As soon as I saw a picture of these pizza rolls I knew I had to make them. When we do forage into PCC the kids gawk at the pastry case by the checkout line and the whining starts. The top three allowable kid picks are the soft pretzels which we’ve been making, the cheesy breadsticks which we’ve been making, and the pizza rolls. Check, check and check.
So for the same price that you would pay for any one of those items at the store I can make up an entire batch of them – enough to feed every kid that gets off at Chicken Little’s afternoon bus stop and their parents. Or sometimes we wait until we get home to snack and then I have enough to freeze for another day. It’s fun treating kids to healthy food that they get excited about though so I can’t usually resist bringing something warm from the oven to the bus stop with me.
Back to the pizza rolls.
I found a recipe for these on the King Arthur Flour blog which is great but admittedly all the recipes call for special ingredients, not all of which are organic and many of which I refuse to use like dried milk. So I took their recipe (which probably was better tasting for all those additives) and altered it somewhat, using some of my favorite whole wheat bread making techniques that seem to make those additives unnecessary anyway.
I’ve used white whole wheat here because it gives the kids the perception of white flour and doesn’t have the full flavor of whole wheat which lets your other ingredients really shine. You can add shredded parmeson and pizza herbs to the crust to really bring the pizzeria taste home but it’s not at all necessary. You could use any toppings you like on a pizza here too – our current favorite homemade pizza is mozzarella, pickled cherry bomb peppers from Tonnamaker Farm peppers that I put up last summer and soooooo glad I did, and some basil freezer pesto or frozen basil leaves (I tossed a washed bag full of basil leaves in the freezer just before the first cool weather.) We also really like the combination of leftover roast chicken and barbecue sauce.
Since these were for the kids to snack on though I used some browned Italian sausage. They would have really loved these with pepperoni as well.
Pizza Rolls
Phase 1
Mix all the ingredients together until you get a rough dough. Let rest for 5 minutes. You want a really sticky dough here but it takes at least 5 minutes for the whole wheat flour to soak up the water so you can’t really test it until it’s had time to rest. After 5 minutes test to see if you need more flour or water. Cover the dough bowl with a dinner plate and let it rest on the counter overnight.
Phase 2
When you are ready to make the rolls add:
Knead the dough until it is soft and smooth but still sticky. If you add too much flour you will end up with a tough dough.
Return the dough to the bowl and cover it again with your dinner plate. Let it rest in a fairly warm spot to rise till doubled, about 60-90 minutes or longer depending on your kitchen temperature. I like to save the dishwasher to run until my dough is rising and then place the bowl on the counter over the washer so that it benefits from the steamy warmth.
At this point you can go run errands and completely ignore your dough. That is how you make bread making fit your schedule. The first rise can go too long without negatively impacting the final product. The second rise, however, you need to pay attention to.
When you are ready, gently deflate your dough and transfer it to a lightly floured work surface.
Roll it into a 12″ x 18″ rectangle and spread the top evenly with at least 1 cup of shredded cheese. Add your other toppings and roll the dough into a log as if you were making cinnamon rolls.
Pinch the roll closed along the top seam and at both ends so no filling falls out. I cut mine into 16 rolls using a very sharp serrated knife and gently sawing back and forth. If you press down you will squish the roll. I also find it’s easiest to start cutting in the center of the roll, then cut each half into two and continue in that fashion until I’m done. I think if you start at one end and cut progressively along until the whole log is cut from left to right it’s harder to keep the rolls the same size and you end up really squishing the loaf and pushing fillings down to the end of the log. Maybe that’s just me though.
Place the rolls onto silpat or parchment paper lined baking trays, 6 to a sheet and flatten them down. Cover them with a clean dish towel and let them rise again for 60-90 minutes. As PJ said in her KAF blog post “they won’t get wildly puffy but you should be able to see that the dough around the filling has expanded a bit.”
