Big Buttery Buns -- Daring Bakers Challenge

Another Daring Bakers challenge. Another successful recipe. September’s challenge, chosen by our lovely hostess Marce at Pip In The City, was to make buttery, fluffy cinnamon rolls. These turned out to absolutely moist, luscious rolls filled with sugary goodness. Trust me, as I have made them twice this past month! But the most wonderful thing about this recipe – the dough doubles as sticky buns (which is how I prepared them).

The recipe is from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker´s Apprentice, so I was pretty confident that they would turn out well. I am a big fan of this book; with clear, concise instructions and wonderful step-by-step photos, Peter thoroughly guides you to mastering the art of bread baking.

Working with yeast can be an intimidating act. The terror that it won’t work and your dough won’t rise, can deter even the best baker from attempting a recipe. But don’t be scared. All it really takes is to make sure that your yeast is alive and has proofed before you begin making a recipe. (Unless of course, you’re using instant yeast, as in this recipe in which the yeast is added directly to the wet with the dry ingredients.) And there is nothing more satisfying than witnessing the magic of a gloriously risen ball of dough.

Made from the simplest ingredients, this dough was a cinch to make. I did not have instant yeast, so I first proofed my yeast in the milk, which was heated to tepid. After the yeast created a bubbly surface on the milk, I proceeded with the recipe as written. The first time I made them I followed the instructions precisely, but the second time around I changed a few things. The first being that, while they grew into gorgeous pillows, they were HUGE! I decided that next time I would make them a tad smaller. I also added cardamom to the cinnamon/sugar filling – and changed it to a cinnamon/sugar butter to spread on the dough, rather than just a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. I also ran out of pecans, so I used a mixture of pecans and hazelnuts in the sticky caramel topping.

The Verdict: The dough was plump and puffy, baking into gorgeous fluffy pillows fragrant with a subtle vanilla and lemon flavor. I definitely like the buttery-ness of the cinnamon/sugar butter spread rather than just the dry sprinkling. And the cardamom – oh my cardamom! It added the most wonderfully exotic aroma and flavor to the baked rolls, and I highly recommend adding a pinch to the filling. The sticky bun glaze was just fantastic, and it also added an extra moistness to the dough. What is better than a softly sticky, buttery caramel oozing down freshly baked rolls?

I highly recommend that everyone make these rolls. Go crazy, make a double batch and make even more people hate you.


Some Notes:

*a little extra flour is needed when mixing the dough in order to achieve that non-sticky supple, shiny state

* the first time I made these I didn’t have time to do this, but when I make cinnamon rolls, I usually refrigerate or freeze the dough after rolling out. You can spread the cinnamon butter over the dough better, and it rolls better and more evenly into a log when chilled. I also refrigerate or freeze after rolling into logs so it is easier to cut even slices. Since I didn’t have time, the first rolls weren’t the neatest portioned rolls!

*as written, the recipe makes obscenely huge rolls. I cut the dough in half, rolled each out into a thickness of about 1/8 of an inch and then rolled into thinner logs. This yields many more cinnamon rolls and, personally, I prefer them smaller sized.

Thank you Marce for choosing and inspiring the Daring Bakers with such a wonderful recipe. And thank you Lis and Ivonne , the founders of The Daring Bakers. Visit the Daring Bakers to see the other tempting photos…

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