♪ CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL: Welcome to Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

We help home cooks rediscover and recreate lost family recipes.

- My grandmother Margaret's was the absolute best.

- Don't put any pressure on us or anything!

CHRISTOPHER: We bring home cooks to our Boston studio...

I'm gonna stand back.

...where, along with our host and pastry chef Cheryl Day... - Isn't it great how food can take you back?

CHRISTOPHER: ...we teach them how to make their family recipe from scratch.

- You're gonna be able to bake this cake.

- I can do it.

CHRISTOPHER: Just the way it was made by, say, their grandmother.

- Beautiful!

- Grandma would not tolerate lumps.

CHRISTOPHER: Then we send them home to recreate that recipe for the toughest audience... - There it is.

CHRISTOPHER: ...their own family.

[laughing] CHRISTOPHER: Can our home cooks pull it off?

- Mom, that's really good.

- I think that's a yes.

CHRISTOPHER: Or will the recipe be lost forever?

Right here on Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

- That is delicious.

[upbeat music playing] ♪ Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

♪ - My name is Royce Tanaka, and we are just outside of Fresno, California.

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents.

There they are.

My grandmother and grandfather.

Hard to believe they were that young at one point.

Oh, there he is in his uniform.

Looks like he's got one stripe there.

My grandfather's name is Masao Teruya.

He was a cook in the army.

After World War II, he went to school and he opened up a bakery.

You know, he had bakers' hours, 2:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

I guess that's what it is about, you know, these first, second generation.

They sacrifice, they work hard so the next generation can do better by getting college degrees.

But it's sad for me because, you know, in some ways like, "Oh, but we don't have these baked goods anymore."

And one of my favorite things is these butter rolls that he would make.

Oh, this must have been my grandfather's first bakery.

Yeah, the butter rolls.

Look at that right there.

I remember as a kid, my mom would help out in the bakery on the weekends, and I'd be in the parking lot sleeping in the car.

And then I would wake up in the morning and then I would walk in and remember grabbing the butter roll, you know, and then putting more butter on it.

[laughs] I mean, those things were so good.

I've never seen it anywhere else.

It was really soft inside.

It seemed the most layered.

In some ways, these things really connected me back to my grandparents, who are deceased, and even my dad.

And, yeah, I would love to recreate this recipe.

♪ [video call rings] CHERYL: Hi, Royce.

ROYCE: Hi, Chris.

Hi, Cheryl.

Good to meet you.

BOTH: Nice to meet you.

- I'm really excited to learn more about the history of your family butter rolls.

- My grandfather, of course, was a baker.

He's had at least three bakeries that I know of.

- Okay.

- I mean, opened and closed, then opened another one and closed, then opened another one.

- Oh, wow.

- I can't say he was a good businessman... but he was a good baker.

- So, are these butter rolls-- are they like a fluffy dinner roll?

Are they-- what are they like inside?

- Definitely fluffy.

Definitely... - Almost more moist.

- What was the outside like?

- I remember the top.

You could just peel it off, and all that flavor was in that top part, that's why.

- All that butter he was putting in.

- All the butter.

- Exactly.

Just concentrated that flavor.

CHRISTOPHER: It caramelized, yeah, a little bit.

- So tell us, who are you most excited to share this recipe with?

- My aunt.

- Okay.

- So, she actually worked in the bakery.

- So she's going to know if we get it right.

- [Cheryl and Royce laugh] - Even more than I would probably.

- [Cheryl and Royce laugh] - Have you ever tried to make this recipe before, Royce?

- Never made it, yes.

So, you need to understand, I'm not a baker.

Honestly, this will be the first time I'm baking when they actually teach me how to bake these butter rolls.

- Well, we've got our work cut out for us.

- Yeah, we got a couple of weeks to work here, Royce, but we'll have you up shortly.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And then you'll get your first bite in a while of a butter roll.

- We hope that you like it.

- Yeah, yeah, and, you know, honestly, the exciting part for me was connecting with my family.

Now we're actually going to have, like, a mini family reunion, so it'll be really great.

- That's great.

We'll see you up in Boston shortly.

- Great.

Sounds good.

CHERYL: Looking forward to it.

- Thanks, Royce.

Nice to meet you.

- Bye.

Well, I'm excited for this one.

