Old-Fashioned Butter Rolls
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This old-fashioned butter rolls recipe is something else. A Southern dessert specialty, it includes tender and moist cinnamon-spiced rolls in a creamy sweet custard-like sauce.
Some of our most beloved Southern dishes begin with flour. Biscuits, milk gravy, chicken and dumplings, and today’s recipe: old-fashioned butter rolls. I wish I could say I’d grown up eating butter rolls but the truth is I had this dessert for the first time about 10 years ago, thanks to my Grandmama.
So, what is a butter roll? Trust me when I say, it’s like heaven on a plate. If that isn’t a good enough description, its closest relative is a cinnamon roll. However, it’s baked in a rich homemade custard sauce that stays just runny enough to be considered kind of a custard gravy of sorts. They’re ooey-gooey, tender, and absolutely delicious. Oh Lawd, you need to make these.
Fortunately, they’re a relatively easy dessert to whip together using everyday ingredients like milk, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and butter, of course. By the way, like so many of my other dessert recipes on Southern Plate, you can use Splenda in this one. Just remember that the key to cutting down on the artificially sweetened taste is to use just a hair less than the recipe calls for (remove one or two tablespoons per cup) and be sure you don’t pack it. Splenda should be measured out light and fluffy.
After you give this butter roll recipe a go, feel free to use your favorite biscuit dough or even experiment with canned biscuits. It’s really easy and fuss-free. You may also enjoy this version using a shortcut (also known as Crescent Rolls).
Before we get baking, I have a favor to ask. Since this is a nearly forgotten recipe of days gone by, help me bring it back again so it won’t be lost to future generations. If you enjoy it, please pass this recipe for old-fashioned butter rolls on.
Recipe Ingredients
- Milk
- Sugar
- Self-rising flour
- Vanilla extract
- Shortening
- Cinnamon
- Butter at room temperature
How to Make Old-Fashioned Butter Rolls
Place your flour in a large bowl along with the shortening.
Cut shortening in with a fork…
until combined well, like this.
Pour in your milk.
Stir well.
Spray your pan.
You don’t have to do this but I was in the mood.
Put some flour on a clean countertop or wherever you feel like doing this.
You can use whatever biscuit dough is your favorite or just go by this recipe. This one is gonna hold up a little better in our sauce because it’s a little drier.
Press it together to form a ball.
Then pat it out with your hands a bit and roll it out into a rectangle-type object.
Notice I didn’t get too particular here. This is an old-fashioned Southern dessert and I figure Granny was busy with kids underfoot and hungry folks marching in the door. Back in those days folks cooked their food, not built a shrine to it.
Now we’re gonna smear our butter on the rolled-out biscuit dough.
All y’all who are on the real butter bandwagon need to give me my gold star today :).
Generously sprinkle all of our sugar over it.
Then comes the cinnamon, just a hint.
The dough and sauce mixed together with the butter and vanilla are going to have the most lovely flavor on their own!
Now roll that up.
Cut it in about one-inch slices (one inch-ish).
Remember, this is old-fashioned food. It’s not supposed to look a certain way, it’s just supposed to taste good.
Place your old-fashioned butter rolls into the prepared baking dish.
Now it’s time to make the sauce!
Add the milk to a saucepan, along with…
The sugar and…
The vanilla extract.
Stir that over low to medium heat until the milk is hot and the sugar dissolves.
Pour the milk sauce over your old-fashioned butter rolls.
Oh my.
I hope you’ve tasted the sauce by now.
If you haven’t, go ahead, I won’t look. ~covers eyes and grins~
Bake at 350 for about 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown on top.
Grab one of your butter rolls, place it on a plate to serve, and…
Spoon more sauce on them. Enjoy real old-fashioned goodness, from Granny’s kitchen to yours.
Storage
These butter rolls definitely taste the best hot out of the oven. But if you do have leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. The roll might get soggy sitting in the sauce, so I’d recommend reheating in the oven to crisp it up once more.
Recipe Notes
- To make your own self-rising flour, see my FAQ page. Speaking of, I use a lot of both plain and self-rising flour at my house and have been known to dump whatever I grabbed first into my flour canister when it got empty. Sometimes I lose track of what is in there and need to know if it’s plain or self-rising. There is an easy fix. Dip your finger into the flour and lick it. If it tastes salty, it is self-rising. If it tastes bland, it is plain. I have to do this at least once a week but I’m perfectly alright with that because I decided long ago that being disorganized was just part of my charm. ~grins~
- If you don’t have shortening on hand, you can substitute it for an equal amount of butter.
- You can also substitute the ground cinnamon for ground nutmeg, or use a pinch of each.
- For something different, add some finely chopped apple, raisins, or chopped nuts to the filling.
You may also enjoy these other delectable old-fashioned dessert recipes:
Ole Fashioned Southern Sugar Plum Cake
Peanut Butter Pie Made the Old-Fashioned Way
Homemade Chocolate Pudding, Southern-Style
Easy Old-Fashioned Peach Cobbler Recipe
Ingredients
Butter Rolls
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 stick butter, softened can use margarine
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Milk Sauce
- 2 cups milk
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Cut the shortening into the flour really well with a fork. Stir in the milk.2 cups self-rising flour, 1/2 cup shortening, 1/2 cup milk
- On a floured surface, dump out the dough and press together with your hands to form a ball.
