place crescent rolls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and flash freeze in the freezer for about an hour. Then place them in a freezer-safe Ziploc bag. Flash freezing will keep them from sticking together in the bag. Reheat in an air fryer or in the oven.
INGREDIENTS NEEDED: (SEE RECIPE CARD BELOW FOR THE FULL RECIPE)
- warm water – the warm water needs to be very warm to the touch but not boiling. It will help to activate the yeast.
- active dry yeast – I haven’t tried this with instant yeast but it should work.
- butter – I use salted butter but you could use unsalted.
- granulated sugar – this does not make the dough sweet – it just ‘feeds’ the yeast.
- eggs – allow the eggs to come to room temperature if you have the time.
- all-purpose flour – You want to use regular all purpose flour. My favorite is the White Lily brand. Self-rising flour won’t work here. The yeast is going to be the leavening in this so all purpose flour only.
HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE CRESCENT ROLLS:
Mix ¼ cup warm water and yeast in a small bowl and set aside until dissolved (about 5 minutes).
In a large bowl with a spoon or a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, add melted butter, remaining 1 cup warm water, sugar, beaten eggs, salt, and the dissolved yeast mixture. Mix together until well combined.
Gradually add the flour into the mixture.
Mix until flour is fully combined and the dough is smooth. No additional kneading is required, the dough will be very sticky but don’t add any extra flour.
Let it sit on the countertop for 30 minutes, then push/fold it down to get rid of air bubbles. Spray plastic wrap with cooking spray and cover bowl with wrap. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
Grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Divide dough into 2 halves. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each dough half in a circle to be ⅛-¼ inch thick (add flour to a rolling pin if dough is sticking). If using paper to roll it out on, use parchment and not wax paper.
Cut into 12 equal triangles.
Tightly roll each triangle starting at the large end to form the crescent.
Place on the baking sheet, point side down (place rolls about 2 inches apart – 12 rolls per pan).
Cover with a towel and allow to rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours or until doubled in size (rising time will depend on the temperature).
Bake at 375°F for 7-10 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Brush with melted butter.
Serve with your favorite meal.
Enjoy!
WANT MORE DELICIOUS RECIPES?
Homemade Crescent Rolls (+Video)
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup warm water, divided use
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs, well beaten
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- additional melted butter, for topping
Instructions
- Mix ¼ cup warm water and yeast in a small bowl and set aside until dissolved (about 5 minutes).
- In a large bowl with a spoon or a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, add melted butter, remaining 1 cup warm water, sugar, beaten eggs, salt, and the dissolved yeast mixture. Mix together until well combined.
- Gradually add the flour into the mixture.
- Mix until flour is fully combined and the dough is smooth. No additional kneading is required, the dough will be very sticky but don’t add any extra flour.
- Let it sit on the countertop for 30 minutes, then push/fold it down to get rid of air bubbles.
- Spray plastic wrap with cooking spray and cover bowl with wrap. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.
- Grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Divide dough into 2 halves. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each dough half in a circle to be ⅛-¼ inch thick (add flour to a rolling pin if dough is sticking). If using paper to roll it out on, use parchment and not wax paper.
- Cut into 12 equal triangles.
- Tightly roll each triangle starting at the large end to form the crescent.
- Place on the baking sheet, point side down (place rolls about 2 inches apart – 12 rolls per pan).
- Cover with a towel and allow to rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours or until doubled in size (rising time will depend on the temperature).
- Bake at 375°F for 7-10 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
- Brush with melted butter and serve!
Video
Notes
- Do not skip refrigerating the dough, it is essential to this recipe.
- Using a pizza cutter really helps cut these nice and even.
- You can speed up the rise time, see above on how to do that.
- Make sure to use active dry yeast for this recipe.
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
“The Country Cook” is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. If calorie count and other nutritional values are important to you, we recommend running the ingredients through whichever online nutritional calculator you prefer. Calories can vary quite a bit depending on which brands were used.
Hey there! I want to use this recipe to make a Pampered Chef braid so I don’t actually need the roll but just the triangle shape. Should I just cut them into triangles and let them rise without rolling?
very nice and easy recipe to follow
thanks for sharing
I just pulled these out of the oven about 10 minutes ago…and my husband has already devoured 2. Said they are delish. A keeper recipe for sure! Just wondering about the halving of the recipe, as it calls for 3 eggs. Do you beat 3 eggs then add half? Or have you used the “eggs in a carton” as a substitute? Just curious how you would approach that. This is just a comment but I always follow the directions on the yeast container which says to dissolve the yeast with sugar in order to activate it. Have you had success in getting the yeast to bloom without sugar?
Amazing – so happy it turned out great for you! Great question on the sugar, it gets added in the 2nd step so the yeast is getting sugar to help it along just not in the first step. I’ve had no issues doing it this way but if you are more comfortable adding it immediately in the first 5 minutes, that’s fine too. As for the eggs, you could just use 2 medium size eggs rather than large eggs. Or you can use the liquid eggs that use the whole eggs if you’d like. I honestly think it’s easier just to make a whole batch (since you’re going through all that trouble anyways) then just freeze before baking so you’ll have it ready for the next time you want crescent rolls 🙂
Thanks for the quick reply – yeah, we have a freezer “issue” this time of year…..deer hunting season! It’s always a challenge for me to find space in our freezer(s)! I feel blessed to have that sort of problem though….
I am making more of those crescent rolls soon, to give to a few people I know who will appreciate them. The dough was awesome, definitely needed a floured rolling pin and surface but it was lovely to work with. I see why you made a point of saying NOT to skip the refrigeration part of the process.
Hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am in Canada so we had ours the second Monday of October. We lived in Oklahoma for a few years and I loved the excitement over the celebration of Thanksgiving in the US.
All you had to say was deer hunting – say no more. Ha! Totally understand 🙂