Butter rolls.

- Yes.

- I mean, how bad can that be?

- Well, actually, my wife, for our kids, buys loaves of butter bread.

I tell her, like, "This is Wonder Bread."

But it's called butter bread.

So I think the butter and bread kind of go together.

- Yes, they do.

- Great name.

So we'll have to go do some homework.

- Yeah, it'll be fun.

♪ CHRISTOPHER: Today we're going to work on a recipe called butter rolls from Hawaii.

It's a recipe I'd never heard of, and this started many places around the world after World War II.

Sort of American style, light, sort of white breads became very popular.

So this recipe for butter rolls is a little different than two recipes you might know.

The King's Hawaiian sweet bread, which is baked in a big rectangular pan, and also the butter rolls from the Liliha Bakery, which, again, are slightly different.

This has a soft crumb that you can sort of peel off the top of it, but it has a nice concentration of rich butter, so it's not too light, it's not too heavy.

So let's see if we can make butter rolls that meet Royce's expectations and his memories from his grandfather's bakery, founded in 1951.

- So, no pressure here, right?

These have probably been made thousands of times by Royce's grandfather, but strangely enough, from a professional bakery, there's no recipe.

So we got to start from the ground up here.

WES: We're going to assign this to Rose.

She is so great at baking and especially nice, soft, tender doughs like this.

So, we started out with a little bit of water and found that that wasn't rich enough.

So we added a little milk to that.

So, one of the challenges here is to figure out how much butter to use.

If you use too much butter in a roll like this, it's just going to become soggy.

So we lightened it up by adding a little shortening as well.

Gave us a nice little fluffy texture.

So how's it going?

- Good.

I mean, this dough, I think, looks great.

Look at that.

- Oh, yeah.

So we've got the dough down, but we have another challenge here and it's to figure out how to form these so they are like what Royce remembers.

- Something like that maybe?

- Oh, yeah, maybe.

- So then it would-- - Right.

It's just going to kind of bake.

That might work.

- Let's try that.

Or we could do maybe an envelope fold.

- Oh, yeah, that could be it.

- Let's try something.

- Time's running out.

We got a few more batches to make.

We've got to get this right.

- I think if you want the flap, there's got to be a piece of dough on the top... WES: Right.

Okay.

Letter fold.

- Let's try-- Yeah.

Okay.

WES: So this was a challenge.

Royce remembers them having a flap that he would peel back, and inside was nice and warm and fluffy, and underneath it was caramelized and brown.

- I am kind of a fan of just simple, like, fold it over and put it in and let's see if that works.

- Yeah.

If we figure out the... which one of these folds work, we'll be good.

So, we found, after a few different trial-and-error batches, that folding them was really not that difficult.

It's just really one fold over and tucking them in, and they baked up beautifully.

So, Royce is on his way.

We think we figured this out.

They look beautiful.

They pull apart.

They're nice and buttery on the bottom.

But are they buttery enough?

Fingers crossed.

CHERYL: Hi, Royce.

Welcome.

ROYCE: Thank you.

- Thanks so much for coming.

- Yeah, I'm excited.

- Well, we're excited about this recipe.

I take it the butter rolls are your fondest memory of that time visiting your grandfather.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember growing up with it and eating it for breakfast with guava jam.

- Ooh, that sounds... CHERYL: Oh, yeah.

- You know, Hawaiian guava jam.

- I do like taking a butter roll and then buttering it.

- Oh, absolutely.

- There's something lovely about it.

- But we have taken this on and we are super excited about the recipe.

So, are you ready to learn how to do it?

- All right.

Okay.

CHERYL: Okay.

So, we're starting with our flour and our yeast and our salt.

All right.

Royce doesn't have any baking experience to actually make the butter rolls himself.

It's going to be a bit of a challenge.

I'm just going to mix this up on low.

So, basically what you're doing is making sure that all of your ingredients are fully incorporated.

You don't want someone to get a big bite of salt or yeast.

- So, we use water and milk.

Oddly enough, water makes a lighter roll.

Obviously there's no fat in it.

We're also using shortening for the same reason.

Like in a pie crust, shortening makes a light pie crust.

ROYCE: Right.

CHRISTOPHER: Doesn't make a tasty pie crust.

- No.

