Can you imagine something more perfect than brownie rolls? It has a pillowy roll dough, a rich brownie filling, and it’s topped with a delicious chocolate ganache.

This recipe was inspired by our brownie recipes, Nutella, red velvet, and even our brownie pudding, and inspired by our cinnamon rolls dough.

We have been dreaming about a perfect combination like this one. Since brownies are one of our favorite desserts, and so are chocolate rolls, we mixed them both. This recipe combines the perfectly fudgy texture of a brownie with the soft dough.

With this recipe, you should expect a perfect dessert that’s going to become your next obsession dessert.

Ingredients You Need

1. Sugars: As in our nutella dubai brownies or deep dish nutella brownies, we are using two different sugars for this recipe, light brown sugar and granulated sugar.
2. Yeast: Our preferred choice is an active dry yeast. They sell them in packages at every store. We use them in many recipes, like our funfetti rolls, kinder, or even cookie dough rolls. Always make sure the yeast is fresh and not old or expired.
3. Milk: I prefer using whole milk instead of skimmed. It needs to be warm, at about 110F-115F (43C-46C). If the temperature reaches above 120F (49 °C), it will kill the yeast, and something under 100F (38 °C) will not do anything to the yeast.
4. Eggs: They bind everything together.
5. All–purpose flour: Gives structure to the brownie rolls.
6. Salt: It’s a very important ingredient, often forgotten. It balances the sweetness and enhances the final flavor of the treat. If too much salt is added, the dough will not rise properly.
7. Butter: I have been loving my Italian butters. I always use unsalted butter as it’s better to control the amount of salt that goes into the rolls, but it’s up to you. If you like using salted butter, keep using it.
8. Chocolate: A good Belgian chocolate will make the difference. I think chocolate is one of the ingredients that should always be high quality (when possible).
9. Cocoa powder: We use a 100% cocoa powder. Any other cocoa powder will have fillers, sugars, and reduce the intensity of the flavor.

Prepare The Perfect Brownie Batter

We are getting experienced here, we love making brownies, and we enjoy eating them way more. Every possible brownie (and brookie) recipe has been tested here. We tried different techniques and ingredients to have a perfectly fudgy brownie.

It all changes a little here, to start we will not bake the brownie immediately after we prepare it, because we want it to be spreadable. We will let it chill before we use it. What that’s going to give us is a very, very flavorful brownie base that’s going to be very rich and will also make it easier to spread on the rolled-out dough, without creating a major mess.

For this recipe, there’s a change that could be done, which we didn’t do as we were making another recipe, and we didn’t want to repeat the same process again, and that would be beating the eggs until light and fluffy. Something that we have mentioned plenty of times on our website is that you should always beat your eggs until light and fluffy, which is not necessary in this recipe.

You can notice in the pictures that we did, in fact, beat the eggs, but it will not be mentioned in the recipe card, as we didn’t do it on the recipe testing day, and they turned out amazing without this extra step.

Best Tips To Make Brownie Rolls At Home

Here are the best tips we can share with you to prepare the best brownie rolls at home. Some tips are also shared in recipes like our duo Nutella rolls, red velvet, salted caramel, or classic rolls. The same thing applies to our brownie recipe, as we have shared the same tips in recipes like our Deep Dish Red Velvet Brownie Rolls (shared soon) and Ferrero Rolls.

1. Always make sure that your yeast is active. The expiry date on your yeast is before you open it; after it’s been opened, it can last months if stored properly in the fridge or even years in the freezer. If you use a yeast that is stored at room temperature, it is probably too old and will lose a lot of power, resulting in dense and dry rolls.
2. Don’t skip kneading or proofing. Both are essential for the texture and development of the flavor. If you skipped any of them, you’d end up with dense rolls. If you want to shorten the kneading time, you can do so by increasing the speed to medium.
3. We add the butter in the last 10 minutes of kneading. Why? This is important for the final structure, as it allows the dough to develop a strong gluten network. It gives us a very elastic dough. It’s a crucial step for recipes for brioche, rolls, or any enriched dough.
4. Let’s talk ingredients. There are three ingredients here that matter the most, as in they should be the highest quality they can be. Those ingredients are butter, chocolate, and cocoa powder. Yes, you can still prepare this recipe with no name brands, and they will turn out amazing, but if you want a professional bakery product, the quality matters.

What’s the best temperature to proof your dough?

I always proof my doughs between 75F (24C) and 84F (29C). That’s what I normally do, but it changes a lot between recipes or when I want the dough to be ready.

To have a stable temperature I use a dough proofer. I love it. Without a dough proofer, I don’t think I would be sharing any dough recipes here, especially in winter with a frozen home.

For this recipe, you will proof the dough at two different times. First moment will be to get the dough to double in size, as you can see in the pictures below.

The second proof is done after the rolls have been shaped. It’s also very important to have pillowy brownie rolls.

Dough recipes we have used our dough proofer and succeeded? Garlic rolls, any roll recipe like Oreo, Nutella & chocolate, our Ferrero Rocher buns, Nutella brioche loaf, and even our Nutella bombs.

Can you make brownie rolls ahead of time?

Yes! You definitely can! You can prepare the dough, fill it, and leave it in the fridge. The next day you will proof them for 45 minutes and bake.

Rolls are perfect to prepare ahead. Ideal for busy mornings, Christmas Day, or any special occasion that requires enjoying a nice and warm roll that just came out of the oven.

Since they are in the fridge, they will take longer to proof. If you notice that your dough has proofed overnight and has doubled in size, you don’t need to proof again at room temperature. If you proof your dough too much, it will taste sour.

Best Way To Store Your Brownie Rolls

In my opinion, as someone who makes a lot of enriched dough, either maple or vanilla-glazed donuts, Nutella brioche, or even a cheesy brioche, I always recommend freezing the bread after it’s completely cooled.

What this will do is keep the freshness better, resulting in pillowy soft rolls that are not dry and taste exactly like fresh.

All you have to do is reheat the brownie rolls in the microwave until thawed and slightly warm before you enjoy them.

If freezing is not an option, keep them in the fridge for up to 3 days. Reheat before enjoying.

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