Skyrim-style sweetrolls
This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping a sweetroll could be—right in the middle between a yeast bread and a cake, soft but sturdy, and above all, delicious. Slightly adapted from the recipe at King Arthur Flour, this one’s easy enough that even a novice baker shouldn’t have a problem. There’s no kneading and no special equipment necessary except a hand mixer and a muffin pan (and even those are optional, see the notes below).
Sweetroll, as seen in Skyrim:
And my finished result, which is very tasty, but sadly does not hover:
The lighting in my kitchen is weird, I’m afraid. The tops don’t look quite that brown in person. The glaze is nearly invisible in these pictures, but it mostly sinks into the roll anyway. (If you must have the nice frosted white top, you could always use cake frosting. I passed on that one.)
Ingredients:
Dough
½ cup milk
½ cup heavy cream (you can substitute milk here, for 1 whole cup of milk, and omit the cream)
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) butter
¼ cup (1 ¾ ounces) sugar
3 tablespoons honey
1 ½ teaspoons salt
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs, whisked
1 tablespoon yeast
Glaze
3 tablespoons (1 ½ ounces) milk
2 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) sugar
Dough: Scald the milk or milk-and-cream by heating it in a saucepan or microwave oven till tiny bubbles appear around the edge, and the first wisps of steam begin to appear. Transfer it to a medium-sized bowl, and stir in the vanilla, butter, honey and sugar. Let the mixture cool for a couple of minutes, to just warm.
Add the salt, 2 cups of the flour, the eggs and the yeast. With the hand-mixer, beat the mixture on medium speed for six minutes. (If you don’t have a hand mixer but you do have a whisk, a strong arm, and a lot of patience, have at it.) Beating the mixture takes the place of kneading, and the mixture will get thicker and glossier toward the end. Once it’s mixed, add the remaining cup and a half of flour, and stir until the mixture becomes a soft dough. Cover the bowl with a dishcloth or plastic wrap, and let it rise for 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until it almost doubles in bulk.
Butter the pan of your choice—either a muffin pan for sweetrolls, or for a sweetcake, a cake or pie pan will work well. (I did six rolls and had enough dough for a large sweetcake, too.) Once the dough has risen, stir it a couple of times, then spoon it into the muffin cups (or dump the whole thing into a pie pan, for a sweetcake).
Wet your hands and smooth the top of the dough, and cover the pan with a damp cloth or greased plastic wrap and set the dough aside to rise for 1 ½ to 2 hours – until the top crowns over the rim of the pan.
Place the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for 25 to 35 minutes (check for doneness at 20 minutes, to be safe). If a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, it’s done.
To Skyrim-ify a regular muffin-shaped sweetroll, insert the end of a thick-handled spoon into the flat end to make an indentation. The indentation will catch the glaze and sort of transport the sugar straight to the middle of the roll. If you don’t have a thick-handled spoon or something similar, you can use the end of a Sharpie covered in plastic wrap. (Or whatever you’ve got on hand that’s up to the task of poking a hole in the end of a sweetroll. If there’s a special tool just for doing this, I don’t have one.)
In a small pan or microwave-safe bowl, mix the sugar and milk. Bring the mixture to a boil and stir until the sugar dissolves. Brush the mixture over the top of the bread immediately after it’s removed from the oven, and enjoy!
