Strawberry Vanilla Sweet Rolls

Vanja Ilic
Oct 7
4 min read

Updated: Oct 9

Light, tender, and packed with flavor

When I was a kid, I was crazy about this Vanilla Strawberry ice cream. I remember sprinting to the grocery store on those scorching summer days just to grab one.

Fast forward to this spring, I made some homemade strawberry jam, like I always do, to spread on my homemade bread or use while baking. Honestly, store-bought jams just can't compete. All you really need is some fruit you love and a bit of time. I'll drop a recipe for it soon!

So, with all this strawberry jam on hand and my love for sweet rolls, I came up with this recipe. These rolls give me major flashbacks to that ice cream I mentioned.

They're super delicate, soft, perfectly sweet, and bursting with strawberry flavor.

If you like strawberries you'll want to try these sweet rolls.

Tips and notes

To get these rolls super fluffy and soft, you’ve got to use the Tangzhong method when making the dough. That’s the secret to making them extra light and fluffy.
Go with active dry yeast for quicker rising.
Warm up your milk, water, and butter before mixing them with the dry ingredients to get the yeast going, but don't make it too hot or you'll end up killing the yeast.
Don't skimp on kneading time; it really makes a difference.
Go with full-fat milk.

Ingredients for 6-8 rolls

Tangzhong

25 g flour
100 ml milk

Dough

250 g flour
50 g melted butter (warm not too hot)
1 large egg (room temp)
100 ml milk
50 ml water
7 g active dry yeast
pinch of salt
2 tbsp of granulated sugar

Filling

30 g butter softened to room temperature
1 cup strawberry jam

Cream Cheese Frosting

60 g butter room temp
150 g Philadelphia cream cheese (or your favorite one)
120 g icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp strawberry jam

Instructions

Make the tangzhong. In a small heatproof bowl, mix the flour and milk, and keep stirring over low heat for about 3 minutes until it gets thick and gooey. Once it reaches that texture, set it aside.
In a heat-safe bowl, go ahead and warm up the milk, water, and butter. It's totally fine if some of the butter doesn't fully melt.
In a big mixing bowl, toss in the flour, sugar, yeast and salt and whisk to combine.
Pour in the warmed-up liquids, toss in a room temp egg, and stir with a wooden spoon until the dough looks a bit rough and scraggly.
Pop the dough into a stand mixer bowl, or if you’re going old school, throw it onto a lightly floured surface to knead by hand. Give it a good 15-minute knead. If it’s still sticking to everything, sprinkle in a bit of flour and keep at it. Just be careful not to go overboard with the flour—you want the dough to stay nice and soft.
Shape the dough into a ball and pop it into a bowl with a bit of oil. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it hang out in a warm spot for about an hour until it doubles in size.
When the time's up, sprinkle some flour on your work surface and put the dough on it. Make sure to punch the dough down first to get rid of any extra air.
Roll the dough into a rectangle and spread some softened butter on it. Make sure it's nice and even. Then slather on your strawberry jam—be generous, but not too much, or it'll spill out of the rolls.
Roll up the dough from the longer side, pluck the ends together, and tuck them under your loaf to keep everything in place before you slice the rolls.
Grab some dental floss to slice the rolls into 6 even rolls—just slide it under the loaf and pull the string over to make a cut.
Put the rolls in a greased pan (round 16cm or squared 16x16) and cover them up again until they're almost twice as big. Don't wait too long this time because they'll rise more in the oven, and you want to make sure there's enough room for that.
Meanwhile, set your oven to 180°C. Once it's heated up, brush your risen rolls with some milk and pop them in the oven for around 20-25 minutes until they're golden on top. Feel free to bake them a little longer or shorter depending on your preference. If you want them gooey and soft, don't let them get too brown.
To whip up some Cream Cheese Strawberry Icing, just get a medium bowl and mix together softened butter and cream cheese. Then, add in the icing sugar and a bit of vanilla, and whisk it all up for about a minute until it's nice and smooth. Once it's creamy, gently stir in some strawberry jam, but don't go overboard with the mixing.
Put the frosting on the rolls while still warm so it will get inside those layers and make everything even more soft and moist and delicious.
Best eaten warm, but these stay soft even the day after.
Enjoy!