Blackberry Cream Cheese Sweet Rolls

by Brooke on October 2, 2011 19 comments »

I spent a good part of the weekend yelling at my children. Let’s be honest here. We yell sometimes.

Especially when the house is a raucous mess of chaos. Especially when toothpaste is on the kitchen floor. Twice.

There were {very loud} pep talks which involved the importance of spit shines and elbow grease. The boys took to the spitting part. Though it wasn’t the proper sort of spitting which finds it’s way into a sink only to be thoughtfully washed down with a fresh splash of water. Nay. And don’t even ask me about what happened with the elbow grease. Or the pen ink. Or the toilets.

Lord have mercy, the toilets.

I spent a good part of the weekend trying to make order from chaos. Trying to comb hair. Pick up shoes. Vaccum the crumbs from inside the awkward crevices of the family car.

By Saturday night, we all went to bed tired. Tired of cleaning. Tired of {very loud} pep talks. Tired of moms who yell over spit shining and such.

Then early today, just as the chilly sniff of autumn morning breezed through the crack in my bedroom window and called me to waking, I felt the head of one twin, fast asleep across my left thigh. And the other twin was curled on top of the pillow to my right. And there were soft little breaths from my tween daughter coming from a messy pile of blankets stacked at the bottom of my bed. And there was a chihuahua curved around the outside moon of my hip.

The covers were in a heap. The sheets half fallen off the bed. The floor covered by a snoozing tween. I observed this all with one sleepy eye open.

Then, I smiled. Oh, I smiled and breathed it all in.

I said to myself, “Silly girl. Why do you forget that it isn’t order you desire most. It’s melting into life with these people you love.”

So melt, I whispered to myself.

Melt. Melt. Melt.

Placing a hand on the back of one of those twins of mine, rubbing the tip of the other’s pointy-perfect nose with my knuckle, I left the covers heaped and haphazard. I pressed against the chihuahua just a bit with a loving hip. Sent an air kiss up over the bed and wished it safe landing in the tweens hair.

Then closed my eyes.

And I just melted the morning away.

Blackberry Cream Cheese Sweet Rolls

These easy little sweet rolls are like a lazy man's version of cinnamon buns. No swirling or rolling involved. Little mounds of soft, sweet dough are topped with cream cheese and blackberries, baked until golden, then iced to perfection. This recipe very much reminds me of the bread pudding Elizabeth Taylor's family dished up to Mickey Rooney in National Velvet. It's not the same thing at all, but go grab that movie anyway, eat blackberry rolls as you watch, and melt into a nice memory.

Ingredients:

2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
For the rolls:
2/3 cup nonfat instant dry milk
2 tablespoons dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
3 eggs
6-7 cups flour
1 stick butter, softened
1 teaspoon nutmeg

For the filling:
2 (8 ounce) blocks cream cheese
1 egg
1 cup sugar
3-4 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
2 tablespoons flour

For the Icing:
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4-1/2 cup cream

Directions:

In very large bowl whisk together the water and milk powder. Whisk in the yeast, then sugar, salt, egg, and 3 cups of flour. Use a wooden spoon to mix all of these ingredients together until well mixed. Add 2 more cups of flour, then continue to stir until the ingredients are well combined and beginning to form a thick dough. Add just enough additional flour to make the dough soft and pliable but not sticky. Go slow! You don't want to over-add flour here!

Add the softened butter and nutmeg to the dough, then knead the butter throughout the dough multiple times, until the dough becomes elastic and resilient to the touch. (I just do all of the kneading inside my bowl so as to contain the mess that in inevitably created when bread making. If you need some space for your kneading, turn the bread out onto a lightly floured countertop and knead away!) Cover with plastic and allow to rise in warm place until double in size, about 45 minutes.

Prepare the filling. In a stand mixer, combine the cream cheese and egg and 3/4 cup of the sugar. Beat until smooth and creamy. Dust the blackberries with the remaining sugar and flour but gently stirring them until coated.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray 4-9" cake pans, pie tins, or two 13x9-inch pans with nonstick cooking spray. Start pulling golf ball sized hunks of dough and smoothing them into little balls. Place them into your greased baking sheet. Don't place the balls right next to each other, but close enough that when they rise they'll be pretty cozy in there.

Allow the dough to rise 15-20 minutes, then spread dollops of the cream cheese filling all over the creases of your rising balls of dough. Top with blackberries spread randomly across the top of your rolls. Allow to rise 20 minutes more, then bake in your preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or just until the rolls are golden brown and cooked through. Don't overcook your rolls! Pull them out of the oven before they become overly brown.

In a small bowl, whisk together powdered sugar and cream. Transfer to a ziplo bag, snip off the corner, and pipe all over the top of your warm blackberry sweet rolls. Enjoy!

Posted in Bread, Breads, Desserts

19 comments »