cinnamon buns

I make these outside of my home for people and they absolutely love them. Everyone who has tasted them says they taste better than Cinnabon's. Those are not my words.

But you might cry and these are simply soooooooo yum, words escape me.

Mmmmm

I have been twiddling round with sweet doughs and Chelsea bun typey things for years..

This is my favourite…

As you can imagine,  these went…

Seriously, I turn around and GONE!!

Caramely swirly

This is why Hubby and I resort to hiding food.

This is shameful but those greedyboys, just suck it all in and then its gone…

Russian fudge, 2 batches, gone in a day…I had to put some in a container and hide it in the veg drawer for hubby…

Sad!!

Often I say to Hubby, “Come and get some now before I call the boys”..

He hesitates and by the time he comes…Gone!!

Get some before they all go!!

So what will you need?

Oooooh , Love these, so soft and yummy and cinnamony:)

Sorry….10g dried yeast

1/2 cup of castor sugar

1 cup of warmed milk

2 eggs

Pinch of salt.

4 cups of Strong baking flour

160 g softened butter.

Sweet sweet sweet Dough ….

For the filling:

200g softened butter

1 & 1/2 cups of brown sugar or light muscovado

3 big tsp of cinnamon

1 sprinkle of cloves

Pinch of Nutmeg.

Buttery sugary filling…bad!! but sooo good

Now there is some more options with this recipe but I will tell you at the end as I didn’t do them today….

But the words more caramel , come into it!!

Take your milk and warm it and add in the sugar and make sure it is dissolved, then add in yeast and stir well.

Stand 10-15 minutes until frothy, then add in the beaten eggs.

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix through, then add in the yeasty egg mix and form a soft dough.

Knead for a few minutes then add in the butter.

Mix butter through well and knead for about 5-7 minutes until well combined and elastically.

Place in lightly oiled bowl, cover and stand for 2 hours.

Ready to roll…

While you are waiting, mix all your filling ingredients together, blending well and then stand aside.

Turn dough out on bench/board and roll out into a large rectangle.

I think for this one I did 25cms width by 50 odd cm long.

You can do a bit more of a bit less but don’t make the dough too thick.

Place filling on the dough and spread out, leaving a 2cm gap on the edges of the length.

Rolling out

Spread that filling!!

See the slight edging???

Option of putting some raisins in….

Start from the edging closest to you and start to roll, as tight as you can, taking care though not to squish out the filling:)

Roll right up and then lightly dampen edges with butter or a little milk and join seams together and turn seam side down.

I usually let it rest for about 10-15 minutes now…

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

All rolled and resting…

When cut….

Rolls…Rolls….

Into the pan….

Swirly Swirly yum yum

Now I like to cut 12-15 rolls in total. I am not going to tell you i measure my rolls as I don’t.

If you want to be anal, you can be but I do it by looking and it works pretty well.

So cut the rolls, work quickly, and place in the dish, don’t handle the dough too much.

I use an old black roasting dish that is about 30cms by 20cms i think…

Well greased, I usually put in 12, that I find gives them ample room to grow:)

But you could do 15 rolls but I find they are not as high that way….But no right and wrong here.

Proving….

I now leave them for 90-120 minutes dependant on room temperature.

Usually 90 minutes is enough…by then the greedyboys are moaning for me to hurry up!!

About 30 minutes before end of time, preheat the oven to 180 celsius.

See the size difference!! ready to bake

When time is up, brush the dough lightly with a milk wash….still using Bobbi’s brush I am too!!

Place in the oven and bake for 35 minutes until very brown.

While they are baking, I like to make a little sugar syrup of 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup of sugar and bring to gentle simmer.

As soon as the buns come out, I brush them with this.

You don’t have to do this but it adds a little gloss if you are not then adding a white drippy icing later, which I am not today:)

Mmmm all ready…

Yummy yummy

Lovely….

Remove and allow to cool in the tin.

These easily pull apart when you want to eat them…

Best eaten warm….Alone i think

But with some cream if really bad or when cool with butter as my shameful husband does!!!

Now you can make a drippy white icing ( icing sugar, milk and a wee bit of butter) and I drip it all over the buns, if you want to.

The other option is to make a caramel sauce and pour it over the buns as soon as they come out of the oven….Very caramely ooey gooey then:)

You can also add in fruit at the stage where you saw me put on the raisins…grated apple is nice!!

So a few choices to think about…

But don’t forget……

ENJOY, ENJOY ,ENJOY!!!!

Lovely side view

Very tasty….http://greedybread.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/you-better-not-laugh-ooooey-gooey-cinnamon-swirly-buns/

And just in case you are really bored….here is my Chelsea bun recipe…

http://greedybread.wordpress.com/?s=chelsea

Hi folks.  I'm new to this forum so this is my very first post.  I've started a small cinnamon buns business and things are moving along very well.  The orders have satrted to come in fast and furious.  My mini cinnamon buns are more popular than the standard size and I have to deliver 18 dozen by 7AM tomorrow.  I've been practising with refridgerating the cut, uncooked buns but they just are not rising up as well as the fresh-made when I bake them.  I'm desperate not to have to wake up at 1AM to start from scratch - that's beginning to take a toll as I have a two-year old.  Any advice?  I would be eternally grateful!

