Cinnamon Buns!

Some of you wonderful readers may already know that I’m on a diet.  I started the South Beach Diet about 4 weeks ago and thus far I’ve lost about 12 pounds.  Even more amazingly, I managed to not eat a single one of these cinnamon buns.  They were delicious, according to my audience.   Sometimes I find it just more enjoyable to cook for those who will really enjoy the dish.

A few weekends ago, Tom, my roommate Drew and I went to the grocery store to pick up brunch ingredients.  I saw Drew contemplating the vacuum sealed canister of cinnamon bun dough and I just couldn’t let him pick those up.  Why have him buy those cinnamon buns when I can make them for him?  This was going to be my first attempt at cinnamon buns, so I was ready for an adventure

First, I had to find the right recipe to go with.  I ended up modifying one that I found on Epicurious.

Like most other bread recipes, this requires some yeast.  Here’s my yeast fermenting nicely.

Look how it's so creamy and bubbly!

Then I mix it with flour, vegetable oil, and salt and after kneading, I cover it in plastic and let it rise for about an hour.

Now, here’s where I start to deviate from the recipe.  Actually, at this point, I don’t even know if I really followed any recipe, but just made the filling the way I thought it ought to be made.  First, I melt butter, brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon on the stove top.

If I wanted to be really unhealthy and kind of gross, I would take a spoon and dig in.

Okay, so here is the slightly complicated part:  the rolling.  I don’t have a massive cutting board, so what I did instead was lay out a large sheet of wax paper on my stainless steel island and placed my dough there.  I had to flatten the dough out into a nice rectangle, so I took out my handy-dandy rolling pin that has Santa Clauses on the handles.  I got it on sale at Target after Christmas for 99 cents.  What a deal!  Anyway, I think my rolled out dough turned out pretty nice.  Make sure you flour the paper well before you start rolling!

Then I spread out most of the the cinnamon sugar glaze across the dough.

Seeing this makes me think, mmmm, cinnamon pizza!  Maybe I’ll try that another time.  Anyway, I didn’t flour my wax paper enough, so when it came time to roll the thing, my dough kept sticking to the paper!  I had to use a butter knife to make sure it didn’t break.  In the end in worked out though.  I cut the roll into 8 pieces and arranged them in the baking pan.

At this point, you actually have to cover the pan and let the dough rise some more.  This whole task isn’t very difficult, it just takes a long time.  I’m sure it seemed like days to my Southern roommate Drew who was aching to put one in his mouth already.  In the time that I let the dough rise some more, I saved some of my cinnamon sugar glaze and added some chopped pecans into it.  This is going to be the topping.

Again, if I wanted to be really unhealthy and kind of gross, I would eat this with a spoon.

And finally, time to top the cinnamon rolls with this glaze and they’re ready to bake!  I think I overbaked them slightly, but I’m still happy with the result.  Despite my diet, I did have a bite and I thought they were a liiiiiiittle dry, but still delicious.  I could have made an icing to go with it, but after seeing the amount of butter and sugar that went into the buns, I decided against it.

Overall, I don’t know if these are going to make it into my regular baking repertoire.   Actually, besides the occasional cookie or pizza dough, I really don’t have a regular baking repertoire.  I’d probably make this if I were hosting a brunch, but given how incredibly unhealthy they are, cinnamon buns are definitely going into the “make on special occasions” category.

Here’s the recipe!  Modified slightly from the Bon Appetite 1999 recipe from the Pecan Street Bakery.

Cinnamon buns with pecans

• 3/4 cup of warm water
• 1/2 cup of white sugar plus 3 tablespoons
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 envelope of dry active yeast.
• 2 tsp of vegetable oil
• 1/2 a tsp of salt
• 1 3/4 cup of bread flour
• 1 stick of butter
• 2 tbl of cinnamon
• 1 cup of chopped pecans

Combine  warm water and 3 tbl of sugar in large bowl. Stir in the yeast until it’s bubbly and foamy.  Mix in vegetable oil and salt.  Add the flour in small increments and knead until you have an elasticky dough.  Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover it with plastic and a towel.  Let the dough rise in a warm it’s doubled in size.

After about 45 minutes, preheat the oven to 325.  heat the butter, sugars, and cinnamon on low heat in a pan.

When the dough is ready (it should take about an hour), roll it out on a flat surface that’s well-floured so it doesn’t stick.  Don’t punch the dough down, because it will need to rise more later!  When you have a nice rectangle (see the picture above), spread the cinnamon-sugar-butter mixture on the roll, saving about 1/4 of the mixture

Roll the dough length-wise like a jelly roll.  Make sure it doesn’t break.  This is why you need a well-floured surface.  Once it’s rolled up, cut it into 6-8 pieces and place in a deep pan.  If you put them on a flat baking pan, the sugar mixture will run over and make a mess in your oven.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap to let the rolls rise some more.

While that’s rising, chop the pecans.  I like to use the food processor.  After it’s chopped up, add it to the rest of the sugar mixture that still in the pan and let the pecans get nice and gooey with the sugar mixture.

After the rolls have risen for about 20-30 minutes, spoon the pecan mixture on top of each roll.   Place the pan in the oven and let them bake for 30-35 minutes.

Enjoy!