Procrasti-baking and the Cinnamon Rolls

During my exams baking was a life saver! It's my complete escapism, and was such a great stress buster when times got tough!

A house-mate of mine was a massive cinnamon fan, especially having spent a year in Canada with Tim Hortons and CinnaBon on tap, so in homage to him I decided to make Cinnamon Rolls. I've never worked with a sweet enriched dough before, but I was surprised how easy it was, having been expecting a big sticky mess to develop!

This is an adapted Mary Berry recipe (my admiration for Mary Berry is worthy of a whole blog on it's own, so we'll save that for another day!) and as I was feeding a cinnamon fanatic I upped the cinnamon content in the dough itself, and in the for filling of the rolls - they went down an absolute treat!

Cinnamon Rolls

The finished rolls

Makes 16

Ingredients:

Rolls:

2lbs plain flour

1oz caster sugar
1tbsp cinnamon

7g sachet dried yeast

1tsp salt

12floz lukewarm milk

2 eggs (beaten)

1oz butter (melted)

Filling:

2oz caster sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

Icing:

7oz icing sugar

4tbsp water

1tbsp vanilla extract

170oC fan oven, 180oC other ovens

Method:

1. Put the flour, cinnamon and sugar into a bowl and mix. Add the salt at one side of the bowl, and the yeast at the other so as not to kill the yeast, then mix everything together.

2. Make a well in the centre of the flour mix and pour in the milk, eggs and butter. Combine using your hand to make a dough - it will be sticky, don't worry about this!

3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, which should take approx. 10 minutes (see my other blog for the best kneading techniques)

4. Roll the dough out into a large rectangle, approximately 1m by 35cm, (yes, it's big!). The dough should be approx 0.5cm thick.

5. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon for the filling all over the dough rectangle and rub lightly until combined.

6. Tack one long edge of the rectangle to your work surface (squish the edge down into the work surface to make it stick) and then being to roll up the rectangle from the other long edge (the one that isn't tacked to the work surface). Once you reach the tacked side of dough keep rolling over the tacked edge and it should stick to the rest of the roll and seal it, if not gently press the edge into the roll to seal.

7. Using a sharp knife trim the ends of the roll to get smart edges then cut the roll in half, and half again - repeat this until you have 16 individual cinnamon rolls.

8. Place the rolls, spiral facing up into lightly pre-greased baking tins - I used an 8 inch spring form tin to make a crown of rolls from 7 individual rolls and fitted the remaining 9 into a 10 inch square tin, but any baking tins will do with the buns spaced with approx 2 inches between them.

9. Cover the rolls with oiled cling film and place in a warm place to rise until they've doubled in size, which will take about an hour, but don't be scared to leave them longer if they haven't doubled within the hour!

10. Once they've doubled in size, remove the cling film, brush with a little milk and put into the middle of a preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until a light golden brown.

11. Whilst the rolls are cooling in their tins make up the icing by combining the water, icing sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl and beating into a smooth paste. Whilst the rolls are still in their tins and warm out of the oven  brush with the icing. 

12. Leave the rolls to cool slightly in their tins and once the icing has set remove from the tins and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy whilst still warm with a cup of coffee. They're really good microwaved for 30 seconds to warm them through, and will keep for up to 4 days in an air tight container.

Crown of Rolls

I was really proud of my first ever attempt at Cinnamon Rolls, and it turns out they're very photogenic too, so they got the honour of being my blog background! If you're looking for somewhere to start with enriched doughs, you won't find much better than here!

Happy Baking!

The Baking Ginger xx