Cheese and herb knotted rolls

For some reason, whenever I know the next thing I’m posting is savoury, I find it takes a lot longer to get around to writing it.

I don’t know if it’s just because I find sweet baking more interesting, or if it’s because the pictures I take of bread aren’t very good, but I just don’t seem to find it as exciting… does anyone else have this problem?!

Don’t let that put you off making these bread rolls though, they were actually really good!

I adapted Paul Hollywood’s basic dough recipe for bread rolls, then added in cheddar cheese, basil and parsley – purely because they’re what I have growing in my window at the minute, I’m sure any fresh herbs would be good.

I twisted them into knots to try and make them look a bit more exciting, which I think worked – a bit?!

Cheese and herb knotted rolls (recipe adapted from Paul Hollywood’s 100 Great Breads)

• 250g strong white flour
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• 30g butter
• 15g yeast
• 150ml water
• 50g cheddar, grated
• handful fresh herbs

Mix all the ingredients, apart from the cheese and herbs, in a bowl until all the flour has been combined. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Put the dough back in the bowl and leave to rise for an hour.

After an hour, knock the dough back and knead in the cheese and herbs. Divide into 6 equal sized pieces, then stretch each out into a long sausage shape. Tie each piece into a rough knot shape.

Place the knots on a baking tray, lined with foil and dusted with flour. Leave to rise again for another hour, then bake for 20 minutes at 220 degrees, or until golden brown and cooked through.

Cinnamon rolls – Fresh From the Oven

As much as I love to bake, yeasted products are not my forte.

I’ve only started baking my own bread in the past year, and to be honest I just don’t find it as exciting as sweet baking so I don’t do it as often.

I’ve decided that in order to be a more rounded baker, I need to focus a little more effort on breads and yeasted goods. For that reason, this month I joined Fresh From The Oven, a blogging group baking their way through the world of breads, one loaf at a time.

The October challenge was cinnamon rolls – a nice easy one to ease me into it!?!

I don’t have a clue what I’m doing with sweet yeasted rolls, so I followed the recipe to the letter, apart from substituting sultanas for apples as i had a glut to use up.

Every stage of the process was completely new to me, and as with all breads it was rather time consuming – but well worth the effort!

The icing on top is a stroke of genius – they make the rolls sticky, sweet and moist, and help to keep them fresher for longer.

All in all, I think that for my first Fresh From The Oven challenge I did a pretty good job – the photos don’t do them justice!

You can find the original recipe for cinnamon rolls at Things We Make - give it a go!

Soft bread rolls

So occasionally, I bake something that isn’t sweet. Bit of a shocker I know, but no one can live on cakes alone, except maybe the friendly pony.

For some reason I never make my own bread. I know it’s not complicated, but I don’t eat it that often and it seems like quite a lot of effort when there are really delicious breads you can buy.

Last weekend however, I had a bit of time to kill so I decided instead of buying rolls I would make them. I was making some spicy bean burgers, so I wanted a really soft burger style roll for them to go in.

A searched around for a recipe and settled on this one. I followed it to the letter so not much point copying out the recipe here, but the resulting dough was VERY wet and sticky, and there was absolutely no way I could kneed it.

I ended up adding in at least another 1/2 cup of flour, if not more. I think because of this the rolls I ended up with weren’t quite as soft as the recipe intended, but for a first attempt I was pretty happy.

The only other thing I did different was brushing them with a little melted butter as soon as they came out of the oven, which gave them a nice glaze and  supposedly helps to keep them soft.

These rolls are definitely best on the day you make them, although the next day they were revitalised with a few minutes back in the oven.

I definitely think I need to experiment more with bread so hopefully more recipes to come!