Alana
I’ve had a lot of free time since my finals finished, so I’ve been baking basically every day. Because I have all of this time, I feel like I have more freedom to step outside of my usual baking repertoire. I went through a cinnamon bun phase a couple years, but since then I haven’t made any at all. I wanted to switch up my baking routine, so cinnamon buns it is!
Wonderful way to start the day 🙂
I did a few things wrong each time I made these (aka twice, because I thought I wouldn’t make any mistakes the second time). First time, I mixed the cinnamon sugar with the butter before attempting to spread it onto the rolled out dough. It is significantly more difficult to distribute the cinnamon sugar evenly when it has already been mixed with the butter. Learn from me!
The second time, I messed up this step by adding 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon instead of 1 1/2 tbsp. Clearly I read my recipes really well, especially considering it doesn’t say anywhere to mix the cinnamon sugar with butter before spreading it onto the dough.
I did remember after baking these twice, that during my phase I played around with the amount of cinnamon sugar in the filling. I think I decided that if you make an extra ½ of the filling they turn out best. Just something to keep in mind! Another trick that I came across is to turn the pan upside down after taking the buns out of the oven. That way all of the filling gooeyness will move back into the buns instead of sitting on the bottom of the pan.
I don’t know where I got this recipe from, but it was probably a highly rated one from allrecipes.com. If you’re eating these later on, reheat them in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. Just enough to warm up your roll and melt the frosting! Happy baking!
Cinnamon Buns
Ingredients:
- 1 cup warm milk (~45 degrees C)
- 2 ½ tsp yeast
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ cup white sugar
- 4 ½ cups bread flour (white works best)
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 ½ tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
Directions:
1. Heat milk, and dissolve in yeast. Combine in the bowl of a stand mixer with the eggs, butter (1/3 cup), salt, and white sugar. Mix briefly.
2. Add flour, mixing with a bread hook attachment. Continue to mix until the dough has formed a ball that you can see broken air bubbles in if you stretch it.
3. Cover the ball of dough with some oil and a damp tea towel to keep it from drying out. Leave it in the bowl in a warm place to rise until the dough has doubled in size (it took my dough about 1 ½ hours).
4. In a medium bowl combine the cinnamon and brown sugar. Mix with a fork until evenly combined.
5. Prepare a 9×13 inch baking pan by lightly greasing it.
6. Dust the counter, a rolling pin, and your hands with flour. Roll out the dough into a rectangle with ~ 16×21 inch dimensions.
7. Spread the second 1/3 cup of butter evenly onto the surface of the dough. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the butter. Roll the dough and cut into 12 rolls.
8. Place the rolls into the baking pan, and cover with the damp tea towel. Leave to rise until the rolls have doubled in size (again, it took ~1 ½ hours for my dough). Preheat oven to 400 degrees C.
9. Bake until golden brown, ~15-20 minutes. After removing them from the oven, turn the pan upside down onto a cutting board (or other surface) and allow the cinnamon sugar to recoat the rolls.
10. Spread cream cheese frosting onto the rolls, and enjoy 🙂
Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
- 3 oz package of cream cheese
- ¼ cup butter, softened
- 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla
- 1/8 tsp salt
Directions:
1. Beat cream cheese and butter together, starting with whichever is more firm.
2. Add vanilla extract and salt. Beat until combined.
3. Beat in confectioners’ sugar.
Chateau Gateau 