B-b-b-baking: Murderer's Roll?

I'm sorry for being behind on my posts :( Things have been crazy busy as of late! I have time today for a quick post, so here it is... (as for the others, I will work on updating July's entries over the next few weeks, so bear with me!)

P has a jungle in his backyard consisting of such things as rhubarb, currants, and raspberries! I will be updating my rhubarb entry soon enough!

Some of the raspberries that we picked from P's pesticide-free backyard :)

Things I have learned today about raspberries:

- Raspberries bleed a lot more than most other berries when smushed, so be careful about that!
- So far, from what I've seen, the most common use for raspberries in baking is in scones and clafoutis - a french dessert that typically has cherries, and not raspberries.
- When you get raspberry juice and smush on your work area, it looks like blood and guts, but smells a lot nicer.
- Raspberries grow on bushes, and they can be at the bottom of the bush, hidden in the middle, or at the top...basically anywhere on the bush. They should come off really easily from the stem/pit thing if they're ready. Darker red ones tend to be sweeter, and brighter reds are usually more tart. Picking raspberries is fun, but you have to be careful for the thorns. I got too ambitious, going for the ones really inside the bush because they looked so good, but in the process got mauled by several branches of thorns.
- Raspberries, as for most berries, taste really good with cream whether it's ice cream, or whipped cream, or what have you.

Honestly...it looks like a was dismembering a limb of some sort...

After I finished slicing all of the rolls, because of the raspberry juice, it looked like I killed something. I had way too much fun with it... It was awesome.

After being sliced and placed in a greased pan, they all bled together. Such camaraderie. *cue look of valour*

The finished product...P's "Murderer's Rolls" (a.k.a. Raspberry Sweet Rolls)! From this angle, they don't look that disproportionate, but I did a pretty terrible job at making them even :) I'll pretend that I was trying to be considerate of those who might want smaller ones or bigger ones.

After panicking about how to pack all of the rolls away without falling victim to the fly that was zipping around the kitchen, P suggested that I plastic wrap each of them individually. It actually turned out quite well, despite the amount of time it took me to complete such a task. I'm too nitpicky sometimes :(

All set for tomorrow's delivery! :D

This was a really fun baking project for the summer! Berries are so summery and fresh! The recipe is pretty well the same as for the cinnamon rolls, except I made twice as many rolls by making them smaller, and filled them with raspberries instead of cinnamon sugar. For the dough recipe, please refer to the page on cinnamon rolls here.

Murderer Roll Filling

*Makes enough filling for 12 regular sized rolls or 24 smaller rolls.*

2 cups of raspberries (1 cup raspberries for each batch of 12 rolls)

2/3 cups of white granulated sugar (1/3 cup sugar for each batch of 12 rolls)

4 Tbsp canola oil (2 Tbsp oil for each batch of 12 rolls)

*Note: I tried half of the rolls with frozen raspberries, and the other half with refrigerated berries. Other recipes for raspberry sweet rolls suggest using individually frozen raspberries, but I don't really find a difference because you smush them anyways. Either way, raspberry juice oozes out, or at least it did for me. I find that the refrigerated berries were much easier to spread since they were soft.*

1. After having rolled out one half of your dough, spread 2 Tbsp of oil evenly across the surface. 

2. Evenly spread 1/3 cup sugar over the surface of the dough.

3. In a bowl, smush 1 cup of raspberries with a spoon, and spread it evenly across the surface of the dough.

4. Roll the dough into a lengthwise log, and divide into 12 even rolls.

5. Carefully place each roll upside down into your greased pan. This will make it so that the nice spirals show from the tops. You will probably get raspberry blood on your hands during this process.

6. Bake for 20 min at 425 F. (I first tried to bake them at 350 F for about 25 min, but they were still soft from the moisture, so I put them back in for another 10 min at 425 F. You should get a nicer golden brown not pictured here. The pictures only show the 350 F trial.)

7. Cool briefly and individually wrap in plastic wrap, or consume right away. I found that these were already sweet on their own and didn't need a glaze, but if you prefer a glaze or even whipped cream, knock yourself out!

Have fun with these summery sweet rolls! :)

-M