Bacon, Cheese and Chilli Scrolls

Sweet or savoury, scrolls are one of my favourite yeast based products to make. These scrolls are packed with streaky beacon, cheddar cheese and chilli/tomato/barbecue sauce. A perfect snack or quick breakfast on the go.

Make a basic enriched dough and fill it with the above ingredients, and bake into luscious scrolls.

Ingredients

Dough

500g strong flour

7g yeast

250g milk

10g salt

2 free-range eggs

50g butter

Filling

150g streaky bacon

75g good cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons tomato chutney

1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce

1 tablespoon barbecue sauce

Glaze

1 free-range egg, beaten

1 teaspoon sweet chilli sauce

Method

Put the strong flour into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook or into a large mixing bowl if kneading by hand. Add the instant yeast and salt, making sure the yeast and salt are on opposite sides of the bowl. Add the milk which you have warmed to tepid (microwaving is easy) and the beaten eggs. Mix by hand into a rough dough, even if you’re going to use the dough hook in the next stage.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel or my favourite, a plastic shower cap, and rest for 20 minutes. Then move the bowl to the mixer and knead with the dough hook until the mixture is smooth and starting to develop some elasticity, about 5 minutes. Add the butter in small pieces, then knead again for about 5 minutes, using the mixer until the butter is thoroughly incorporated, the dough is smooth and you can achieve the “windowpane” effect. That is, you can pull some of the dough off the dough hook, between two fingers, stretching it so that it’s translucent.

If you are kneading by hand, you will knead to work the dough really well, in both stages, to get it to the desired silky, elastic stage.

Cover the bowl again and leave in a warm place to prove for about an hour, until the dough is doubled in size. You ideally need a temperature of about 25 degrees C.

You can prepare the filling while the dough is proving. Put the bacon rashers in a cold frying pan and heat up on medium, cooking the bacon rashers slowly, until they are nicely crisp. Remove from the pan and cool to room temperature. Finely chop the bacon rashers.

Grate the cheese and put aside. Combine the chilli, tomato and barbecue sauces in a small bowl.

Once the dough is risen, take the dough out of the bowl onto the bench top or ideally a large wooden board. Flour the bench top or board liberally with flour. Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough into a large rectangle, as large as you can go, with the dough ending up about 1/2 cm thick. My dough rectangle is usually about 30cm in width by 40-50cm in length.

Liberally spread the sauce mixture over the dough rectangle. Scatter the chopped bacon and grated cheese on top of the sauce.

Now carefully roll up the dough along the long side. Using a sharp knife, slice the dough into 18 pieces. These are mini scrolls – if you wanted bigger ones, slice into 12 pieces.

Line a large baking tin or tray with baking paper. Carefully place each slice, cut side up, into the tin or tray, fitting them snugly together.

Place the tin or tray into a large plastic bag. Put the tin or tray into the fridge, and leave for 8-12 hours overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 180 degrees C fan forced, or 200 degrees C non fan forced.

Remove the plastic bag from the tin/tray. With a pastry brush, glaze the scrolls with the egg chilli mixture. Place into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the scrolls are risen and and nice and brown.

Pull apart and eat while still warm!