- That's why we're adding butter.

Some butter.

CHERYL: Just going to melt that.

- And the sugar as well.

So, the only thing you have to worry about is killing the yeast.

If this liquid's really hot.

- The only thing?

- Well, we don't want to scare him.

One danger moment at a time.

You want it to be warm, like 110.

If it's over 125, you start to get to the point where you might actually kill the yeast off.

- Okay.

- Well, do you have any questions so far?

- No, no.

It's pretty straightforward, yeah.

- Okay.

So you're excited to be able to make these?

- Yeah.

Well, actually, I'm kind of scared.

- Are you?

- I hope I don't blow the recipe.

- Well, you can ask questions.

- It'll come out flat like a pancake.

- No, no, no.

- Well, actually, we hope you don't blow it, too.

ROYCE: Honestly, I'm a little nervous not knowing what's going to happen, and I just feel like, okay, what am I getting myself into?

CHERYL: Chris is going to gradually add that in, and with that hook, it's kneading the dough.

Once it starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, then we know it's done.

- That's the whole texture thing you're talking about.

CHERYL: Exactly.

ROYCE: One of the things I learned while we were mixing is how the texture of the dough changes.

Whether it's the stickiness or the consistency.

- I like to see the different transformations because then that's a visual clue.

You can see now it's... ROYCE: It's sticky looking.

CHERYL: Pulling off the sides of the bowl.

ROYCE: And then I was watching the way the dough reacts as it's being mixed and how it changes.

That's something that I think my grandfather was able to kind of just eyeball and be able to see.

And that's one of the things I started to pick up on.

CHERYL: All right.

See what it feels like.

It's just hard to describe.

- Oh, interesting.

Yeah, it's not... Hmm.

Yeah, I don't know how to describe it either.

CHRISTOPHER: Doughy.

- Doughy.

CHERYL: Yeah.

So, Chris is buttering this bowl.

We want to have as much butter as your memory will hold.

- Yes.

- So this is also very rich.

CHERYL: Very.

Beautiful.

- Extremely rich.

So we're just going to get that covered, flip it.

All right.

We're going to let this sit for a couple hours and we'll be back and shape 'em, right?

Which is actually the really-- the fun part.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- So, we're back with our beautiful dough.

Do you see how big it is?

ROYCE: Yeah, it rose, yeah.

- So now I'm going to let Chris divide this into 12.

- This is the hardest thing.

I just want to point out.

When she gave this to me, so she wanted me to mess it up.

CHERYL: I'm going to dust for you and everything.

So, basically what he's going to do is throw it out, make it into a rough rectangle, and cut it into 12 pieces, and we'll try to get them as evenly as possible.

Look how he's working that dough.

Okay, so I'm going to put little pats of butter, because that was a big part of your memory, was having the pats of butter in the bottom of each cup.

So good, Chris.

So now I'm going to get you to come over here, and what we're going to do is make each one of these into, like, a little rectangle and then one quick little fold lamination.

And then fold it in half.

You're just going to put it in and just kind of do a little tuck.

Okay?

Just a little tuck.

So, I'm going to let you do one.

Okay?

I want you to do it because I want you-- - He looks nervous.

That's good.

- So, fold in half.

- Okay.

- Just fold it over.

One fold.

CHERYL: Yeah.

ROYCE: Yeah.

- Stick it in... CHRISTOPHER: Stuff and tuck.

CHERYL: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Perfect.

You're a natural.

ROYCE: Working with Chris and Cheryl was actually fun.

They're professionals, right?

They just know how to do it, and it just felt so natural with them.

They made it really easy.

CHERYL: Does this feel comfortable?

ROYCE: Yeah.

You're here.

That's why.

- That's it.

- Yes.

- We're going to let these rise again.

They're going to get more of a little crown on top.

- Got you.

- So, half an hour just for the second rise and into a pretty hot oven, 400 degrees for, you know, 20, 25 minutes, something like that.

- And hopefully we're going to get to that buttery memory that you remember.

- Right.

CHERYL: So, here they are.

We baked them for about 20 minutes until they're nice and golden like this.

- Can we just admire this?

I mean, this should be in the Museum of Modern Art.

- It's beautiful.

- I'm sorry, yeah.

It's absolutely gorgeous.

