Twisty Herb Bread Rolls
Weekend lunches often catch me by surprise. I spend all week planning, shopping for, and preparing school lunches, but when the weekend rolls around and someone says “I’m hungry, what’s for lunch?” I realise I have totally forgotten that they want to eat lunch on the weekend too! But I was determined not to go down that path this weekend!
I started early on Saturday… well as early as I could drag myself out of bed. I dumped the ingredients for bread rolls in the breadmaker and pushed the button for ‘dough’. This was all part of my cunning plan, there was no way I could forget lunch now because the breadmaker would beep at me in a few hours to remind me!
When it beeped I looked at the mass of soft squidgy and knew exactly what I’d do with it. I had a plan to turn boring old bread rolls into twisty herb bread rolls
I sent the kids out to the garden to pick some herbs – rosemary, chives, basil, and mint, because that is what we have growing out there right now. While I chopped the herbs and melted some butter, Morgan gave the dough a good knead before we rolled it out.
We split the dough into two pieces to make it easier to manage and rolled each piece out into large rectangles.
We brushed the rectangle of dough with melted butter, sprinkled it with lots of herbs, and then folded both halves into the middle and then the whole thing in half again.
I cut three long strips of dough from the folded rectangle, then we carefully twisted each strip a little and then twisted and tied the strips of dough into knot shapes.
After a second rise and some egg wash we baked them and ate them while they were still warm.
Here’s our recipe for Twisty Herb Bread Rolls.
- 1 tbsp of instant (dry) yeast.
- 1 1/4 cups of warm water.
- 1 tbsp of honey
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 3 1/2 cups (approx 350g) of bread flour
- a pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp bread improver (optional, but they keep better if you use it)
- 4 tbsp butter – melted
- 1/2 cup of mixed herbs, chopped finely.
- 1 egg, beaten, and splash of water for an egg wash
- Add the yeast and honey to the warm water, give it a gentle mix and set it aside till it froths up a little, then add the oil to the yeast mixture.
- Mix the salt and bread improver into the flour.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix well for a few minutes until it forms an elastic dough. You may need to add a little more water as you mix.
- Knead the dough very well for around five minutes, place it in a covered container and set it aside somewhere warm to rise for approximately an hour and a half or until it has doubled in size.
- I use our bread machine to mix, knead and do the first rise of the dough, but you can do it all by hand, or use a mixer with a dough hook.
- While the dough is rising melt the butter and chop your herbs finely. We used a combination of rosemary, chives, mint and basil, but you can use any combination you like, and dried herbs will also work but won’t have as strong flavour.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, give it a quick knead to knock all the air out of it. Divide it into two equal pieces and roll each piece out into a large rectangle.
- Brush each piece of dough with lots of melted butter and cover well with the chopped herbs.
- Fold the rectangles in half, them in half again, so you have four layers of dough. Cut each piece into three strips. Carefully twist each strip then twist and tie it into a knot shape, making sire the ends are securely tucked in and under.
- Place the knotted rolls onto a lined baking tray, covered with well greased cling wrap and place them in a warm spot to rise for approximately 30-45 minutes.
- Once the knotted rolls have risen, brush them lightly with an egg wash and bake them in a hot 200C oven for 25-30 minutes or until they are nicely golden on top.
This was one weekend lunch that I didn’t forget!