- Roll out into a rectangle (about 7×10 in size). Spread softened butter over dough and then sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the top. Roll it up like a jelly roll and press it together lightly.1 stick butter, softened, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- Cut into nine slices about one inch thick each. Place into a lightly greased 8×8 baking dish.
- In a medium saucepan, combine all of the milk sauce ingredients. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture begins to bubble lightly. Pour over the rolls in the pan.2 cups milk, 2/3 cups sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until rolls are golden brown on top.
- Allow them to sit for a few minutes once done so the rolls soak up more sauce. After you put each roll on a plate, spoon more sauce over it.
Nutrition
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I am 79 years old and I remember my mother making butter rolls for our family meals and I loved them as a child! Over the years I forgot all about them and my mother passed away 34 years ago and I never thought about butter rolls or how she made them until it was too late to ask her. There was no written recipe for them in her recipe box and no one in the family knows how she made them. I am so excited upon finding this recipe tonight and I can’t wait to make them because they look like and sound like the same things from my childhood. I think they are going to take me back to my childhood when I taste them! Thank you!
Oh Sue, I hope they are exactly like your Mother made!! Please enjoy every memory that every bite brings and don’t forget to sneak a little bit for me!!
I’m reading the recipe in your Sweetness cookbook and the instructions say to put cinnamon in both the rolls and the milk sauce, but cinnamon is only listed once in the ingredients. Can you clarify?
Hey Betsy! It is certainly good in both but I just put it in the rolls mostly. That must be a small error. Appreciate you checking in and letting me know! Have a great day 🙂
My mother’s family made something very similar to this. We always called it butter pie. My mother didn’t roll the dough into a rectangle; she would divide it into eight balls, then rolls those into rounds. Each round would get about a tablespoonish of butter, a couple heaping spoons of sugar, and then a drop of vanilla extract. The edges of the rounds were then pulled together until they looked like little money bags, and they were placed into a baking dish. Then they were covered with milk until only the very tops of the bags were visible. They were then baked until the tops of the bags were brown. My mother’s version seems like it’s a lot more labor intensive, and I’ve been craving this, so I think I’m going to try you’re version tonight and see how it comes out. Thanks for posting this!
Let me know how it compared to your Mother’s version Lilly, it will be interesting to find out!!
My great great grandmother and her family were from Georgia and later Alabama/ They all made this as Lilly described. I ate it as a child but never new what it was called. I could taste it for years and years and needed to find a recipe for it. After about fifty years, I found a recipe online by asking if anyone had an idea. A darling lady sent me all the information. I am and will be eternally grateful. Now, thank you Lilly and Christy. for bringing back to me one more time.
ThAnk you
Been looking for this since mom pass
I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope this brings a sweet memory to mind and a smile to your heart.
My oven went out 3 days ago and the part won’t be here till Tuesday. I had a real hankering for these rolls, so, since I can’t bake them tonight I thought I’d just look at them for a minute. LOL, I guess it’s true, you don’t miss your butter rolls till you can’t bake’em. Have a great weekend.
Turning the corner from summer into fall and all its promise once a delight to me. It meant home, coming in from school smelling the preparations for the holidays. I was born on Halloween so it was always exciting and Autumn, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and the time out of school just couldn’t make life any better for the sixth girl of six girls. I typed in Butter Rolls as a whim because I thought my family were the only people alive who knew what they were. Boy was I wrong. My Grandmother and her children, Mother being one of them, made these out of scratch items when living in a logging camp, poor and hungry most times.
When momma made them we thought Manna from heaven had fallen. With 6 girls, cousins nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, were around you can imagine the fight and how many poor momma had to make for she held the recipe of a little of this and that too. I am 62 and have lost beloved sisters, parents, and others and the joy is lost to me. Before Momma died, my husband learn how to make them because I only wanted them from Mommas hands. Then my ego got the better of me and I learned as well. Two of my older remaining sisters, think they can best me but – if you grew up with tihis recipe then you know one must know the exact smell to get the recipe right. Your recipe as all the comments I read plus mine are all similar. NUTMEG is my spice and the dough is made of sr flour, lard, and water. rolled out thin and loaded with butter sugar and nutmeg. Rollled up I cut them two finger size and put toothpicks into hold. Placed in a dutch oven or deep pan we then poured milk till it covered them then a can of cream, more butter dumped in and sugar. They cooked till done and sauce began to thickened about an hour or so. The smell told me if they were like mommas.
Would it be at all possible for you to tell me how many states and people who have responded to you remember when this recipe was recorded? I know that is asking a lot but as a writer, this is an important event in my life. As a older woman, the child in me feels connected to the many shared lovers of this delicacy. I have for years tried to find history of how they came to be and zealously guarded the recipe as family tradition. I have no one to leave the legacy too and it is with joy I have found kindred souls to share proof of this recipe. Thank you for posting it for someone like me to find. The good news is the 5th sister has a modern rendition of it she experimented with and they are so much easeier to make. I call her #5.
I am going to try to find time soon to look into all of the comments and see what I can find for you.
Thank you for sharing your precious memories with us – what a gift you have given!
I am 81, I did not grow up the south, but both parents, and all of my people, came from central MS. I remember my aunts making this, they made it w/ pie crust and baked it whole. I mean they rolled the crust out put all the sugar and spices on it, rolled it like a jelly roll, placed into deep dish, poured milk over it and baked. I thought it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten ! I must say, I think it will be even better when cut into slices before baking! I simply do not have any way to tell you how much having this recipe means to me ! Gratefully, a new reader