Lemon Rolls

Keeping things super simple and laid back this week with a batch of homemade lemon rolls.

If hot cross buns aren’t your thing, don’t worry – give these less than traditional lemon rolls a try. They contain a lot of natural lemon flavour, mostly coming from the zest and the super easy homemade lemon curd filling (don’t worry, you can always use shop bought if you’d like to).

I’ll be honest, these rolls came around after having a look through instagram and Pinterest. I wasn’t going to actually make them but once I did and I tasted them – I knew I had to share them with you.

These are perfect to make, as they can be customised to suit you and easily shared with others, as they just tear away from one another – ideal if you’re celebrating Easter or other special event soon. Who doesn’t like a delicate lemon flavour? It’s not going to knock you over with citrus flavour but it also won’t underwhelm you.

If you’re not sure what these are, well, starting with a zesty enriched dough, generously filled with homemade lemon curd and finished with a simple cream cheese icing – this is ultimately the spring version of a more autumnal cinnamon roll, right?

Anyway, let’ get started, shall we?

 

Ingredients:

Bread:

500g Strong white bread flour.

8g Salt.

50g Fresh yeast.

75g Butter.

75g Granulated sugar.

15g Milk powder.

Zest of 1 or 2 lemons.

1 Egg,

175ml Water (Luke warm).

 

Filling:

Lemon curd – homemade or shop-bought (whichever you prefer).

 

Cream cheese icing:

85g Soft cheese.

60g Butter.

200g Icing sugar.

 

Method:

Before you get into any baking, you’ll want to do some prep work first. Weigh up all the ingredients, lightly oil a bowl and get any equipment ready, such as a stand mixer and spatula. When the time comes, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

To start on the the recipe, you’ll want to start on the bread dough, place the bread flour and salt into a bowl and give it a good mix to incorporate the two together.

You can then go ahead and add in the yeast, butter, sugar, milk powder lemon zest, egg and water – then mix everything together on a low speed for 2 minutes, followed by a further 6 minutes on a medium-high speed. Once completely mixed, the dough should be soft, if it’s overly sticky, add a little flour.

Flour the work surface with a generous amount of bread flour and place the dough onto it. Knead the dough until the dough is smooth and elasticated.

Place the dough into the lightly oiled bowl, cover the bowl with cling-film and allow to proof/prove for around an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

While the dough is proving, it’s the perfect time to get cleaned down and make the lemon curd filling (if you’re making your own, recipe here).

Once the dough has completed its first proof/prove, you’ll want to generously flour your work surface and place the dough onto it. You can then knock the dough back, this is just the process of removing the gases that had built up.

Now the dough has been knocked back, bring the dough into a ball shape and start to roll the dough out using a rolling pin. The dough may resist being rolled out, this shows the gluten has formed, its all good. You’ll want to roll the dough out to roughly 40cm x 60cm – it’ll be rectangular.

Take the lemon curd and spread it all over the dough, until you have a generous and level amount spread on the dough.

Take the long side of dough (the one nearest you) and start to roll it up. Start by rolling around 2cm of the dough into the first roll and then just continue the rolling until you’ve fully rolled the dough. Make sure that you keep each roll of the dough tight.

Slice the dough at around 1 inch for each roll – repeat for the remaining dough until you have all if your rolls.

Place the rolls into a deep sided tray 9×13 inch tray, they should all comfortably fit into this tray.

Cover the tray/s with cling film and allow to double in size. Prove for around 30-45 minutes – these will batch while baking, this is normal.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

While your cinnamon rolls are baking in the oven, it’s the perfect time to make the cream cheese icing which will top the rolls.

Into your mixing bowl, place the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar. Mix together using a spatula or whisk until all of the ingredients have become fully combined – this doesn’t take very long at all.

Once you have been mixing the cream cheese icing together for around 4-5 minutes, you should notice that the mixture goes from a yellowish colour to a lighter yellow but more white colour and should be much lighter and fluffier in consistency. Set the cream cheese icing aside until its needed later.

Now that the lemon rolls are baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool down, almost fully before you finish them off.

Once the rolls are almost cooled down, you can start to add the cream cheese icing on to the buns. I start with a little on each and adding more as its needed – add as much as you’d like.

Then to finish the rolls, you’ll want to zest over the zest of a lemon. This is optional but I really like lemon, so why not?

Well, that’s how you make lemon rolls my way. They are quick and easy to make, which makes them more enjoyable. If you make too many, bake them off, then wrap them with some cling film and place into the freezer. You can keep the rolls in the freeze for up to 3 months, just make fresh cream cheese icing when you take them out.

That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.