Friday, October 12, 2012

Cinnamon Buns


Any kind of cinnamon bun has a special meaning for Ronny, because it's apparently a big part of a Swedish childhood.  A good Swedish mom is supposed to have these baking in the oven when the children come home from school and his mother apparently baked them a lot.

This is not a recipe for an authentic Swedish cinnamon bun, but me playing around with a poppy seed dinner roll recipe. I watched this video more than a few times and took some notes.  I think they forgot to mention how much water you should mix with the yeast in the beginning and some commentators thought it was maybe 1/4 cup so I went along with using as little water as I could.  In reality, I think it was 1 cup, if you follow this recipe to a tee.

I don't have the exact amounts calculated out yet as part of the dough still lies in my refrigerator (around 1/4 of it), so I will update this when I know.  However, in general, I think you could follow this recipe without mixing any poppy seeds into the dough, and putting a generous amount of cinnamon sugar between the layers.  Don't forget to brush the tops with butter and sprinkle them all with more cinnamon sugar after the second rise, right before they go into the oven!

Cinnamon Buns - Adapted from Poppy Seed Rolls

Ingredients

4 Tsp Yeast
1/4 Cup Luke Warm Water
1/4 Tsp Sugar
2/3 Cups Warm Milk
1/4 Cup Sunflower Oil
1 Medium Egg (room temperature is better)
1/3 Cup Granulated Sugar
Pinch of Salt (I forgot to put some but they turned out ok)
2 Sticks (226g) Unsalted Butter
4 Cups Flour (or more)
1 Cup Cinnamon Sugar (I made mine, but you can use the ready made type)



Step 1:  Mix the yeast, 1/4 tsp sugar and luke warm water in a bowl and let it sit until foamy.

Step 2:  While you are waiting for this to get frothy, cut into the 4 cups flour, all of the butter just as though you were making a pie crust of scones.  Use a cutter or your fingers.

Step 3:   By the time you have finshed Step 2, the yeast should be frothy.  Add 2/3 cups milk, 1/4 cup oil, 1 egg, 1/3 cup sugar, pinch of sea salt and mix well.

Step 3:  Then add the flour butter mixture into the yeast and stir with a dough hook until you have a pretty wet batter that does not stick too your fingers.  If you think the dough needs more flour, add a little more.  However, the dough will still look sticky.  It will not be a smooth looking dough.  Please see video for how it should look.

Step 4:  Cover this with a dish cloth and then let it rest until it is twice it's size.  Mine took a lot longer than 30 minutes.

Step 5:  Knead it until it is smooth and divide it into 4 portions for manageability.  You will end-up using most of it to fill-up the IKEA muffin pan which is used in the video and which I used as well.

Step 6:  Basically you will need to roll the dough out either using a rolling pin or your fingers to make the dough into a rectangle.

Step 7:  Cut them into strips with a dough cutter, and make six layers, brushing them with melted butter first and then putting a liberal dose of cinnamon sugar in between them.  Don't be afraid to pile the cinnamon sugar on.  It will taste better if you use a lot rather than less.

Step 8:  Once you have made six layers you can cut them to a size so that they fit your muffin tin and you lay them down cut side down.

Step 9:  Let them rise until they have expanded sufficiently and then preheat the oven to 350F/176C.

Step 10:  Brush them with melted butter and sprinkle more cinnamon sugar.  Don't be shy and pile it on!

Step 11:  Bake them in the oven for 25 minutes and enjoy!






5 comments:

Dewi said...

Murasaki, how are you? I haven't visited you for ages. I haven't been such a good blogger friend lately :(.

Anyway, this is my old time favorite. Love your tip about brushing them with more cinnamon sugar after the second rise. I think I'll do that next time.

Murasaki Shikibu said...

Dewi: I have been a very bad blogger lately and have not been posting much as you can see. You have always been a delightful person with lots of exceptional recipes and lovely photos!

Cathleen said...

Oh wow, this looks ridiculously good! I have never made cinnamon buns, can you believe it!! I need to do this soon!

Jayanthy Kumaran said...

very interesting recipe..love this..
Tasty Appetite

Anonymous said...

Looks good. I am making some today--just seems like it's a good time for something cinnamony!