Fellow baker Hanaâ (http://hanaaskitchen.blogspot.com) instigated me to buy yet another baking book - as if my bookshelves were not already buckling down under the weight of my cooking library. She invited me to join her ABC baking challenge, every month trying out a new recipe, currently from Abby Dodge's: "The Weekend Baker". The author, contributing editor of one of my favorite magazines, "Fine Cooking", also posted the recipe here:

http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/glazed-cinnamon-rolls-2

My husband loves sticky buns and their sugar laden relatives, but, though I like cinnamon, I was never very fond of the overly sweet stuff he would sometimes buy. Therefore, without Hanaâ's challenge, I would probably never have thought of baking cinnamon rolls.

What I especially like about "The Weekend Baker" and this recipe, are the several "do ahead" options. I prefer working with slow fermentation for my breads, and most doughs show their appreciation for the cold treatment with a significant better taste, so, after a 30-minute rise, I put my my dough to sleep in the fridge overnight.

I always try to incorporate some whole grains in my recipes, a substitution of 10% white flour with whole grains doesn't require additional liquid, so I replaced 47 g of all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour.

The recipe was easy to follow, and the next morning the dough had nicely risen in the fridge. I rolled it out cold - it will come to room temperature quickly - and the filling was no problem, either. Next time I probably would add some toasted, chopped nuts, though.

Cutting a roll of dough in even slices with a bench scraper or knife is not that easy, the layers slipping away over the crumbly filling. Using dental floss, as Hanaâ suggested, works much better.

I skipped glazing the rolls, nice as it looks, it adds even more sugar, without contributing to the taste. And even without this decoration - the cinnamon rolls looked beautiful when they came out of the oven and their wonderful aroma filled the whole house, so that I could hardly wait to try one until they had cooled down a bit.

"... now I know their taste - now I'm a believer..." you don't have to be a Monkee to love these treats!
I am converted, and my husband could wallow in them, so good are they!

They, also, freeze well, wrapped in plastic foil and then placed in a ziplock bag. To enjoy them you only have to nuke them for a few seconds, and then re-crisp them at 350ºF/175ºC for a few minutes in the oven.

I have undertaken the BBA challenge for 2011 but I am not one to follow directions.  I am making the recipes in the order that they appeal to me or what I have a desire to bake.  This does however mean that I will be on my own during the challenge without a number of supporters.  My family decided they wanted some cinnamon rolls, so i pulled out the bba and went to work 

The recipe called for whole milk, powdered milk, or buttermilk, so I made my own buttermilk by adding about a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice to 1 and 1/4 cup 2% milk.  I creamed the sugar, salt and butter together, mixed the egg, lemon extract and added the flour, yeast, and warmed buttermilk.  I didn't have any almond extract so I just left it out.  The dough was a little wet so i worked in some extra flour and the dough became pliable and tacky. The dough was allowed to rise for a couple hours and then rolled out.  I coated dough with brown sugar and cinnamon then cut up a stick of butter and distributed it evenly throughout.  I rolled the dough and cut them about 1 and 3/4 inches apart.  The dough went for a final proof and then baked, I roughly time my baked goods and use color and temperature as my cues.  While the rolls baked I made a frosting out of powdered sugar, vanilla extract and warm milk.  

The rolls tasted even better than they look and I'm officially off my eating plan.

-M

I didn't get a picture of the sticky buns I made from Mark's recipe that I have had since April. Been trying to make them and these cinnamon rolls forever but haven't had time. So the past two days I have been doing nothing but baking and these rolls are great! Thank you Zolablue for sharing the recipe and Thank you Mark for sharing your recipe. They are both hits! (I omitted the salt in Zolablue's recipe due to the fact that I had salty mashed potatoes with sour cream left over to make the dough with.)

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls II

Edit**- I also made 24 rolls out of this batch of dough which when weighed was around 1622 grams. Anyone else have this happen?

Last week, I got pay back for laughing at Jenn's (Leftover Queen) misfortunes. There I was just hitting "send" on my reply to Susan's (Wild Yeast) hilarious account when I realized how much time had gone by since I had put the buns in the oven. And smelled that unmistakable smell of sugar. Burnt sugar....

It really was too bad too. The buns were going to be fantastic! In the recipe, I had used about 1½ cups of wild starter (around 750gm on my rotten scale) and only ¼ tsp active dry yeast rather than the 2½ tsp of active dry yeast called for. I also reduced the amount of water to 1¾ cup rather than 2 cups. (1 cup milk, ¾ water) Here is the recipe I followed to make 16 buns:

• cinnamon buns recipe (commercial yeast version)

The resulting dough was beautifully silky and elastic and rose only a tiny bit slower than the commercial yeast versions. In fact, I was a little sorry that I had added any commercial yeast at all.

And I did set the timer.... (I did!!!)

Amazingly, once most of the black had been scraped off, the buns were delicious!

...perhaps I should always burn them on the bottom (bite my tongue!!!)

(Next time I make the buns, I think I'll use only wild yeast. And when I put the buns in the oven, I'll set two timers. Maybe three....)

(There are a few more photos at blog from OUR kitchen)