Pizza rolls

These delicious pizza-flavoured yeast rolls are perfect both warm, served as part of a family dinner, and cold, as a snack. We liked them best hot, straight from the oven. They’re very easy to make, using the same favourite yeast dough you know and love, but with olive oil instead of butter. The filling is made with sun-dried tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil, but you can easily sneak some pepperoni in there too ;). Feel free to use your favourite pizza toppings and make them your own!

Makes 12.

Ingredients for the yeast dough:

• 540 g strong white bread flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 10 g dried yeast or 20 g fresh yeast
• 60 g olive oil (or vegetable oil)
• 250 ml milk
• 2 large eggs

Mix the flour with the dried yeast (if using fresh yeast, first prepare a yeast starter). Add the remaining ingredients and knead, adding the olive oil towards the end. Knead until the dough is soft and elastic. Place in a lightly floured bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place until doubled in size (about 1½ hours).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll it out into a 40 x 30 cm rectangle, lightly dusting the work surface and rolling pin with flour if necessary to prevent sticking. Spread the tomato paste evenly over the dough, then sprinkle with the grated mozzarella and torn basil leaves. Roll up tightly along the longer side to form a long log. Using a sharp knife, cut it into pieces about 3–3.5 cm wide* (you should get 12 equal pieces). Arrange the rolls in a 25 x 38 cm baking tin lined with baking paper. Leave a little space between them – they will expand and touch as they rise. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for about 30 minutes, or until nearly doubled in size.

Bake the risen pizza rolls in an oven preheated to 175–180°C for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve warm, pulling the rolls apart as you go.

Additionally:

• 200 g sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained
• 2 tbsp tomato passata
• 2 garlic cloves
• salt, pepper and oregano, to taste
• 250 g grated mozzarella
• fresh basil leaves

To make the tomato paste, finely chop the sun-dried tomatoes (a food processor works well), then mix with the tomato passata, crushed garlic and seasonings. Set aside.

Method for bread machine users:

Place all the yeast dough ingredients into the bread machine in the following order: liquid ingredients first, then dry ingredients, and finally the yeast. Select the ‘dough’ programme (kneading and first rise). Once the programme has finished, remove the dough, knead it lightly, and continue according to the main recipe above.

*Another useful trick is to use a piece of thread: slide it underneath the rolled dough and pull the ends together to cut through the dough.

Enjoy!