This savory bacon cheese roll is adapted from a cinnamon roll recipe. (Cinnamon roll recipe included at the bottom) It’s flavorful, gooey, cheesy and filling but you won’t be able to stop at just one. There’s also a secret ingredient of making the rolls gooey that I learned from Tastes of Lizzy T!! Great as an appetizer, picnic, breakfast, hangover or using up Christmas ham leftover.
I had an cinnamon roll addiction. Well, a roll baking addiction. I love cinnamon rolls but my body can only handle so much sugar! Then there was an incident that made us accessible to hundreds of pounds of bacon, not joking so I had to come up with ways to consume all those goodies before they go bad. That’s when I had the idea- a bacon cheese roll!
In Taiwan, most “traditional” bread are sweet. They’re not really traditional since it’s adapted from Japanese bread which they adapted from American bread but I believe the ancestor of these bread are the rolls of America. It’s been spun into over a hundred different varieties with all kinds of fillings but all with the same sweet bread base. I’ve never been much of a sweet tooth, so every time we went to the bakery, I would pick out one of the only two savory bread on the shelf and one of them often being a stuffed bacon bread.
Honestly I didn’t care much for bacon either, it was simply that I couldn’t stand the sweet filling so bacon would have to do. The bacon bread is often rolled with either this oddly green garlic butter(lots of tasteless parsley perhaps?) or cheese. I do love cheese. Now that I’m far away from that land of sweet bread, I find myself thinking about how that bacon bread made me feel. The taste of bacon bread has been related to the memory of me being a good Taiwanese student: studying 17 hours a day, going to cram school after real school and 8 tests a day in the name of getting into a great public college. With a schedule like that food is whatever’s convenient, and thus the relationship with bacon bread.
With all that being said, this bacon cheese roll tastes a lot like home, with a twist(and a roll).
I’m sure that everyone knows what a good cinnamon roll tastes like- soft, tender, gooey and the center is the best part. In order to achieve the gooeyness, heavy cream is used in this recipe to make the center extra gooey. I’ve experimented with various dairy product- cream, half and half, whole milk, 2%… heavy cream definitely has the best result. The fat and liquid ratio is perfect in order to make the rolls gooey, but half and half is not too bad either. This is probably the most magical ingredient I’ve learned about roll-baking ever.
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Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 1 C warm milk 105-115 degrees F
- 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1/3 C butter melted
- 4 1/4 C all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1/2 C granulated sugar
the Filling
- 1 lb Bacon or ham of your choice diced
- 1/4 C Packed brown sugar
- 1 TBsp Cinnamon
- 4 C Cheese, Shredded or sliced Mozzarela, Cheddar, Monetary Jack, Havarti, Gouda are all great!
Make the Rolls Gooey!
- 1 C Heavy cream half and half also works, but heavy cream has the best result!
Instructions
The Dough
- Pour the 1C warm milk with 1/2C sugar in a mixing bowl and sprinkle 2-1/2tsp yeast on top and let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy.
- Add 2 large room temp eggs, 1/3C melted butter, and 1tsp salt, mix well. (With a whisk or with a fork!)
- Add the flour one cup at the time until the ingredients are just combined.
- Scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl if necessary and start kneading the dough until the dough is smooth and elastic. About 8 minutes. *The dough will be tacky and maybe stick to the sides of the bowl, but that's how you know your rolls will be soft and with smaller air bubbles, so don't be tempted to add too much flour. Only 1TBsp at a time if it's really too sticky to knead.
- Grease a large bowl with oil.
- Use a rubber spatula to remove the dough from the mixer bowl and place it in the greased bowl.
- Cover the bowl with a towel or wax paper.
- Set the bowl in a warm place and allow the dough to rise until double. Roughly 40 minutes. (Try not to let the dough rise for too long as it will start developing bigger air bubbles and the rolls will become airy and dry) The oven is my go-to place for letting a dough rise. I have a gas oven that has a pilot light so it's always warm. You can also turn the oven on for a minute then turn it off and place the dough to rise in it.
The filling
- While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Shred or slice the cheese if needed. Cook the diced bacon or ham in a pan until it's done. I usually leave it soft instead of crunchy bacon bits. Remove from heat and add 1/4C Brown Sugar, 1TBsp Ground Cinnamon and mix well.
- Sprinkle a pastry mat generously with flour. Turn out the dough onto the pastry mat and sprinkle the top of the dough with additional flour.
- Flour a rolling pin and roll the dough to about a 15x20" rectangle.
- Spread the bacon filling over the dough and sprinkle/lay the cheese on top evenly.
- Starting on the long end, roll the dough up tightly.
- Cut into 24 slices and place in 2 greased 9x13 baking pans.
- Cover the pan and allow the rolls to rise for 25 minutes or until nearly double. It's ok if they don't rise to double the size as they will still expand when you bake.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Warm 1C heavy cream until warm to the touch.
- Once the rolls have risen, pour the heavy cream over the top of the rolls, allowing it to soak down in and around the rolls.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until the rolls are lightly golden brown and the center rolls are cooked through. I like it slightly under cooked so the center is very gooey, about 17 minutes.
- Serve warm!
Notes
- 3/4
- 6
If you enjoy Bacon Cheese Roll | 培根起司捲, YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
BACON WRAPPED GREEN BEANS | 培根四季豆捲
GOOEY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES | 酥軟巧克力豆餅乾
VIETNAMESE YOGURT COFFEE | 越南優格咖啡 (To go with the rolls!)
