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After many recent flops with my baking, it was SO rewarding to have a huge hit this morning! The house smells wonderful and we almost couldn't wait for them to cool to get the icing on. I may never eat a canned cinnamon roll again. I attempted to make these very slightly more healthy with some of the substitutions below as well as using considerably less raw sugar in spice mix and icing. With the melange of flavors it wasn't missed at all.

SulaBlue's Cranberry-Orange Cinnamon Buns

(Modified from Peter Reinhart's Cinnamon Buns and Sticky Buns, Bread Baker's Apprentice, pg 143)

Dough

3.25 oz granulated sugar

.25 oz salt

2.75oz butter or shortening (I used Smart Balance 50/50 blend)

1.65oz 1 large egg (I used Egg Beaters)

2-3 drops orange oil

16 oz unbleached bread or all-purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

.22 oz instant yeast

9-10 oz whole milk or buttermilk, at room temp (I used 2%)

OR 1oz powdered milk + 8oz water

Topping

2.5 oz granulated sugar

1T ground cinnamon

Contents of 2 caradmom pods, ground

Dash of ground cloves

2 oz dried cranberries

2 oz pecan pieces

Icing

2 oz confectioner's sugar

2T or so 2% Milk

A few drops of orange oil

Instructions:

1. Cream together sugar, salt, and butter. Reinhart says if you are using powdered milk to put the milk powder in now, but add the water with the flour and yeast.

2. Mix in the egg and orange oil until lump-free, then add flour, yeast and milk. Add water now if you used milk powder.

3. Flour a pastry cloth and rub the flour in well. Turn dough out and sprinkle a minimum dusting of flour on top. Flour hands lightly and knead by hand for 10-15 mins until it passes the 'windowpane test.' Dough will become very slightly tacky and have a good spring-back to it.

4. Proof at room temp until doubled, about 2 hours.

5. Turn dough out onto pastry cloth and roll dough into a 12"x14" inch rectangle that is approximately 1/2" thick (Reinhart recommends 2/3rds, but that just seemed overly doughy to me. Add as little flour as possible during rolling. I use a rolling pin cover to avoid adding extra flour to keep it from sticking.

6. Shake on sugar-spice mixture, then sprinkle on cranberries and nuts.

7. Take the long end and begin to roll-and-tuck. Roll the dough forward, then without releasing pull back slightly to form a tighter roll. Complete the roll-and-tuck until you reach the end.

8. Trim ends of dough if they are tapered/irregular. You can either discard this or smoosh it together for that 'baker's dozen' one that you'll just -have- to eat right out of the oven. Cut the remaining dough into 12 equal pieces about 1" thick. Place the rounds on a sheet pan about 1/2" apart. Sprinkle any remaining spice mix on top of buns, careful not to dust it onto your pan where it may burn.

9. Proof at room temp for 75-90 minutes until the pieces have almost doubled and have grown into another. Reinhart says you can retard the shaped buns in the refrigerator for up to 2 days, and pull the pan out of the fridge 3-4 hours before baking to allow the dough to proof.

10. Preheat oven to 350F with oven rack at the middle.

11. Bake for 20-30 minutes at NO HIGHER than 350F. Caramelization happens at 350F. A higher temperature may result in the sugar burning. If you have pans that are prone to giving your baked goods dark bottoms you may want to double-pan

12. When rolls are done, remove from the oven and allow to sit in the pan to cool for at least 5-10 minutes to cool. Eat the funny-shaped end piece to tide you over and to hide the evidence ;) While they are cooling mix the ingredients for the icing in a small bowl using a fork. Add just enough milk to make the icing pourable without being runny. Use the fork to drizzle icing over the rolls.

This is something I'm finally proud enough to submit to Wild Yeast's Yeast Spotting. This week's Yeast Spotting is being hosted by Zorra.

I have continued to play with my formula for what I call "San Joaquin Soudough." This continuing series of experiments started with my curiosity as to whether the baguette formula of Anis Bouabsa could be applied to other types of bread than baguettes. The short answer is, of course, "yes."

The basic approach I have been using is described in detail in the following blog entry:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8454/pain-de-campagne 

The present variation used 10% KAF White Whole Wheat flour, 90% KAF Bread flour and a slightly higher hydration - 76%. The techniques for mixing, fermentation, etc. were as I have described before. So, the ingredients were:

Ripe 65% hydration sourdough starter....100 gms

Water........................................................380 gms

KAF Bread Flour.........................................450 gms

KAF White Whole Wheat Flour...................50 gms

Sea Salt.........................................................10 gms

Instant Yeast................................................1/4 tsp

The combined effect of the different flours and the higher hydration was to yield a dramatically different bread with a much more open crumb structure - really ciabatta-like.

Now, I did bake these loaves under an aluminum foil roasting pan for the first 12 minutes and then for another 18 minutes uncovered. The oven spring was massive. My scoring was obliterated. Examination of the crust coloration of the bloom revealed that the bloom occurred very early in the bake and very rapidly. (The coloration was even and not different from the rest of the crust. See my Scoring Tutorial in the TFL Handbook for further explanation.)

With the higher hydration and covered baking, the crust softened quickly during cooling. The crumb was like a good ciabatta - very tender yet still chewy. The taste is very mildly sour, even on the day after baking. It made a delicious sandwich with Toscano salami, Beaver Brand Sweet Hot mustard and lettuce. (Sorry, Mini. It definitely would drip mayonnaise in your lap.)

This bread presented me with a number of surprises, but I'm far from disappointed. I'm happy to have a "new" bread in my repertoire. 

David

My first try to use a starter to bake a sourdough bread was Mountaindog's Cherry Pecan Pain au Levain which was so dense and almost unedible.  I was sure something was not right with my starter.  So I requested MD post some pictures of his levains for me for guidance, which he did with nice illustrations.  I followed that to feed my starter for over a week and tried to build a levain with bubbles that would match those of MD's and finally I thought my starter was ripe enough to make breads, I tried the Country French Bread (Thom Leonard's), also from MD's blog :

The crumb was still a little dense because I overlooked the part on folding.  So a week later I had another try and followed the recipe as closely as possible and this was a better one :

I was so happy that my starter finally is working and the following one is Richard Bertinet's sourdough bread with a small touch of spelt flour :

Honestly, I like the flavour of the Country French Bread more.  My next exercise will be the Pecan Cranberry Pain au Levain, again. 

I would like to thank everybody on this site for their generosity of sharing techniques, experiences, recipes, etc. and a special thanks to Mountaindog's encouragement!

greetings all!

retried the raisin walnut sourdough recipe from my previous post. i am pleased with the results, however, i am still trying to achieve a better scoring and ear curl. i think i was slashing too deep. i will try the suggestions that i recieved from the discussion thread. thanks members of freshloaf!

next up at bat was another susan sourdough attempt. i made a mistake during the shaping phase which caused me to shape again and again and again. in doing so, nice bubblies were let loose. pooof....next time i will try to shape a better batard. even though the looks lack, the taste was on point. soft in the inside, and a nice exterior crunch. total time of the first and second proof = ~13hrs @ 86 degrees. this was double the recipe btw.

next up was another attempt at baguettes using anis method with sourdough starter. i am still striving for the nice crispy crusty explosive looking baguette. i 'think' it may have something to do with the flour. i am going to give the king authurs artisan flour a shot. supposedly its ~11.6 protein content. also, i forgot to turn down the temperature after placing the baguettes into the oven, i used KA AP which is around 13% protein?

next up is pizza using anis bouabsa mixing method. it is by far my favorite crust i have achieved to date. the only thing i would improve is using a starter for a little sourdough taste.