PB and J swirl rolls???

My kind of cook/baker.  Get outside the box and learn through experience.  I would expect the PB to melt into the dough and make a gummy mess; but I've been wrong before.  Why not give it a try (you don't have to make a full recipe  -  scale it down) and let us know what happens.  Don't forget to keep good notes so you can describe the progessive steps.  We will all learn something if you share your story.

.... so there's got to be a way to bake something the consistency of PB into (at least) pastry dough.  Heck, even a PB&J filled croissant would be pretty yummy if you're using quality PB & J.

Another possible solution:  freeze marble-sized balls of PB, and tuck them into the buns (whose dough could be infused with a bit of J or fruit to give the fruit flavour) before final proof & bake?  Anybody tried this with chocolate at all?

Terry, in Jim Lahey's book "My Bread" he gives a recipe for peanut butter and jelly bread - the jelly is rolled in the dough like cinnamon bread and baked in a loaf tin. Might be a good place to start, A.

Hi Terry,

Here's what King Arthur Flour has in it's recipes when you search pb&j :
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/pbandj-rolls-recipe

I haven't made them but I remember printing out the recipe. I'm hoping to try their "Pani Popo Samoan Coconut Buns" this weekend but I think the pb&j rolls will get pulled out for next week. Thanks for putting the thought out there. Good luck with it and let us know what happens.
Bake on!
Dosi

Dear swtgran,

I have been thinking about this a lot and have a couple ideas. First, I was thinking about the fact that fats are  used to laminate, so since peanut butter is a fat if you could get it to a lower temperature than your dough, would it seal in whatever lies on top of it? If so, this could just work. Take some peanut butter, melt it until it is soft and spreadable. Tear off 2 portions of waxed paper. Spread the peanut butter on each sheet about 1 inch sorter than the size of your rectangle of dough. Freeze or refrigerate the peanut butter sheets until they harden a little.

Peel it off paper and set it on your rectangle of dough. Spread jelly on top.

Peel the peanut butter off the second layer of paper and set it on the jelly layer.

Roll the whole thing up. (This could be really challenging.)

Slice and bake it like you would for regular cinnamon rolls. (But would the jelly burn? If so, could you use grape rollups? I don't know if rolllups actually taste like grape.) I might even do a jelly glaze on top (powdered sugar + jelly + milk or water).

A second idea is to lay out your rectangle of dough, cover it with peanut butter chips and roll and slice it. Then do a jelly glaze. Or leave the center of your roll slightly open in the middle and fill it with jelly after you bake it.

A third idea is to skip the idea of a traditional roll and instead do a filled bun of sorts. Make a whole bunch of dough balls. Then flatten them. Line your pan with. Put a dab of peanut butter, then jelly in the center of each. Then put another flattened dough ball on top. Seal the edges. Poke a little hole in top after the rise. Glaze with egg wash and turbinado sugar. Bake?

Let me know if you try these and if they work or not. I'm just brainstorming. You have a very fun idea here. I remember making some really nice little jelly-filled muffin as one of my first home ec classes.

-Arlene

PS: I'm sorry to hear of your dog's passing.

I use to manage a Great Harvest Bread Co. and we had a PB&J swirl bread. Basic white rolled jelly style with PB&J inside baked in loaf pans. Kids loved it!