What day is it? One day off in a week and everything is knocked out of kilter. I’m using it as an excuse for my first Taste it Tuesday in a while coming out on a Wednesday!

We get so many book donations in the library. One of my jobs when I work on a Saturday is to sort through them. Sometimes people give us good as new, very recent publications. Sometimes not. Sometimes I put gloves on to do the job. We get a lot of books we can put in the book sale to raise money to buy more books for the library. Then, occasionally, I get the chance to lay claim to a book too old to go in the collection before it goes to the book sale. It’s a little perk.

This is how I came across, ‘100 Great Breads’ by Paul Hollywood. It was published in 2004 – before his ‘Great British Bake Off’ fame. I almost gave a little whoop – especially as it is a British publication as well. A lot of the recipes in there are very similar to those in his later books, but it prompted me to bake some things I haven’t before.

When we lived in the UK one of our kids favourite treats were chocolate chip brioche rolls bought from Tesco. Brioche is a delicate french bread made with plenty of butter and eggs. Last time we were visiting family in 2015, it seemed to be the ‘in’ thing. There were even brioche burger buns. In our part of Canada I haven’t seen any until the last few weeks when I spotted a plain brioche loaf. No chocolate chip rolls though.

Anyway, ‘100 Great Breads’ contains a few brioche recipes, and it prompted me to adapt Paul’s recipe to make my own chocolate chip brioche rolls. Simply a matter of adding chocolate chips to the dough. Ta da! The dough has to be made the night before so a little forward thinking has to be done. It has a lovely texture – plasticine like and smooth to shape.

One of my girls tried one fresh from the oven. ‘I usually have them cold,’ she commented. Maybe I should have thought to add supermarket packaging…

Chocolate Chip Brioche Rolls

375g All purpose flour/strong white bread flour

40g caster sugar

12g active dry yeast

1 teaspoon salt

75 ml milk

3 eggs, plus 1 egg for egg wash

185g softened unsalted butter

100g semi-sweet chocolate chips

Put the flour, sugar, yeast, salt, milk and the 3 eggs in a stand mixer with the dough hook, for 5 minutes until the dough is smooth. Mixing by hand will take a few minutes longer.

Add the butter to the dough and mix for a further 5 minutes in the mixer or 10 by hand. Put the dough in a bowl, cover and leave in a fridge overnight.

In the morning the dough should be stiff and easy to shape. Cut the dough into 75g pieces and knead a few chocolate chips into each one as you shape into finger rolls. Place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and leave to rise for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200°c/400°F. Brush the brioche rolls with egg wash and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Adapted from the recipe for ‘Brioche Têtes’, in ‘100 Great Breads’ ©️2004 Paul Hollywood