Dulce de leche brioche rolls

The minute I saw Helene’s wonderful rolls I knew I had to make them – my dad is absolutely crazy for dulce de leche!

So I invited dad, my brother and my sister to have dinner at my house. I baked the bread and left it on the dinner table, while I was making the pizzas in the kitchen. You should have seen the look on his face when he arrived and saw the rolls… He immediately asked what those were and I said they were dulce de leche rolls that I had made especially for him. The man was thrilled!
And so was my 13-year-old sister – I saw her whispering something to my father and asked what was going on. He told me that she was asking if she could get some of those for herself. :)
She told me later that she took the rolls to school and had them as a snack during class recess – but she had to share them with a friend, who asked to have some! :)

Helene, this recipe is absolutely divine: the buttery dough is very tender and soft and the filling complements it perfectly. Thank you so much for sharing!

Dulce de leche brioche rolls

Dough:
80ml (1/3 cup) warm water
80ml (1/3 cup) warm milk
14g (5 teaspoons - 2 envelopes) dry yeast
525g (3 ¾ cups) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
50g (¼ cup) sugar
340g (1 ½ cups - 3 sticks) unsalted butter, each stick cut into 4 pieces, room temperature

Filling:
approx. 300g (1 cup) dulce de leche, room temperature

Glaze:
1 egg, beaten to blend with 1 tablespoon water

Place warm water, warm milk, and yeast in a bowl of standing heavy-duty mixer - I don’t own one so I used my old and not so heavy standing mixer, with the beaters that look like springs - stir until yeast dissolves. Fit mixer with dough hook. Add flour and salt to bowl; mix on low speed just until flour is moistened, about 10 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl.
Beat in 3 eggs on low speed, then add sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat until dough comes together, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, beating until each piece is almost incorporated before adding next (dough will be soft and batter-like). Increase speed to medium-high and beat until dough pulls away from sides of bowl, about 7 minutes.
Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until almost doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Lift up dough around edges and allow dough to fall and deflate in bowl.
Cover bowl with plastic and chill until dough stops rising, lifting up dough around edges and allowing dough to fall and deflate in bowl every 30 minutes, about 2 hours total. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate an hour.
Take the dough out of the fridge and divide in half.

For the buns: roll out the dough to a 35x22cm (14x9in) rectangle. Spread the dulce de leche leaving a 2.5cm (1in) border. Roll into a log and cut into 12 pieces. Place them in a buttered 22.5cm (9in) round pan, cover and refrigerate until the next morning. The dough will rise slowly overnight.*
In the morning, bake at 175ºC/350ºF for 20-25 minutes.

You can repeat with the other half or make a brioche loaf – like Helene did.

* I halved the recipe, baked the rolls in a 25cm round pan and l let them rise for 1 hour baking them instead of refrigerating them until the next day.