108. Glazed Cinnamon Rolls

Date Cooked: October 3rd, 2009
Page: 759
Rating: B+

Where is the time going these days. I actually have several recipes from Thanksgiving to post and I am falling behind. Not that I am known for my rapid posting schedule but usually it’s because I am too busy to cook… not because I am too busy to post.

There are two recipes in the Book for cinnamon buns (or rolls in this case). One is a quick bread style cinnamon bun and the other was this yeasted version. I had the ingredients for both but decided to try the slightly more difficult version… and to try my luck with yeast.

Since this was going to involve rising dough I figured it made sense to start on it so I would not waste precious time that would most likely be consumed by disorganized kitchen panic. The first step was to melt some butter in the microwave. I then whisked in some milk and set it aside to cool. Warm water, yeast, sugar, eggs and yolks were mixed in my KitchenAid until well blended. Then I added some flour, salt and the milk-butter mixture and let this mix. At this point I switched from the paddle attachment on my mixer to the dough hook, fired it back up and added the remaining flour. The book gives a time of about 10 minutes for kneading (until the dough freely clears the sides of the bowl), but that only took about five minutes. I was uncertain at this time whether I should continue kneading or not. From everything I have learned so far, if I over knead the dough it could be too dense from gluten formation, but if I don’t knead enough, the dough will be crumbly from lack of gluten. Or something like that, I am still trying to figure it all out. I figured the bread I had made previously always seemed dense, so I was going to stop kneading at let the dough rise. I formed the dough into a ball and placed it in an oiled bowl to rise in a warm spot.

Okay, so once that was complete I figured I should prepare the filling and the icing. The filling is straightforward and hard to screw up (I’m sure I could but I didn’t). Light brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Easy. The icing glaze was simple also, except I had to clean my KitchenAid mixing bowl. I hate doing dishes while cooking. Softened cream cheese, corn syrup, heavy cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract where mixed until smooth and lump free. I love the taste of cream cheese frosting. I mean I love it! And this was no exception. This was transfer to a bowl and refrigerated. Now I just had to wait for the dough to finish rising.

When the dough had sufficiently doubled in volume I began to roll it out into a rectangle approximately 16x12. The filling was sprinkled over the entire surface and then I tightly rolled it up. Then I was instructed to cut it. This was a definite learning experience. There is a suggestion to use dental floss to cut the dough. I thought this was a great idea but I am not always thinking correctly and my interpretation of the method was not really working out well. I was attempting to slice the floss straight down through the dough. This was not cutting much at all but it was squishing and deforming the dough. So I just used a really sharp knife. If I had thought about it though I should have wrapped the floss around the dough and pulled it tight, cutting through and keeping the dough in a cylindrical shape. Once the dough was cut into 12 rounds It was placed in a greased baking dish and allowed to rise a second time. I will admit once this had risen the second time they were starting to look good. Once risen, I baked them for 30 minutes.

These looked great and smelled amazing. I let them cool for a short while before coating them in the glaze/frosting/icing… not really sure what it should be called. I always think of glazes as thin but this ‘glaze’ is actually rather thick. After covering them I realized that they would really look like cinnamon rolls in a picture… probably should have been a little lighter on the glaze.

Rating: B+. Fresh cinnamon buns are a great thing. These turned out well. They were a bit dry around the outer edge of the pan but other than that they were delicious. Now as good as they were the first day they were exceptional the next day after a quick spin in the microwave. I love Cinnabon cinnamon rolls reheated and these were almost identical… probably better for me though.