One Sweet Dough-Two Recipes ⋆ Biscuits to Brownies

yeast dough braided two ways on a plate with espresso

Bread is something I love making and experimenting with. Maybe, its because I love bread so much. Or, its that bread baking mimics science, which I love given my science background. Whatever finds my passion, its one of the most enjoyable tasks in the kitchen presently. Here, I took a simple sweet dough recipe divided in half, to make two delicious sweet bread recipes using what is in my refrigerator.

Sweet dough differs in regular bread dough in the amount of sugar and butter it contains. Love this recipe as is it perfect and pliable to make and bake almost anything.

One Sweet Dough

This is a quick dough that comes together beautifully. Instead of water, the dough is made with warm milk and softened butter to give it that richness it so deserves. Not only is an easy dough to assemble, its beautiful and smooth as well. Super pliable and easy to roll out and use for any recipe.

This dough is divided in half for these two recipes of sweet eats:

Cinnamon Braided Rolls
Raspberry Mascarpone White Chocolate Braid

As you can tell, “braid” is the theme I used for both recipes.

Come let me show you…..

Two Recipes- Sweet Dough One

Raspberry White Chocolate Breakfast Braid

braided raspberry white chocolate baked pastry

First up in the two recipes is a great breakfast braid with some wonderful flavors of raspberry, white chocolate, and mascarpone cheese. This recipe was inspired by those Entenmanns Breakfast Danish’s mom would buy at the store that I loved for breakfast. Raspberry, was my favorite! Maybe, that is where my love of sweet dough hailed!?

What I loved so much about that Danish was the rich and buttery dough with raspberry filling, crumb topping, and powdered sugar icing. Yum! With that, I decided to create my own with a twist.

Here is how I make it:

The dough is halved and rolled out into a rectangle
Half the dough gets spread with mascarpone cheese
Dough is folded over in half to cover the cheese, then sealed
Dough is rolled out into a longer rectangle
Raspberry jam and white chocolate chips are added to the middle of the dough
Strips evenly on each side are cut
Parallels strips of dough are twisted and tucked into the top and placed in the center
This process continues till all the way down the dough
Ends are tucked and the dough rises
Egg wash is brushed on and baked till lightly golden
Drizzle of powdered sugar icing and a dusting of powdered sugar completes

rolled out yeast dough with mascarpone cheese on one end — spreading with mascarpone cheese

braiding twist filled with jam and white chocolate chips before baking — slices and cris crossed over tough and tucked in

Two Recipes-Sweet Dough Two

baked braided cinnamon sugar rolls on a plate

Cinnamon Braided Rolls

The other half of the dough requires a bit more time but worth every minute as it produces some pretty awesome looking rolls.

This reminds me of a cinnamon roll without the filling. Its kind of a kick back to one of my favorite snacks as a kid, cinnamon toast! I just LOVED this! My husband and I ate this quite a bit after we were married. Funny, we both made it differently. I loved mine toasted, then spread with butter and cinnamon sugar. For him, he loved his smeared with butter and cinnamon sugar, then toasted in the oven.

Of course the best part was all the butter on top with the cinnamon. What memories I have for this treat.

For these rolls, the butter is already in the dough, and the cinnamon sugar is sprinkled both in the dough, and on top before baking. Double punch! That makes me happy!

Can I justify cinnamon by saying it is a great “Meta-influencer” in metabolism boosting and health. Ok, maybe not so much combined with sugar but I’ll run with it!

How they are made:

The dough half is rolled into a rectangle
Sprinkled with cinnamon sugar
Thin slices are made the length of the dough
Three slices are braided (like a hair braid 🙂
The braid is rolled into a coil, tail tucked under
Placed on a baking sheet to rise
Egg wash and cinnamon sugar are added before baked

rolled yeast dough sprinkled with cinnamon sugar — Rolled dough sprinkled with cinnamon sugar

strips of dough cut vertically with cinnamon sugar — cutting thin strips of dough

braiding three strips of dough — taking three strips and braiding them

coiled cinnamon sugar roll dough — finished braided roll

These two sweet dough creations are marvelous with a cup of coffee or espresso. Honestly, I can’t decide which one I love best. However, I think I’m leaning toward the braided bread. That raspberry jam just packs such a wonderful flavor. Raspberry and white chocolate pair marvelous together.

bread braided two ways on a plate with espresso

Maybe you’ll become a passionate bread baker like myself. I know we live in a low carb trend era, I’m not ready to give up bread anytime soon but I’ll continue to live by the “everything in moderation” when my carb craving hits.

I won’t mind one bit having a slice of this yummy bread! 🙂

Love Bread? Here are a few more ideas for you: