Bento Bites: Rutger's Pesto Bread Rolls

In the Netherlands we have our own spin off Great British Bake Off. The 2nd season just started here. But the winner of last season, Rutger, came out with his own book. It is called Rutger Bakt (Rutger Bakes). I borrowed this book from the library, and it has something for everyone. Some complicated recipes, some classics and some fast and easy recipes. I saw these bread rolls in the book which I really wanted to try, and so we did. Rutger made them with tomato tapenade originally, but suggested that pesto also could be used. So we went with that. Rutger made both his tapenade / pesto and bread himself, but we only made the bread from scratch and used store bought red pesto this time. Of course it will taste even better if you make everything yourself. This recipe would also be easy to adjust for a vegan version, by replacing the milk and to use vegan pesto.

You can keep them for a day or 2, so they are great to take with you in your bento.

Rutger's Pesto Bread Rolls (makes 12)
- 500 gr flour
- 9 gr dried yeast
- 20 ml olive oil
- 40 ml milk
- 260 ml water, lukewarm
- 10 gr salt
- (red) pesto or tapenade

Mix all ingredients except the pesto together. Make sure though that the salt never gets into contact with the yeast directly, or else the bread won't rise. So mix that in with the flour first. Make a dough and knead for 10 minutes minimum. Place the dough ball in a bowl and cover with a kitchen towel. Let it rise on a warm spot for about 1 hour.
If you make your own pesto, prepare it while you wait.

Grease a muffin tin (I used 2 of 6). Roll the dough out on a floured surface in a rectangle from about 30 x 50 cm. Spread the pesto on the dough.

Roll the dough from the long side. Cut the roll into 12 even pieces. And lay them sideways into the muffin holes. Leave the rolls to rest for 45 minutes for the 2nd rise.
Pre heat the oven to 220 degrees. Bake the bread rolls for 15-20 minutes. Leave them to cool in the muffin tin for about 5 minutes before removing them and leave with to cool on a rack.

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