- And see how yellow it is?

That's what I remember.

- So this looks familiar?

- Yes.

If I remember correctly.

- You mentioned, like, layering it or you rip the top.

What did you do with it?

- I'm gonna grab one, right?

- Yup.

- So, you can actually just take the top off.

See that?

- Oh.

- That's what I remember.

And the interior, it's kind of that fluffy-- and even the way the texture is there.

- And then you said you would put more butter.

We also have guava jam, and then you mentioned something about grilling them, so we did that, too, because we want to bring that memory full circle.

You try it first.

ROYCE: All right.

Yeah.

Do you know what?

I'm gonna just eat it like this.

I got to... CHERYL: So, what do you think?

- Oh, wow.

As you would say in Hawaii, broke da mouth, or broke da jaw.

- Broke da jaw.

- Broke da jaw.

- Broke da jaw.

- There you go.

- What does that mean?

- Oh, tastes good.

Or the other word we'd say, "It's onolicious."

- I like it.

I've never heard that before.

ROYCE: The first thing that I noticed was the texture.

Right.

That creamy.

I love the layering in it.

And then, of course, when I ate it, what did I taste?

Butter.

I'm impressed.

I'm actually surprised you can recreate it just by what I told you.

- How are you feeling about making this recipe?

- Yeah, well, we'll see.

- That doesn't sound too confident.

- A little bit nervous, but, you know, I think I got a good handle on it.

They got a good recipe, so all I got to do is be able to do that again.

CHERYL: Well, this is definitely going in my repertoire, so thank you for sharing.

- Oh, thank you.

CHRISTOPHER: Thank you.

- Yeah.

- I think you're gonna do great.

- Okay.

♪ ♪ Let's see here.

I need all that.

Okay.

You know, learning to make this recipe and to bake these butter rolls on my own, I just feel like, wow, this is like me walking in my grandfather's footsteps again.

All right.

My confidence level is, hmm...

I'm a little nervous about my ability to even follow a recipe.

So, water, milk, sugar.

I really want to learn it for myself, and, to me, the best way is to just, yeah, just do it.

All right, here we go.

Sugar and shortening.

Now flour.

As I'm thinking about putting all this together, I'm actually feeling a little bit of pressure now because, like, oh, my gosh, my family's about to come over.

I'm going to serve them all these rolls.

Like, boy, I really hope it turns out well.

Salt.

What was neat about being able to recreate this recipe-- to bake it has really brought my family together.

I haven't seen them in actually four years.

I'm really excited about that part.

Let's just check the recipe real quick here.

Stand mixer with the flour, yeast, salt.

Okay.

As I was adding the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients...

Okay.

...I think I poured it in a little too fast.

Come on, dough.

Stir lower for a little while.

I'm a little nervous because I was watching this thing, and it's like, hey, it's not acting the way it should.

Actually, I can kind of already tell that the dough's-- yeah, dough's not ready yet.

It's not looking like the correct consistency.

Hey, man, you're not cooperating.

You have to get more elastic.

The way it's riding up on the hook and I'm feeling it, I'm pulling it, it's just not quite there.

It's not sticking to the side.

So I don't have to add more flour, but I just got to mix it a little more.

When Cheryl was teaching me back in Boston, she says, hey, feel the dough.

And that, to me, was the key piece right there of knowing when it is ready to go.

Nice.

It's kind of riding up on the hook like it was supposed to.

Oh, yeah, that's good.

All right, I guess we'll come check on you in about an hour.

Right now I'm thinking of, did I do it all correct so it rises correctly?

That's my biggest worry.

[beeping] All right, what's next here?

Looks like the dough is good to go.

"Gently punch throughout."

12 portions.

Okay.

So I kind of punch that down.

Yeah.

All right.

This is where I'm going to get my inner Chris Kimball to perfectly proportion this out.

The next thing that I got to do is actually measure it out into individual portions or sizes to be able to put into the baking pan.

Okay, now two by three inch.

That's it.

Thankfully, Cheryl made me actually take those cut-up portions and be able to fold it up into the pan, so I'm pretty confident with that part.

All right, that looks good.

So I just got to cover it and let it rest for 30 to 45 minutes here, so... What was really neat, as I was talking with my family, they began to get really excited about these butter rolls as well, so they actually all flew up from Hawaii.

