coconut bread

You’ve got to know where your towel is.

Towels are important, in life.

“A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”

From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

The most ridiculous thing happened to me last week, which is why I now need a towel around my neck at all times. My alarm went off at 6.30 am (yes, it’s a ridiculous hour of the morning. I’m experimenting with running. It was going well, until) I went to turn it off and somehow injured my neck.

caramel breakfast rolls

These are actually titled ‘Dulce de Leche Brioche Rolls’ but as it’s kind of a mouthful and also, no one I know knows what dulche de leche is or even brioche… I know, it’s tragic. I’m moving towards an education, however, which started with these.

Which are amazing.

Dulce de leche, for those of you who are fifty seven words into this post and still don’t know and are wondering why someone’s been holding out on you your whole life, is caramelised milk which comes traditionally from Argentina. There is a recipe for homemade dulce de leche here. I went the lazy route. Brioche is a sweet French breakfast bread; you can halve the dough for the rolls and make a loaf of it if you want.

And so. Tartelette via Smitten Kitchen via slumber party breakfast deliciousness, here we come.

Dulce de Leche Brioche Rolls

1/3 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)

1/3 cup warm milk (105°F to 115°F)

2 envelopes instant yeast

3 3/4 cups plain flour

3 large eggs

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups (375 grams) salted butter (I use salted and I don’t add salt. Feel free to do what you please here), cut into 12 pieces, room temperature

1 egg, beaten to blend with 1 tablespoon water (for glaze)

Place 1/3 cup warm water, warm milk, and yeast in bowl of standing heavy-duty mixer; stir until yeast dissolves. Fit mixer with dough hook. Add flour and salt to bowl; mix on low speed just until flour is moistened, about 10 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl.
Beat in 3 eggs on low speed, then add sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat until dough comes together, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding next (dough will be soft and batter-like). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 7 minutes.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until almost doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Lift up dough around edges and allow dough to fall and deflate in bowl.
Cover bowl with plastic and chill until dough stops rising, lifting up dough around edges and allowing dough to fall and deflate in bowl every 30 minutes, about 2 hours total. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate an hour.

Take the dough out of the fridge and divide in half. Roll out the dough to a 14×9 inch rectangle. Spread 1/3 cup softened cream cheese, leaving a 1 inch border. Spread the Dulce de Leche on top, it is messy, it will spread but hey! it’s good. Roll into a log and cut into 12 pieces. Place them in a buttered 9 inch round pan, cover and refrigerate until the next morning. The dough will rise slowly overnight.

In the morning, bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Repeat with the other half or make a brioche loaf.

The lazy method of making dulce de leche: Take a can of condensed milk and place in a large saucepan. Cover with water and 3-4 hours. If you put it in at about the same time you start making the rolls, it’ll be about done by the time you have to use it, and it’s the exact amount you need for the amount of dough you have here. I suspect that the homemade version is better; but that’s a story for another post.