I did a bad thing this morning. I threw away a Thomas the Tank Engine bowl. I was trying to prove a point. It was the age old ‘there are children dying in the world and you won’t even eat your Cheerios’ speech when some strange urge came over me and I found myself throwing the uneaten cereal and the bowl into the bin. I didn’t actually mean to throw both away but given the flourish with which I executed the manoeuvre I felt I had to follow through. Like I meant to do it. So now my sons think their mother is crazy. Not crazy-good, crazy-bad.

To make everything better I took them to the zoo in the afternoon and spent £3 each on plastic crocodiles. The plastic Thomas bowl is forgotten and all is well in the world.

These Bounty bread rolls are possibly one of my favourite creations ever. Charlie prefers these over Cheerios for breakfast any day. They take ages though. I warn you now, they proof at their rate and nothing is going to speed them up. Weekend breakfast perhaps?

Makes 1 cake tin of rolls – about 8 individual rolls when pulled apart

Ingredients

Dough:

• 30g butter, cold

• 125g full fat or semi skimmed milk

• 250g strong white flour

• 1 tsp fast action dried yeast

• 1 tsp salt

• 20g muscavado sugar

• 1 large egg, beaten, at room temperature

Filling and topping:

• 20g melted butter

• 25g demerara sugar

• 100g finely chopped Bounty bars (I used cheapo version from Aldi)

• 2 tsp icing sugar

• tiny dot of boiling water

Make the enriched dough first (for it has an egg in it and butter too – so it’s enriched and therefore rises a bit slower and is also a bit sticky) by heating the butter in a saucepan/microwave until it’s melted, then adding the milk and heating until the whole lot is the temperature of a baby’s bath – ie/ lukewarm. If it overheats this is fine – just let it cool down before you add it to the dry ingredients.

Mix the flour, yeast, salt and sugar together. If the sugar has clumped up in storage then make sure you break it up finely before adding to the other dry ingredients. Use your fingers or a knife to get it back to it’s usual fine self. Then add the lukewarm butter and sugar mixture, knead together a little, then add the room temperature beaten egg. Knead by hand or in a machine until the dough is elastic, though beware it will still be sticky. Don’t add flour to aid the kneading – the bread will end up brick-like. Just go with the stickiness and remove jewellery beforehand if it really bothers you. (A scraper is very useful for kneading sticky doughs… or a machine.)

Pop the dough into a large bowl and cover with clingfilm. Let it proof until a finger pushed in about 3cm leaves a firm indent. It should be about double the size and take about 1.5 hours. In that time you need to line a cake tin (approx 20cm) with greaseproof paper as these rolls go all sticky upon baking. So sticky they can get stuck in a tin.

After the first proof knock the dough back and then roll with a rolling pin into a rectangle about 25 x 18cm, between two pieces of greaseproof paper (like I said, it’s very sticky dough so I wouldn’t attempt without the greaseproof paper trick.) With the rectangle length-ways in front of you, peel back the top layer of the greaseproof paper and then use a pastry brush to paint with the melted butter. Sprinkle the demerara sugar and chopped up Bounty over the top, evenly, then roll into a spiral, length ways.

With your roll of dough resting on the bottom piece of greaseproof paper as a disposable cutting board, use a serrated knife to cut slices of the dough about 2cm thick. Carefully lift the spirals (which are prone to dropping filling, beware) and place in your lined cake tin. Cover loosely with clingfilm and leave to proof for a second time. Mine took 2 hours to double in size.

Bake at 200C for about 20 – 25 minutes until golden brown on the top and looking thoroughly well baked, chocolatey and with toasted Bounty coconut having splurged onto the top. Mix the icing sugar with a dot of boiling water and paint the still warm rolls for a nicely frosted when cold appearance.