Not long ago, I came across a great sale on lemons at my local grocery store. I grabbed a whole bunch, fully intending to make a lemon bars with them. That never happened, and the lemons were nearing the end of their life when I decided to try to make lemon rolls.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I decided to try these lemon rolls, but I had just binge watched The Great British Baking Show and was feeling gutsy. Thankfully, they turned out great. They are essentially a cinnamon roll with the cinnamon sugar filling replaced with lemon curd. I added a little bit of lemon juice to the cream cheese icing to put on top for some extra zing.
I have used stovetop and pressure cooker lemon curds to make these rolls. I am including the stovetop lemon filling recipe, but feel free to use whatever lemon curd recipe is your favorite to make these.
Here, you can see the baked rolls pre-icing. Check out all of that lemony goodness!
The icing really rounds them out. It provides just enough richness to offset the sweet-tart taste of the lemon filling.
You can also “cold rise” these rolls overnight by preparing and rolling the dough the night before, then placing the pan with the filled rolls in the pan in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, bake in a non-preheated oven at 350 degrees and add a few minutes to the baking time.
You don’t need a bread machine to make these rolls, but it makes life a lot easier. This article shows how to convert bread machine recipes into hand-kneaded recipes.
Lemon Rolls
Adapted from this recipe
Ingredients
For the dough
- 1 cup warm milk
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 1/2 cups bread flour
- 2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast or instant yeast
For the filling (you can replace this with about 1 1/2 cups of your favorite store-bought or homemade lemon curd)
- 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp lemon zest (optional)
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
For the icing:
- 4oz cream cheese, softened
- 4tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, softened
- 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Directions
Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer, then use the Dough cycle to prepare the dough.
When the dough cycle is complete, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 16″ x 21″ rectangle
Spread the lemon curd evenly over the surface of the dough, then gently roll into a log. Cut the log into 12 even pieces and place in a grease 13″ x 9″ baking pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 45 minutes). Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake the risen rolls for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and top with icing while still hot.
To make the icing:
Cream together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the confectioner’s sugar and beat until combined. Add the vanilla and lemon juice.
Note: If your icing is too thick, you can thin it out with a bit of milk until you have the desired consistency.