Red Eye Crafts: Cinnamon Bun Progress

Tuesday 29 October 2013

Cinnamon Bun Progress

I discovered this evening that out there in cyber land is someone who cannot make cinnamon buns.

I felt bad for this carbohydrate deprived soul, and so set about with a set of instructions that she could follow and make amazing cinnamon buns! No, I am not a 100 years old, in fact this person and I are the same age give or take a couple of months, but I have the privilege of growing up in a bread making family. Over time I have modernized some of the techniques to make the process easier but the end result is still delicious bread. I do still knead by hand my large batches of cracked wheat bread (yesterday's post), but for simple things like Cinnamon Buns, I use my trusty dough hook:

If you have read my blog before you know that I managed to burn the original motor out on this 15+ year old machine making too many batches of heavy grain breads, but hubbie replaced the motor with a little more powerful one and I am ready to go again. Now, the bowl just seems too small....., but I digress.

A recipe that was posted on the facebook page for another reason looked simple and promising so this is what I did with it:

I heated in the microwave in a glass measuring bowl:

1 cup milk

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons butter

Once the butter was melted I poured it into the stainless steel mixing bowl.

Added:

1/2 cup of sugar

1cup flour

and mixed on setting 2 until I could comfortably keep my hand on the side of the bowl and not feel too hot:

Once my hand could rest comfortably on the side of the bowl, I added:

1 heaping tablespoon yeast

2 cups of flour

1 beaten egg

and turned the mixer up to speed 3.

As the dough hook turns in time you will see a dough ball start to form and pull away from the sides.

At this time stand by with the occasional pinch of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the sides.

Once a nice ball of dough has formed, leave the dough alone in the bowl and let the dough hook beat it about for about 8 minutes. If at the 8 minute mark it still looks sticky, let it beat a couple of more minutes.

Using a buttered hand remove dough hook:

Smile at ball of dough, and place in a pre-warmed 170F oven with the door ajar:

Allow to rise until double in size:

I started this process at 7:10 this evening, and now will be rolling out the dough to make the buns at 8:14:

Sprinkle a bit of flour on the counter to make sure dough does not stick to your counter. A little extra kneading to make sure the dough "squeaks" is also good. If your dough does not "squeak" when kneaded across the counter add a little more flour and keep kneading.

Roll dough out scant 1/4" thin (joke for Sharon), spread with butter, cinnamon, brown sugar and I used some maple sugar as well. Roll into a log sealing all seams.

I use a piece of unflavored dental floss to cut my cinnamon buns. Run the dental floss perpendicular to your dough, ends on either side of the dough, cross the ends and Voila! Perfect cut, and no cuts in the counter!!!