Cheese and Onion Rolls

Here’s a repeat of a post from long ago, I recently made a batch of these, the first in a long time. The Facebook post got a lot of interest so I thought I’d share the recipe again.

The flour I use is white bread flour with dried onion flakes mixed in. I use one 80g bag of dried onions for 500g of flour. You can buy them from health food shops and various other places.

We start off with 320 g of warm water, adding 50 g of Olive Oil. I put this directly into my mixing bowl. Add 500 g of strong white flour and the dried onions, 20 g coarse Semolina and 10 g each of yeast and salt. Knead for 7 minutes in the mixer and you will have this,

Cover and prove until it doubles in size. I don’t have a special proving drawer, I use my normal oven. Basically, you put a tray of boiling water in the bottom, add your dough bowl and turn the oven to its maximum setting for 1 MINUTE ONLY. Turn it off and leave it closed for 1 hour. It does the same thing.

And here is the result.

Just before you take the dough out, heavily oil a baking tray

and grate 200 g of strong Cheddar (or your favourite hard cheese)

Stretch the dough over the tray and sprinkle the cheese on.

Now at this point, you could paint a thin layer of your favourite pickle over the dough, like this picture from my daughter,

or just put the cheese on,

Whichever style you try, now roll the dough up, stretching it as you roll.

until you have this shape.

Now you slice it into inch thick pieces and lay cheese side up,

filling the tray.

Leave to prove; covered, for 45 minutes while the oven heats to 200°C.

After 45 minutes they have doubled in size again,

they go in to bake for 20 minutes. When the internal temperature is 95°C they are done.

Leave them to cool in the tray for a bit before separating.

The pickle version is slightly more caramelised, it looks like this.

Then all you have to do is eat them! They do freeze really well if there’s any left.

Incidentally, I was honoured to have this recipe featured in Breaking Bread Around the World, a cookery book by my good friend Dedra L. Stevenson.

I’ll be back on Monday, with another #OpenBook blog hop. Have a great weekend