Lazy Girl's [No Knead] Easy Coffee Crusted Pineapple Buns

During Easter this year, I was introduced to frozen dinner rolls by a good friend of mine who had us over. The concept of frozen dinner rolls was simple: remove these rolls from the freezer, let them rise at room temperature for 3-5 hours, bake, and you have soft fluffy rolls fresh from the oven. The rolls were so good, and my friend had tucked a marshmallow inside, that I think I might have had three on accident, as during the rising a few of them fused together since they grow so big. They also go extremely well with the sweet melted marshmallow that it tempts you to eat the whole tray of rolls by yourself. I was quite enamored with the rolls, since there's no measuring of ingredients nor kneading involved, and rising them is just, well, leaving them on the counter. The next few days I wondered if I could turn them into some of my favorite Asian breads, since the rolls' soft fluffy texture reminded me Asian bread. In the words of T, "There's only one way to find out", so I decided to make my favorite Asian bread: Pineapple buns! However, wanting something a little different, I decided to try with coffee flavored cookie dough instead, and I am definitely happy with the outcome. This is a great way if you don't own a stand mixer (and don't want to knead by hand), or if you are just feeling plain lazy and want something easy. I'm so glad my friend introduced these dinner rolls to me, because in my head I'm already imaging taro bread, cream cheese bread, red bean bread, pork sung bread...


COFFEE CRUSTED PINEAPPLE BUNS
INGREDIENTS

• 1 pack frozen dinner rolls (I used Rhodes brand)
• 100g (7 Tablespoons) butter
• 80g (6 Tablespoon + 2 tsp) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 200g (1 1/2 Cup) cake flour
• 6g (1 1/4 tsp) baking powder
• 2 packets of instant coffee sticks (I used French Roast by Nescafe's Taster Choice)
• 2-3T granulated sugar (optional, for sprinkling)
• 1 batch of eggwash (1 beaten egg + 1 T of water)

 INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place dinner rolls on two baking sheets lined with silpat or parchment paper, spaced 2-3" apart and allow to defrost/rise for 3-4 hours. (I put 6 dinner rolls on one baking sheet) 
2. Mix all the ingredients for the coffee cookie dough crust and divide into 12 equal sized balls
3. Place a piece of cling wrap over the cookie dough ball, flatten it with the palm of your hand and roll into a large flat pancake about 3" in diameter. Repeat for all the cookie dough balls.
4. About one hour before you are going to bake the bread (so after the dinner rolls have been rising for 3-4 hours), take the pancake shaped cookie dough skin and gently place it over each bun.
5. Remove the cling wrap, and gently tuck the excess cookie dough skin under each roll.
6. Take a bench knife and make crisscross indentations in the cookie dough skin to create the checkered design that resembles the exterior of a pineapple. You don't need to cut all the way through the cookie skin, as the final rising of the dinner roll will cause the cookie dough skin to break at those indentations. It's ok to skip this step too, If you don't make indentations, the design of the cookie dough skin will be more haphazard, but it doesn't affect taste.
7. Allow the buns to rise in a warm place for one last hour. Preheat oven to 375. While waiting for the oven to preheat, prepare eggwash by adding 1 Tablespoon of water to a beaten egg).
8. Right before you send the buns into the oven, gently brush eggwash over each pineapple bun. This gives the buns a nice shiny exterior when baked. You can also sprinkle some granulated sugar over the eggwash as well.
9. Bake at 375F for 12 minutes, or until internal temperature of bread reaches 190F. Remove from oven, allow to cool for about 5 minutes, and transfer to a cooling rack.

PICTORIAL INSTRUCTIONS: 

Place frozen dinner rolls on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silpat and allow to thaw for 4 hours. Left: Dinner rolls right when they were removed from the freezer. Middle: Rolls after 2 hours. Right: Rolls after 4 hours. Notice how big they have grown as evidence by the decrease in spacing between each roll.

Mix egg, flour, sugar, butter softened at room temperature and instant coffee until a cohesive dough forms and the coffee granulates are completely incorporated (no dark specks remain). Divide dough into 12 equal portions and roll them into balls.

Take each dough ball, covered with cling wrap and flatten with the palm of your hand. Then use a rolling pin and roll the dough into a pancake about 3" in diameter.

Gently place the coffee flavored cookie dough skin over the dinner rolls (that have been rising for 4 hours) and remove the cling wrap.

Gently flatten and tuck the edges of the cookie dough skin around the dinner rolls so that the skin is not sticking out. Repeat for all rolls. 

Take a bench knife and make crisscross hatches across the skin. Repeat for all buns and allow to rise in a warm place for one final hour.  

Preheat oven to 375F. Once the oven is preheated, right before baking, brush eggwash over each bun and bake for 12 minutes. Allow buns to cool for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

Fresh pineapple buns ready to be devoured!