At this point I spooned about a tablespoon of pizza sauce on top of each bun and sprinkled another 1/4 cup of shredded cheese on top then baked them for about 30 minutes at 350 farenheit. They would have been better with a tablespoon and a half of sauce spread all the way to the outer edges but this was my first time through the recipe and I didn’t feel like opening up a new jar of <a href=”http://www.sustainableeats.com/2009/08/17/canning-tomato-sauce/”>homegrown, home canned tomato sauce.</a> It’s precious stuff.
You want to be sure not to over bake these or again the dough will toughen up and dry out once the buns have cooled.
I made these on Saturday and we just finished eating them today, several days later. The rolls remained soft until the end which is saying quite a bit for whole wheat flour. They make a great snack on the go or can be frozen and grabbed as you make school lunches in the morning. Handy! And now you can stop spending so much money in that pastry case when you shop.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Dark Days Week 5 // Dec 22, 2009 at 3:56 am
[...] Pizza rolls made with white whole wheat from Azure Standard in Oregon, Tillamook mozzarella and Skagit River Ranch Italian sausage (although Mondo Brothers make the Italian sausage for PCC locally or Thundering Hooves would also be great.) Recipe forthcoming… [...]
2 kitsapFG // Dec 22, 2009 at 10:30 am
Wow! Those look really good. Snagging this recipe to try soon.
3 Auburn // Dec 22, 2009 at 11:35 am
Hi Annette,
Your pizza rolls brought fond memories to mind. One of my aunts used to make really tasty pizza rolls, filled with anchovies. I’ll make this recipe this weekend but I’ll have to improvise a filling to use up the feta cheese so mine will have a Greek flair
. How much dry flour do you think you had to add for the kneading?
BTW, I’ve been meaning to tell you: by adding slightly less water/milk than your bread recipe calls for, I don’t need to add any dry flour next day. I usually make half the recipe so I’ll add slightly less than 3/4 cup or water/milk, maybe a couple of tablespoons less. Also, a couple of days ago I made the full recipe and baked one loaf and made the other half into eight buns that turned out just lovely. Great for sammies and burgers. The loaf went to a friend’s house – the children, who had just come from school, devoured half of the loaf in minutes! What a wonderful thing to witness, it really made my day.
And I have one more, totally unrelated, thing to share with you: remember I told you about the CSF from local fishermen? Well, at their store, this family sells fresh-off-the-boat whole fish for (are you sitting down?) two bucks a pound. Yes, $2/lb! So this past Saturday hubby and I drove to the coast (30 minute drive) and got 22 pounds of whole cod and flounder, gutted. The fish had been swimming in the ocean just six hours earlier! We put the fish in two large cooler bags with a lot of ice and brought it home. It took less than 90 minutes for me to cut all that cod into steaks and vacuum pack them and tidy up. Filleting isn’t difficult but we prefer the steaks because of the flavor the bones impart. Left the flounders whole and pan fried one that very night. Exquisite simplicity!
No fish smell! Raw, the fish had no scent and, when I pan fried the flounder in butter and olive oil, there was just this very appetizing aroma. My husband can’t stand fish smell and he was in the kitchen with me the whole time, totally amazed.
There must be fishermen who own small fish markets in your area. Even those who don’t own a store will gladly sell you whole fish if you pick it up. I don’t think I’ll sign up for a CSF because it’s more convenient (and MUCH cheaper) for us to just pick up 20 or 30 lbs every two months or so.
This time of year the fishermen we are buying from, here in NH, are catching mostly cod, pollock and flounder.
Next week will drive to Maine (about an hour from here) to get some Atlantic salmon, haddock, swordfish, shrimp and scallops.
We are getting a second freezer too! And it’s just the two of us… Oh dear… But the savings pay for the new freezer and what a wonderful thing it is to support local fishermen and… No more stinky, ridiculously expensive fish from the supermarket!
4 admin // Dec 23, 2009 at 4:20 am
KFG – I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!
Auburn, you’re killing me with this talk of white fish and shellfish! For the last year we’ve eaten nothing but salmon so we’re due for some nice white fish. And so fresh and cheap – I’m so happy for you!!!
