How Much Kneading for Cinnamon Buns

Submitted by tgrayson on August 17, 2009 - 5:24pm

How Much Kneading for Cinnamon Buns

Do you knead the dough to pass the window pane test? CI’s recipe just recommends kneading for about 4 minutes, minimizing gluten development to make the buns more tender. However, Peter Reinhart’s recipe recommends 10 minutes kneading, whatever it takes to window pane. I’ve done the latter and it produces a good bun, but I’m wondering if less kneading might make an even better one. Any thoughts?

Thanks

Filed under:

Cookies, Cakes, and Pastries

Submitted by nbicomputers on August 17, 2009 - 5:29pm.

knead the hell out of it

thats what i do in fact i made some today.

Submitted by pbrox on August 19, 2009 - 8:37am.

I knead way past 10 minutes

But, what I wanted to comment about was the lemon extract in Peters recipe. I use Flori di Sicilia in it's place and WOW... I make a double batch of BBA's and only use .5 mil in it. .5 is listed on the medicine dropper I got from the pharmacy. That's just enough to give it a slight vanilla/orange/lemon OMG flavor. Everyone who taste's them asks if they were made in a bakery since they have this mysterious flavor that they don't get at home.. I get the Flori from KAF

Submitted by tgrayson on August 19, 2009 - 7:18pm.

Interesting Idea

I'll have to order some of that on my next order from KAF. Thanks for the tip!

Submitted by rainbowz on August 17, 2009 - 5:50pm.

I did the full 10 minutes

and the dough came out great with amazing windowpane. See the "Cinnamon Buns of DEATH" blog here:

http://yumarama.com/blog/2009/06/cinnamon-buns-of-death/

That doesn't answer the "Is less kneading better?" question, obviously, but puts another tick on the long knead side.

Submitted by tgrayson on August 17, 2009 - 6:09pm.

Wow, that is an amazing

window pane. I've never had one so good. I see you did Reinhart's recipe, too. One thing I don't like about his recipe is the lemon. I made it the first time with it, but thought it was way too obtrusive. I also think brown sugar works better than white and I used buttermilk powder, rather than liquid.

I'm also impressed by the squareness of your dough as you rolled it out; mine are always ovals.

Thanks for the input.

Submitted by rainbowz on August 17, 2009 - 6:29pm.

Use a scraper

to tease and tug the dough into a more exact rectangle. I was being ridiculously silly getting the rectangle perfectly straight sided but it turned out to be rather simple anyway. And that saves the end rolls from being funky looking "seconds".

I also found the lemon to be a little distinct but not exceedingly so. I figured my "teaspoon" of zest may just have been a little dense and overpacked. And I did add a small dash of lemon juice to the icing too; next time, I'll skip that and just add a couple drops of vanilla instead.

Submitted by althetrainer on August 17, 2009 - 6:31pm.

Nice buns!

Rainbowz, that's some nice looking buns there! Yummo!

Submitted by rainbowz on August 17, 2009 - 7:23pm.

Why, thank you!

They did come out well. I've no idea how they compare to... whatever a top notch cinnamon bun would be (please tell me Cinnabon isn't "it") but they went over quite well and vanished in just a couple of days so they didn't get much chance to get stale. Considering there's just two of us here... yeah, we pigged out.

Submitted by serifm on August 19, 2009 - 8:52pm.

Fior de Scilia

I have both the Fior and the Princess flavoring, and I think I prefer the Princess. Will try this in the next cinnamon buns I ake. Thanks for the tip!

Sally

Submitted by pbrox on August 20, 2009 - 10:14am.