Portuguese Sweet Bread Rolls

Ingredients:

• Butter, 4 tbs
• Lukewarm milk, 75 ml
• Eggs (lightly beaten), 3
• Condensed milk, 150 ml
• Flour, 3 1/2 cups
• Lemon zest (from 1/2 a lemon)
• Brown sugar, 2 tbs
• Salt, 1/2 tsp
• Instant yeast, 2 envelopes
• Egg yolk beaten with 2 tbs milk, (eggwash)
• Sesame seeds or sugar, (for topping)

Preparation:

Warm up the 75 ml of milk in a bowl, just so that it’s warm to the touch, you don’t want to boil it. Add the yeast and brown sugar to it and stir it well with a fork.

Let the yeast activate, if the yeast is good, the mixture will bubble and rise.

Add the flour to the bowl of the mixer and add the lemon zest and salt to it.

In another bowl, add the melted butter, eggs, condensed milk, yeast mixture and stir everything together.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix for about 3 minutes. The dough will be pretty sticky and elastic.

Let the dough rise and double in size in a warm place.

Turn the dough over onto a clean surface, use flour if you need to. The more elastic and sticky the easier it is to work with.

Knead the dough a bit and form it into a long roll which you have to cut into 12 pieces.

Now you can make just plain round rolls. Repeat with remaining pieces.

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Let them sit for 30 minutes, so they rise a bit more, then brush them with the egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds or sugar.

Bake at  180°C for about 25 to 30 minutes.