- Hey, Anabel.

- What's up?

- What's up?

- My brother doesn't know how to bake, and he doesn't know how to cook either.

So when I heard that he was actually gonna be baking butter rolls, I was totally shocked.

And this is something that definitely I have to see.

- I heard there's food around.

- Yeah.

I'm so glad you guys are able to make it.

You know, Milk Street, they worked hard at putting this recipe together.

I've tried to follow it as well as I could, so hopefully this works out well, and I hope you do enjoy it.

- Is it gonna taste good?

- I hope so.

- Okay, all right.

ALL: Whoa.

- So, there's a napkin here and everybody can grab one.

JANIS: Yeah, look, there's actually layers.

SUSAN: Looks the same.

JANIS: I'll do my Grandpa thing, like, feel it, examine it... smell it.

Most of us, when we taste the butter rolls, we just throw the whole thing in our mouth.

But my grandpa, he used to use all of his senses.

- And then he just takes a little bite.

JANIS: Yeah, just a little bite.

- I think the person who will have the most memory will be my aunt.

She was the one who watched my grandfather day in and day out for years.

I mean, I don't even know how many times she's seen my grandfather make this recipe.

- Here I go.

- This needs more butter.

Almost like it, but, yeah, it's very good.

- Okay, thank you.

SUSAN: You're welcome.

- More butter.

Believe it or not.

- You have a chance.

You have potential.

- Surprisingly, he did well.

It came out very good.

It tasted very familiar, like from days before.

- This is really good.

I like the texture.

I really enjoyed it.

It surprised me.

Totally.

Now I'm having second thoughts about saying that my brother can't bake.

- Tastes good.

Yeah.

JANIS: Yeah.

ROYCE: All right.

My first time doing it all on my own, and it actually turned out well, so I was shocked.

I'm really thankful for that.

If you need butter, just add more.

JANIS: Yeah, this needs a little bit more butter, but, hey, yeah, this is good.

There you go.

- Oh, yeah.

It just needs more butter.

The texture's there.

Yeah.

- This is how you can tell it's good bread.

It just peels.

I just want to eat this, I feel there's lots of love.

ROYCE: Oh, thank you.

- You made it with a lot of feeling.

- Yeah, it reminds you when, yeah, you know, watching Grandpa make these.

Like, I like that crispy-- that-- right at the top.

ROYCE: Right, right.

JANIS: I miss my grandpa a lot.

I think he would be really proud, and I think he's looking down at us and saying, yeah, great job, Royce.

- So, I'm so glad that you and Anabel came at the last minute, Nicki, 'cause, like, we all grew up with the bakery.

Right.

She didn't.

So it's kind of exciting that she's here.

I'm so glad that you can share this and, you know, pass this on, and kind of like Grandpa kind of lives on and the bakery and all that history and how the food kind of connects us and everything, so... Grandniece, niece Nicki, my sister Janis, and my mom, four generations.

To me, that's also really neat.

You don't always get that.

Four generations all at one table.

Hey, will you make this when you grow up and have kids?

All right.

Thank you, Grandpa, for bringing us all back together.

I'm so glad you're all here to experience this with me.

Thank you.

- Good job, Royce.

Good job, Royce.

Yeah.

Thank you, Grandpa.

I'm definitely proud of my brother.

He's definitely going to be the one that's gonna make the rolls for Thanksgiving dinner.

ROYCE: It would be nice if there still was a bakery and somebody would have continued that, but at least with the recreating of these butter rolls, there's a little bit of piece of that history.

There's a little piece of growing up that we can still get to hold on to.

- Good job, brother Royce.

- All right, I need more butter.

Excuse me.

♪ ♪ - Just steps outside the Vatican, in Rome's Borgo Pio neighborhood, there's a bakery called Panificio Arrigoni.

This bakery has made bread for every pope from Pius XI all the way to Francis.

And they also bake a kind of bread unlike anything we'd ever seen in Italy.

Angelo Aragoni calls it "cloud bread."

- (speaking Italian) - (speaking Italian) - (speaking Italian) - (speaking Italian) Recipes and episodes from this season of My Family Recipe are available at MilkStreetTV.com/MFR Access our content any time to change the way you cook.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

♪ ♪