Vegan Black Forest Gateau Breakfast Rolls

I've been testing some flavoured chocolate icing sugars for a company called Sugar and Crumbs. They sent me two flavours to try - Jaffa Twist which I've used to make these chocolate, orange biscuits and Black Forest which I've used here in my take on cinnamon rolls. The chocolate flavour in the icing is quite subtle and more like milk chocolate to a vegan palate but with the black cherry flavour it makes a nice compliment to the dark chocolate, cherries and vanilla which are in the roll filling. I'd never made cinnamon rolls before, partly as I'm only recently getting over my fear of things requiring yeast and rising times and partly because I live with a cinnamon hater.

When I found this easy recipe on line for cinnamon rolls by The Minimalist Baker I knew I wanted to have a go at my own cinnamon free version. I'd been thinking about a recipe to go with English Breakfast Tea and rolls seemed perfect for a lazy Sunday morning breakfast when you have a bit more time to make something like this.

Ingredients
1 packet of instant yeast
1 cup of soya milk
1/2 a cup of vegan margarine + 3 tablespoons
1/4 teaspooon of salt
3 cups of plain flour
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of sugar (I used Coconom coconut sugar)
50g of dark chocolate
50g of dried cherries, chopped in half
Seeds from inside a vanilla pod
Black Forest Chocolate Icing Sugar from Sugar and Crumbs

Heat the milk and half a cup of margarine together until melted. Let it cool until just warm and pour into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle on the yeast and leave for a few minutes. Then add 1 tablespoon of sugar and the salt and stir. Mix in the flour half a cup at a time. Transfer to a floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Wash out the bowl, grease it with sunflower oil, put the dough back in and cover with clingfilm.

Leave the dough to rise for an hour, it will double in size. Then roll it out to form a thin rectangle. Melt 3 tablespoons of margarine in a pan and stir in the vanilla seeds.

Brush some of the margarine and vanilla mixture over the surface of the dough and sprinkle with the coconut sugar. Then scatter the chopped chocolate and dried cherries over the surface. Roll the dough up into a long sausage shape and then use a serrated knife to cut it into 10 rolls.

Brush the rolls with the remaining margarine and vanilla mixture. Pop these into a pre-heated oven of 180C/ 350F for 25-30 minutes.

Don't worry if there's a bit of space around the rolls are you can see these filled out and filled the whole dish during cooking.

I let them cool then I made a simple icing using the Black Forest Chocolate icing sugar and cold water and then simply drizzled this over the rolls as a glaze. Enjoy with a pot of English Breakfast Tea. Today's crockery in the background are cups and saucers from our extensive collection of charity shop sourced Hornsea Heirloom.

I was so chuffed with how these came out. They have definitely helped me conquer my fear of using yeast in cooking and I can't wait to experiment further!