Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls are a delicious way to celebrate Valentine’s Day with all of your loved ones. With their vibrant color, decadent chocolate filling, and sweet pink topping, they are sure to become a new tradition.
Valentine’s Day is a lot of fun at the bakery. When we first started creating a special menu for the holiday, we focused on sweets for two and date night packages. We quickly realized that a lot of our customers were looking for ways to shower Valentine’s love on their kids!! I love it when moms come in to pick up pink cinnamon rolls or heart shaped cookies for their littlest Valentine’s. And now that my babies are old enough to enjoy the festivities, we eat pink for breakfast, lunch and dinner 🙂 I get to share the day of love with my favorite love bugs, and these Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls are the perfect start to the morning!
Making Pink Brioche for Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls
Sweet rolls are typically made of an enriched bread dough known as brioche. This brioche recipe is particularly unfussy and is beautiful to work with, especially with an extra dash of color! After all the ingredients have been added, you simply let the mixer do all the work to create a soft and supple dough. Pink dough is a lot of fun but you can easily leave out the food coloring if it doesn’t suit you or swap it for two tablespoons of beetroot powder.
Add your dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and stir to gently combined. In a small, separate bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, and food coloring. With the mixer on low, pour in the milk and egg mixture until a shaggy dough forms.
Go ahead and add in the softened butter and turn the mixer up to medium speed. The dough is going to continue to mix for 12-15 minutes, until it’s shiny and supple and it cleans the sides of the mixing bowl. This is a pretty long mixing time but the dough will change dramatically during this time.
When you first add the butter, the dough will seem very wet, and you may be tempted to add flour. Just let the mixing and kneading do its work. Time and gluten development allow the flour to absorb more moisture and after the 12-15 minutes the dough will clear the sides of the bowl and you will have a smooth and elastic product.
Shaping the Sweetheart Rolls
Place the finished dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel for an hour or until the dough is doubled in size and is puffy and light.
Meanwhile, use this time to make your filling. Make sure your butter is very soft and combined with all of the other ingredients except for the chocolate chips. They will be sprinkled on top of the filling.
After the first rise, remove the dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Gently press the dough into a rough rectangle, then get out your rolling pin. We’re going to roll the dough into a long rectangle approximately 12×30 inches and should be 1/4 of an inch thick. If the dough becomes difficult to roll out let it rest for five minutes, then continue rolling.
Spread the filling evenly over the dough leaving an inch clean on the bottom edge. Sprinkle the chocolate chips across the filling.
Now begin to roll the rectangle into a long log starting at the top edge and rolling down. Pinch the seam to seal the filling inside.
Then, use a sharp knife to cut the rolls 1 1/2 inches wide. You will end up with approximately 15 rolls. Place them swirl side up in a 9×13 baking dish. They may be touching but should have plenty of room to grow as they rise.
Final Rise and Baking Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls
Cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and let it sit in a nice warm place for about an hour. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. After an hour, the rolls will puff up and grow into each other a bit. They are now ready to go in the oven!! Hooray!
(Side note: After shaping and cutting the Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls, you can place them in the baking dish, cover it with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator for up to three days. I like to do this if I want to make the sweet rolls the day before and then bake them the next morning for breakfast! Remove the baking dish about an hour before you want to bake them and bake per the recipe.)
Next, bake the Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls for 30-35 minutes or until an internal thermometer reads 180 degrees. It can be a little difficult to determine if the rolls are done because of their coloring, but they should not be brown on top. They will be beautifully pink and smell delicious, and dark chocolate will be oozing out of the top.
Finishing Touches
While the dark chocolate sweetheart rolls are baking, you can make your icing. Whisk together the powdered sugar with melted butter, milk, and a drop of food coloring until smooth. Set aside to await the sweet rolls.
Once out of the oven, admire the stunning pink color of these beautiful rolls and imagine how excited your loved ones will be to dig into them! Be patient, if you ice them right out of the oven the glaze will melt right into the dough. Give them about ten minutes then drizzle the glaze over the rolls with a spoon.
Serve Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls to your most loved, blossoming romances, valentines, old friends, and neighbors. They’re so much fun and completely wonderful to eat. They make a great breakfast and an even better dessert. Celebrate this Valentine’s Day and any day by filling bellies and showering pink on those you love!
Dark Chocolate Sweetheart Rolls
Ingredients
- 500 grams (4 cups) Bread Flour (Feel free to use All-Purpose)
- 50 grams (1/4 cup) sugar
- 15 grams (1 Tablespoon) instant yeast
- 5 grams (1 teaspoon) salt
- 240 grams (1 cup) milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 stick butter, cubed, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pink gel food coloring
- For the Filling: 12 Tablespoons very soft butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup high quality Dutch cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 cup dark chocolate chips.
- For the Icing: 3 cups sifted powdered sugar, 4 Tablespoons melted butter, 4 Tablespoons milk, 1 drop pink gel food coloring.
Directions
- Add dry ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on low speed to combine.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs with a fork until well combined.
- With the mixer on low speed, pour in the milk/egg mixture slowly until a shaggy dough forms.
- Add in the cubed butter and continue to mix on medium speed for 12-15 minutes. The dough will become very smooth and supple when it is well kneaded and will clear the sides of the bowl.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a damp towel and allow to rise for one hour. The dough will have doubled and be nice and puffy and light!
- To make the filling: Mix all filling ingredients except for the chocolate chips in a small bowl with a wooden spoon, until well combined.
- After an hour, dump the dough on a lightly floured surface and pat gently into a rectangle. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 12×30 inch rectangle.
- Spread the filling evenly onto the dough leaving an inch of dough along the bottom edge clean. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the filling.
- Starting on the far side, begin rolling the dough towards you into a long log. Pinch the bottom edge to seal the dough.
- Cut the rolls 1 1/2 inches wide with a sharp knife and place them in a greased 9×13 baking dish. The rolls can be touching slightly but should have plenty of room to grow. You will get approximately 15 rolls.
- Next, cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and place in a warm place for one hour. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
- After about an hour, the rolls will be nicely puffed up. Place them in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes until an internal temperature reads 180 degrees.
- For the Icing: Place the powdered sugar into a medium sized bowl. Whisk continuously as you pour in first the melted butter followed by the milk. Continue to whisk until the icing is smooth.
- Finally, allow the rolls to cool for 10 minutes and top with the icing. Serve to well-loved friends and family!
