The Year of Bread Part Eighteen: Avocado Bread Rolls

I bought a couple of avocados recently on a bit of a whim. With one, I ended up making these great avocado, bacon and halloumi muffins. With the second, I decided I wanted to make avocado bread. I was sure I’d seen a recipe for such a thing, but a look on my Year of Bread Pinterest board drew a blank, and I had to run a few searches before I could find something that matched what I wanted. There are lots of recipes for sweet avocado bread, in the same vein as banana bread or courgette loaf, but I wanted something savoury that I could make sandwiches with. The Year of Bread could also be called The Quest for the Perfect Sandwich, though it’s even more long winded… Eventually, I came across this recipe for avocado bread rolls which looked spot on.

The recipe starts off a little different form other breads I’ve made, in that you don’t activate the yeast in warm water first but mix it into a dough with the flour, salt, sugar and mashed avocado, plus some warm water (or milk). This makes the process a little quicker and, though I was unsure at first, it works just as well. Here’s the usual before and after:

I added enough liquid to make the dough quite soft and a little sticky, but manageable to work with. It can be hard to judge but it’s better to err on the side of more moisture, and you can always throw in an extra handful of flour to even things back up again if you go overboard. I kneaded the dough for just a few minutes then left to rise for an hour.

Once risen, I shaped it into six rolls, and rose for a further half hour:

I coated the top of the rolls in flour so that they wouldn’t stick to the tea towel I used to cover them and keep them cosy. Cosiness is imperative when it comes to bread. The right amount of cosy gives the right amount of rise. Too much or too little cosy and you can forget it. The extra dusting of flour also gave them a nice rustic finish – a cheeky bonus.

Another good idea is to handle the dough as little and as gently as you can. Obviously you can’t really tear a thing into six pieces gently but, you know, do your best. Maybe sing it a nice song while you work with it. Channel all your positive energy into the bread, that kind of thing. The more you squeeze the air out of it, the less likely it is to rise the way you want it to. I suppose it’s common sense, really.

This photo shows the colour the best, I think. It’s a bit unusual, green bread, but that’s part of the charm of this recipe. I actually found it really appealing, I looked forward to lunch time even more than usual when these were waiting in my lunch bag for me. In this photo, you can also see how soft and puffy the dough got while it rose, and the little holes where air bubbles have risen up right through the surface of the bread.

They baked for about 25 minutes, and were a lovely rich brown on the outside while keeping that fresh, green colour inside. They were soft and absolutely perfect for sandwiches – especially chicken sandwiches. Yum.

I never did get a good photo of the inside of them, in terms of the great colour, but you can see the nice texture with lots of air running through the dough. These were a great success, I’m glad I took the time to seek out the type of avocado bread recipe I wanted. I’m still not sure if I’d seen a recipe that I just couldn’t find a second time, or if avocado bread came from a flash of inspiration in my own brain but my subconscious was feeling extra-modest that day. It’s hard to say. At any rate, I can take no credit for this great recipe, which comes from Mayuri and Ma’s Cookbook. Thanks, Mayuri and Ma!

Edit: I’ve submitted these to YeastSpotting