The Orange Bunny Rolls I baked for Easter brunch this year were a rift on my Italian Anise Easter Bread recipe of years past. In fact, I just took that dough recipe, swirled it in orange marmalade, and gave it bunny ears. Festive and YUM!

The idea to shape my rolls into bunnies and fill them with orange marmalade came to me via my Aunt Kathy – Thanks Aunt Kath for sharing this great recipe!

This recipe makes about a dozen large rolls.

Ingredients:

• 1 batch of Anise Easter Bread dough (optional – leave out the anise seeds)
• 3/4 cup Orange Marmalade
• Egg Wash – 1 egg + 1 tbsp Milk

Directions:

1. Make your bread dough, and let it overnight in the refrigerator as instructed in the bread recipe.
2. Remove the dough from the fridge, punch it down, and let it rise for a couple of hours. This dough recipe doesn’t rise much, but they will grow in the oven.
3. Divide dough in half, roll out one of the halves into a large rectangle.
4. Coat the rectangle in 1/4 cup of marmalade leaving a couple of inches marmalade free dough on one side of the rectangle – these will be your bunny ears.
5. Tightly roll the dough toward that empty stretch of dough, stopping once you’ve rolled up all of the marmalade.
6. Slice the log of dough into individual rolls.
7. Slice the strips of dough, at the ends of the rolls, into two bunny ears.
8. Place the rolls on a parchment lined baking sheet, make sure to leave plenty of space between the rolls, and twist the bunny ears into place.
9. Repeat with the second half of dough.
10. Cover your rolls and let them rise for an hour or so.
11. Preheat the oven to 350 F (~177 C).
12. Brush the tops of the rolls in egg wash.
13. Bake the rolls for 25-35 minutes.
14. Heat up the remaining marmalade, and immediately upon removing the rolls from the oven, brush the heated marmalade onto the tops of the rolls.