There is a place here I’ve been meaning to try but it’s not convenient and it’s not all local. It’s called Mutual Fish but supposedly they only carry sustainably caught fish and will have some local things. Surely they will not be $2/# though. Did I mention yet I’ve been researching raising tilapia in my garage? It’s still a crazy little idea in the back of my mind but it IS possible with minimal heating and $$ to startup.
Not as nice as flounder and cod and shrimp though.
One reason we’ve only eaten salmon is because there is a local fisherman at the market who sustainably catches salmon and if you buy enough you get wholesale price so we have cans of it and frozen fillets which are finally almost gone. The cans are nice though because we’ve been eating it like tuna on sandwiches. I will be broadening our purchasing range in Jan to once again include brown rice from CA and then it will be easier to dreamup quick dinners with canned fish too.
Sure wish you lived closer!
5 admin // Dec 23, 2009 at 4:23 am
ps on the flour I didn’t add any extra. Because I’m in Seattle it is so much damper here likely then where you are so our flour amounts will vary greatly. You really start with the conservative amount and add as much as you need. I used to scoff when people said that but they were really right. The difference 1/4 cup makes is huge. The good thing is there is no such thing as bad homemade bread. If it’s dry you make pudding or stuffing or melba toast or breadcrumbs. If it’s really bad though I feed the chickens. :p
6 Auburn // Dec 23, 2009 at 10:48 am
Good morning, Annette.
I just googled CSF, convinced that I was going to find a lot of them on the West Coast. Well, it turns out that the CSF concept started here, on the East Coast, in 2006. Whoddathunkit! I couldn’t find anything like it in your area. All the searches using the keywords CSF Seattle fish return links related to the East Coast.
But the Fishermen Terminal in Seattle has good reviews on Yelp (http://www.yelp.com/biz/fishermens-terminal-seattle). A couple of reviewers talk about buying the best fish off the boats at the “West Wall” there. Have you been to the Fishermen Terminal?
7 Sinclair // Dec 23, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I will be beginning these today so they can be eaten tomorrow when I am very busy doing other things. Wonderful!
http://naturewithme.blogspot.com
8 Auburn // Dec 25, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Annette, dear! We had your A-M-A-Z-I-N-G pizza rolls for dinner tonight.
And this time I remembered to take a few pix: Look here: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zavvH8nrZLA/SzVnZvhu9NI/AAAAAAAAAAU/aflUbP6RBKY/s1600-h/Pizza+rolls1-.jpg
Wonderful flavor and texture. Next time I’ll top them with more cheese. I made these with spicy Italian sausage and mozzarella. De-li-cious!
Did you left the whey out on purpose? I added a TBSP to mine, just in case. I also added the vital wheat gluten as, you know, I always do. This maybe why my rolls seem to have puffed up a bit more than yours during the second proofing.
Thank you so very much, dear, for sharing great recipes that always turn out perfect.
You are turning me into a baker! I can’t believe this.
XOX
9 admin // Dec 26, 2009 at 12:17 am
Yum Auburn those look GREAT! I had to stop letting mine rise because we had still one batch of cookies to make and party to leave for or they would have continued to rise more. My life waits for no bread. :p
But looks like you added more sauce which I needed to do but didn’t want to open another jar of home canned sauce with Christmas coming and no time to make anything tomato-ey. I did actually add the whey but forgot to mention. I always add a splash of whey to my liquid just because as I get on in years hard wheat is harder and harder on my body and the whey does help. I have the most trouble with hard red wheat which sadly makes the best bread so I don’t eat as much bread as I did and I add 50% spelt now which helps.
Auburn, I’m beginning my hardtack experiments next week. Got my dough docker for xmas!
10 Auburn // Dec 26, 2009 at 2:15 pm
The dough docker! Nice!
Are you going to try your own version of a soaked knäckebröd? Please say yes??? 
You know, since last week I had such great results making buns with half of your 100% ww dough recipe (got 8 nice ones that would be just perfect for large pub-style burgers), I think this coming week I’ll try making pitas with the same dough. I’ll let you know if they turn out nice and dense.
