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.
