Chocolate Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

Oooy gooey cinnamon rolls. Add chocolate to amp up the ooze, and toasted pecan nuts to provide a crunch. Hands up, anyone?

Chocolate pecan cinnamon rolls

I've embarked on a bread baking spree for the past coupla months. In fact, 2013 could be the year of bread (for me at least). I've always had an innate fear of working with yeast, as I've certainly had my fair share of flops (shudders and tries to shove those sad memories away).

I've started using active dry yeast this year for my yeast endeavours, instead of the regular instant yeast. I'm not too sure about the difference between those two, so don't ask me. Google can provide you with a better answer to that I'm sure. Anyway, I'm not sure if the type of yeast plays a role in bread making, but so far, all my attempts at bread baking has been successful so far. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed for future bakes...

Toasted pecan nuts; Chopped nuts and chocolate

Hot outta the oven

Don't lick the screen, no matter how tempted you might be...

These rolls were a success, if I may say so. They were delightfully fluffy soft, with chunks of sweet chocolate and crunchy pecans embedded into the dough. The original recipe I was looking at used hazelnuts, but I didn't had any in the house. In fact, I was in panic-mode when I thought I had no nuts of any sort in the house, till I found a small pack of pecans. *kisses pack of pecans in thanks* I sort of made up the filling as I went along, adding stuff here and there and it turned out just yums...

Do ya fancy a roll too?

Chocolate pecan rolls
(makes 9 rolls)

Dough (dough adapted from here)
350g bread flour
1 1/2 tsp dried active yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
55g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
150ml milk, warm (I ran outta milk so I used 115ml milk and 35ml soy milk)
1 egg, lightly beaten

Mix all the ingredients for the dough together in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer (with the dough hook attached), knead the dough together till the dough is soft and supple. Cover the bowl with cling wrap, set aside in a warm place to proof until double its size about an hour or so.

Filling
45g butter, melted and cooled
80g brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
100g pecans, toasted and chopped roughly
110g dark chocolate, chopped

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together.
Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured clean surface, to form an approximate 30cm x 40cm rectangle (try to roll it out so that the 40cm side is facing you).
Spread the melted butter onto the rolled out dough, leaving a 1cm gap around the edges.
Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the melted butter.
Toss the chopped pecans and chocolate evenly over the cinnamon sugar.
Fold in the two edges of the 30cm side.
Starting from the  side closest to you, roll the dough tightly and pinch the seams together at the end.
Score the roll into nine equal portions (I used a ruler - each roll was about 4.5cm wide), then using a knife, slice the roll into nine even pieces.
Butter a 8.5" baking pan and place the rolls onto the pan, cut sides up.
Cover with a clean cloth and leave to proof for an hour or until doubled (I went out, so I proofed the dough for about two hours).
Preheat oven to 180C.
Bake the rolls for 20 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
Remove from oven and cool. Serve warm.