In a couple of days I’ll order soft wheat berries because I want to try some of your pastry recipes. I’ll probably get 25 lb of soft white. Any other kind I should order smaller amounts of?
11 admin // Dec 26, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Hi Auburn! You probably could make pita with this recipe since it’s the baking technique and not the dough that creates the pocket. You want good bottom heat so if you have a pizza stone place it at the bottom of the oven and put a cookie sheet on the top rack to stop some of the upper heat from directly hitting the doughs. If you don’t have a pizza stone ask for one for your birthday or you can buy untreated quarry tiles at Home Depot and make your own. They are key to getting those nice crusts on artisan bread, great pizza dough and pita breads.
In the absence of that you can preheat a cookie sheet on the bottom rack to use.
As far as the grains go I have all kinds in my cupboard stored in 1/2 gallon glass jars or in 5 gallon food grade plastic buckets in the utility room (one 5 gallon bucket will hold about 30# of grains which last for quite a long while so long as the grain is not ground, or you can add dried bay leaves to the bucket which help absorb oxygen.)
I use spelt for any non-leavened item and add it to any leavened item up to 50% of the grain amount. I also love adding oat groats to spelt for pancakes. I have rye which I add in small quantities to bread to achieve a fuller flavor. I have barley which I cook then freeze to throw into soups and stews. I have emmer which works great for cakes and cookies (so does spelt btw.) The emmer seems to grind finer than the wheat or spelt for some reason. I also have soft wheat berries because for some things like corn bread or biscuits we prefer the flavor of wheat and the increased toothiness that you don’t get with spelt or emmer.
I also love to use cooked emmer berries in pilafs or cold winter salads (chevre, sauteed greens, roasted squash and mushroom dressed with a light vinaigrette). In the late summer I love to use cooked emmer berries in the way you would pasta and dress them with things like good olive oil, fresh pesto, sun ripened cherry tomatoes and little fresh mozzarella balls.
I also have dried dent corn which I grind for cornbread or johnny cakes or nixtamilize for corn tortillas. You can also make hominy from it once it’s nixtamalized but I’ve never liked hominy (probably because I’ve only ever had it canned.)
Boy, that could have been a whole blog entry, eh?
12 admin // Dec 26, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Oh also forgot that my grain grinder lets me crack grains so I also crack the emmer and make a cream of wheat style breakfast cereal of it, or crack the oat groats into pin oats for oatmeal. My grinder also has a roller option which I haven’t yet invested in since it’s so pricey for the payback. It lets you roll your own oats or spelt into what we know as oat meal but rolled spelts cook in much the same way and I’ve made granola with rolled spelt before as well.
The nice thing about this is the versatility. Back in the day they didn’t eat the large amounts of wheat and corn that is largely our diet today. Variety in anything is the key to health and because I love to bake and have young kids who craved baked goods I try to consume a wide variety of grains and presoak the doughs wherever doing so won’t negatively impact the finished product. Ideally I would be using sprouted grain for anything that I haven’t already soaked to improve the health benefits but I’m just not there yet. I’m hoping to sprout some grains in the near future and then once I’ve done it and am comfortable with it it won’t seem like such a big deal.
13 Auburn // Dec 27, 2009 at 1:13 am
Re: baking pitas, Diana’s recipe was my first try ever. I made eight and the first two ones didn’t balloon up – I was using a cast iron sheet so I took it out and baked the next six pitas directly on the oven’s middle rack and they ballooned up perfectly! Beginner’s luck?
I have a gas oven so, for the pizzas, I use a perforated pizza pan and place the pan directly on the floor of the oven for the last two minutes (total baking at 550F is about 12 min). They come out with lovely crusty bottoms. Now, back when I had electric ovens, it was hard to get a half decent crust without a stone or tiles, that’s for sure.
Many thanks for the advice on grains. I’ve never had emmer, time to give it a try. Never cooked wheat berries, either – gotta try that as well.
I really like my grain grinder (and I know you’ve been thinking of getting one) but I think yours is more versatile. I can’t crack grain with mine. If/when you get a NutriMill, don’t give your old one away!
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