The dream house that I hold in my head is sunny and smells like banana bread. It has a real-life adult couch and big, fluffy, matching, totally not hand-me-down bathroom towels. The bookshelves aren’t dusty and my desk is huge and spotless. There’s also a lovely woman that comes over everyday to help me clean my kitchen. She’s wise and knows everything about life. She’s my secret, dream house guru… and she does dishes.
My dream house has hints of food everywhere. Raspberry colored lamps in the living room. Black coffee colored walls in the bedroom. A French vanilla bathroom. Avocado rugs. Pink Himalayan sea salt for a little girl’s room. Fig colored guest room. Cauliflower whites through the office.
This is what my brain does. It makes a dream house and fills it with beautiful food smells, food colors, love, cat hair (why!?), and kid laughs.
I’m going to try hard not to call these cinnamon rolls. These are not cinnamon rolls. They’re something better and messier… that starts out just like cinnamon rolls.
We’re making a soft yeasted dough, with lemon zest.
This dough gets kneaded with a dough hook in an stand mixer for about 10 minutes.
It’s a soft dough… that means you really need a stand mixer to make this dough. Otherwise, the dough will stick to your hands like mad.
After kneading in the mixer, I quickly knead it in a bit more flour and get it ready for its first rise.
Can you see the sheen in the dough? That means the dough is a bit sticky. That’s what we want!
After an hour of warm resting, the dough is ready for action. Time for rolling and filling.
Dough is doused in browned butter and topped with a crushed raspberry, lemon zest, sugar, and cornstarch mixture.
And then it gets messy.
Yes… there is a raspberry juice mess going on here. After rolling and slicing, and carefully lifting these rolls into the buttered pan you’ll totally have sticky hands. Don’t freak out. Sometimes food gets messy.
Let the rolls rise in a warm zone and bake up to perfection.
All love.
Believe it or not, these rolls aren’t overly sweet. The dough is soft and tender. The filling is bright and fruit studded. I topped the cooled rolls with a quick lemon glaze. Doughy and fruit sweet. These rolls TOTALLY belong in my dream house. What more do you want from life?
Lemon Raspberry Breakfast Rolls
makes 12 rolls
adapted from Food and Wine
For the Dough:
1 cup milk (I used 2 percent)
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted buttered, softened to room temperature
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1/2 cup for kneading, plus more for sprinkling the counter
For the Filling:
1 heaping cup fresh raspberries (if using frozen, do not thaw)
1/3 cup sugar plus 1/2 cup sugar for dusting
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, browned and slightly cooled
For the Glaze:
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
To make the dough:
In a small saucepan over low heat, warm the milk to about 95 degrees. Pour the warm milk into the bow of an electric stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment. Stir the sugar and yeast into the warm milk and let sit for 5 to 7 minutes. The yeast will foam and bubble. That’s how you know it’s alive. After frothy, add the butter, eggs, lemon zest, and sea salt to the yeast mixture. Add 4 1/4 cups flour. Beat on low speed with the paddle attachment for 2 minutes. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and replace the paddle with a dough hook. Beat dough with the dough hook on medium speed for about 10 minutes.
Dust a clean counter with flour. Scrape the dough out onto the work surface. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of flour and knead for about 2 minutes. Dough will be soft and slightly sticky. That’s right!
Place dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Sprinkle a bit of flour on top of the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel, and place in a slightly warm place to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
While dough rises, grease a 9×13-inch pan with butter. Set aside.
To make the filling:
In a medium bowl toss together raspberries, sugar, lemon zest, and cornstarch. Crush the raspberries just slightly as you stir. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, melt butter until it is browned and fragrant. Set aside to cool slightly.
To assemble the rolls:
When the dough has doubled in size, turn out onto a floured work surface and gently knead for 1 minute. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a roughly 10×20-inch rectangle.
Spread the butter over the dough. Spread the filling over the dough. Raspberries will be here and there across the dough. Sprinkle the dough and fruit with 1/2 cup granulated sugar.
Working quickly, tightly roll up the dough into a 20-inch long log. Cut the log into quarters, then cut each quarter into 3 pieces. Carefully and quickly lift the rolls into the prepared pan. The rolls will release juice into the bottom if the pan. That’s fine! Cover pan with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rest in a warm place for 1 hour, until puffed.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes.
To make the glaze:
In a small bowl, whisk together sugar, lemon juice, and water. Drizzle glaze over cooled rolls and serve. Rolls are best served the day they are made but will last up to 3 days well wrapped at room temperature.
Samantha Angela @ Bikini Birthday
Yum! I love the idea of using something other than cinnamon sugar for cinnamon rolls. We have some delicious peaches growing around these parts right now. I bet a peach variation would be pretty good too
Naina
I’m such a fan of naming colors after foods. “Lemon chiffon” just sounds so much better than “light yellow”. Truthfully, in my dream house I plan to have the wallpaper from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so I guess my decorating is taken care of.
The rolls look amazing, I’m a butter-browning fiend.
thescousewife
That would be SO FUN! The snosberries taste like snosberries! My boys would LOVE that so much. I’d never get them to leave the house — they’d be too busy licking the wallpaper. ha ha!
Heather (Heather's Dish)
i took one look at the title and realized that i HAVE to have a breakfast roll TODAY!
Julie H. of Spinach and Sprinkles
I have the same kind of dream house with those sounds…. Till then I guess I’ll enjoy treats like above in silence…. This is AMAZING looking! (way to go on the photos!!!)
Amanda@Easy Peasy Organic
Love this. We painted my daughter’s room ‘avocado’ :)
Emma @ Poires au Chocolat
I totally do the food-inspired house colour thing too!! Awesome.
Also, these rolls look seriously good. If I can find some decent raspberries, this is happening.
Sue/the view from great island
My dream house has these rolls perpetually baking in the oven. These are going on my have to try list, which is getting kind of lengthy thanks to your blog.
Lauren @ KeepItSweet
I love that your dream house is full of colors that are compared to food. I think my dream house would smell like fresh baked chocolate chip cookies every day. Love these rolls!
raquel @ Erecipe
i love the cutting…my kids want to try this on coming weekend I hope… I could make the same I will keep my finger cross . I think I can use strawberry because raspberries are not available in our country.
Averie @ Love Veggies and Yoga
The raspberries IN the rolls, wow, great addition. I love love love cinny rolls and I also love raspberries so this would be perfect for me. As long as there is ample glaze and frosting. I HAVE to have a thick layer of that on all cinnamon rolls :)
Rossella
Great idea! My fiancé hates cinnamon so this alternative sounds awesome!
Silvia
Lovely idea… can one also use other kinds of fruit?
As soon as the temprature here drops a little bit I’m going to try them!
Natashia@foodonpaper
Currently sitting in my living room, I can say my dream house is quite far off. For one, in my dream house, I will have a special area for my cookbooks, as opposed to them sitting in every inch of the room (I kid you not – there are two on the couch, one on the coffee table, one under the table, one on the floor next to the coffee table, and one on the floor next to the bookshelf). This is most likely me being lazy tho. My dream house will have a lady who puts my books away for me :)
laura_b
Joy tu me fais rever! That is my exact dream house! Totally inspired to work hard today in order to one day have a food inspired home! But as I live in Switzerland that probably means way too many chocolate and cheese related smells! Not a good combination ;-)
Pritika
I’m from India, and we dont get raspberries here. Can you suggest any other fruit I can use?