Hints for freezer bread dough: -Find a recipe that is designed for freezing the dough for the best results. There will be more yeast and sugar and less salt in a recipe destined for the freezer. There is more yeast because the yeast action is slowed once it's in suspension in the dough. The salt regulates the yeast, so less of it will help optimize a quicker rise. If using your own recipe the rule-of-thumb is to double the amount of yeast. -Use Active Dry Yeast instead of fast-rising or instant yeast. Active Dry Yeast is more tolerant to being frozen. -Lean dough breads freeze better than enriched. -Use bread flour instead of all-purpose. The extra gluten will help the loaf rise better. -Honey is also a better choice than sugar whether you are freezing the dough or freezing the baked loaf because it helps maintain moisture in the loaves. -Suggested freezer time is 2 months at 0-degrees F. If your freezer isn't that cold or the temperature fluctuates, I certainly wouldn't stretch it out much longer than that. -Grainlady

It does sound lovely, except for the flat rolls, but enough mojitos and you're good, LOL. I love your description of your family, it sounds a lot like mine except we don't have a Mexican. Yet. Everyone from the college educated engineer to the police officer/firefighter to the old farmers, add a Jewish DIL on Elery's side plus his family from Tennessee and we've got a bit of everything. (grin) OK, the butterlake rolls recipe, easy as can be. Even San made a batch a few years ago and was successful and she told me she did NOT bake bread. Ever. This halves easily, I just use a whole egg, I don't try to halve it and I use all butter, no shortening. Butterflake Rolls 2 packages active dry yeast 2 cups warm water 1/2 cup sugar 2 tsp salt 6 to 6 1/2 cups flour 1 egg 1/2 cup shortening (use butter) 1/2 cup butter, softened. In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt and 2 cups flour. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add egg and shortening, mix well, stir in enough flour to form a soft dough. Do not knead. Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, punch dough down and divide into 4 portions. Roll each portion into a 14 x 12 inch rectangle, spread 2 tbls butter over dough. Fold in half lengthwise and cut into 12 strips. Tie each strip into a knot, tuck and pinch ends under. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Repeat with remaining dough. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Yield: 4 dozen And congratuations on the "grown up" dinner, it sounds perfect to me. Annie

Thank you all! My cookies are Swedish, too, colleenoz! All the cookies I make for Christmas are either Swedish or Danish, handed down from my Danish grandmother (who married a Swede). Your recipe is probably just like mine. With equal amounts finely ground nuts and flour, they break apart in your mouth in a flurry of tender texture and flavor. For the first time ever, we had problems with the recipe, which is why they didn’t all get baked. We didn’t know whether to blame the new oven (which was a problem for pretty much everything) or a difference in the dough. I think maybe both. Instead of the normal 20 minutes at 350 to get slightly brown on the bottom, they took 40 minutes plus. Then, they shattered when trying to roll them in powdered sugar. I’m not good at analyzing a problem and knowing how to fix it. We used to buy the pecans pre-ground. The nut store we bought them at went out of business. We bought a 3 lb bag of whole pecans and ground them ourselves in the food processor. Last year went fine. This year the dough seemed too moist. We had a problem even forming the balls, then they shattered as I wrote above. I was in the process of adding more flour to compensate, and doing test bakes, when I decided it was time to pull the plug and stop baking. I think the pecans must have been very fresh, and were too moist. We ground them a couple of days ahead and I should have turned them and let them dry a bit, instead of covering the bowl. I noticed the ground pecans were moist, but I didn’t do anything with the knowledge. The pecan meal I used to buy pre-ground was much drier. Either that or leave out the 3 T of water the recipe calls for.

I agree. The first to go would be the butter and the fat in the nuts going rancid. How long can you keep butter? Being mixed up it probably wouldn't last as long as a block of butter, but if it's airtight it should last at least a week, probably longer. Because you don't know what bacteria might be in it just from mixing and packing, it's important not to sample it raw. Bake it up when you can, and freeze the extra cookies if you can find the space.