The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Filling rolls with fruit.

saradippity's picture
saradippity

Filling rolls with fruit.

Yay, I totally thought my way around a box and got creative. I wanted sourdough dinner rolls, my son is on a raisin bread kick and I thought I might do cinnamon rolls for a change (but they are kind of too sweet for my taste buds). I also spent some time last night on Pintrest and really wanted to try my hand at painting bread. So, I decided a nice compromise of all of the above. Painted cinnamon raisin-filled sourdough dinner rolls.

They turned out great, but I might need some help or feedback here. I'd love to do filled breads again. I can see a lot of possibilities here, like a lemony dough over fruit filling with little flowers on it. If I do raisin bread again, I might soak the raisins in something that will add more flavor to them, spicy tea perhaps. Some of the flavor combinations used in aebelskiever could make some interesting rolls as well. I might use some of the wonton/dumpling shaping techniques that can be done (especially for steamed dumplings), but that may result in a thinner dough covering the filling.

 Any advice on where I might find useful techniques for shaping the dough over the filling that will still be closer to a dinner roll type thickness? Google-fu failed me today. Hmm. I could jab a finger in a roll and fill it and then pinch it shut, but it seems that might make the bottom seam a little thin and possibly leak?

 

Edit - Well then. I should have ignored Google and searched here. After I posted this, I went and did a forum search and saw that Bridgestone's sweet filled buns were filled with something more liquid than mine, and they were closed with the kind of steamed dumpling closure that I was thinking of, and they look just fine! Silly girl, search before posting!

andychrist's picture
andychrist

You might also consider filled "crescent dinner rolls." Have never used that particular recipe myself, but used to bake miniature fruit filled croissants from frozen puff pastry dough. Worked great, but for something heftier and less sweet the dinner roll style would probably be more appropriate, and certainly a lot less tedious to prepare!

Also, you could quickly steam your raisins rather than soak them so as to retain more of their original sugar. Alternatively, simmering in a little bit of any  fruit juice just until it is all absorbed by the raisins will add to their flavor while plumping them up for baking.

Your painted cinnamon raisin dinner rolls looked delish!

saradippity's picture
saradippity

Okay, those are all fantastic ideas, thanks! I've got to try the crescent dinner roll idea sometime soon, but sooner than that I'll be making more of these.  I happen to have some apple/cherry fruit juice in the refrigerator that would be great with the raisins.

cerevisiae's picture
cerevisiae

Of course, soaking the raisins in rum would also be delicious. :)

I like your comparison to Chinese baking. They'd probably look lovely as pleated bao. Of course, then they'd be harder to paint.

saradippity's picture
saradippity

That is a seriously cool link, I can't wait for the next time I make bao for someone and I can show off my geeky side by spouting out their connections to the resemblance of a human head (which apparently I've been saying it wrong so now I know baozi.

Yeah, rum occurred to me, but I'm usually only cooking for my son, so I'm saving that idea for a special occasion :).