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?
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thats what i do in fact i made some today.
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.
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.
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.
Rainbowz, that's some nice looking buns there! Yummo!
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.
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