I was kind of surprised to find cinnamon buns in a bread baking book. Wouldn’t they fall in the cake category? At least here in Germany, cinnamon snails (as we call them) are eaten in the afternoon when you serve coffee and cake. But I LOVE cinnamon buns. Thus, I was really looking forward to baking these rolls. And of course, I wanted to advance with the BBA Challenge. To put it bluntly, though – I was disappointed 
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The biggest problem I had – they wouldn’t want to rise much. Not during the fermentation, and not during proofing, either. This is how they looked like after proofing. I know it depends on the weather and all kinds of other circumstances, but I gave the dough WAY more time to rise than was called for in the book, but it just wouldn’t do it.
I didn’t want to throw them away and put them in the oven anyway. This is what they looked like after baking.
I was astonished at the amount of cinnamon sugar that went on the dough (I – like my friend Sara – was surprised that the sugar was applied directly to the dough – I usually spread a little butter on the dough and then apply the cinnamon sugar) so I didn’t make the fondant.
To put a long story short: the cinnamon buns tasted ok, but they lacked the buttery taste of the cinnamon rolls I’ve been making for years now with a different recipe. That is, I won’t make them again but stick with my well-tried cinnamon rolls.
4 Comments
September 14, 2009 at 9:50 pm
So…what is your recipe? Did you see Peter Reinhart recommended making it with brioche dough if you wanted something really buttery? I wonder if your recipe is similar to that concept…
October 4, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Here’s the recipe:
dough: 100 ml milk, 3/4 teasp sal, 30 ml water, 30 g butter, 1 egg, 350 g all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 tblsp. sugar, 4 g instant yeast
filling: 30 g butter, 30 g sugar, 1/2 teasp ground cinnamon
Mix the dough ingredients and knead well (appr. 10 minutes). Let rise for 70 minutes. Knead well again. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, put the soft butter on the dough, mix cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle it over the butter. Roll the dough up, cut into appr. 10 pieces. Put the pieces on a pan and let rise for about 40 more minutes. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 190°C.
September 19, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I actually liked the dough for these, but I can see how they would be good with more Butter. Did you not frost them at all? Frosting makes everything 75% better…
October 4, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Nope, didn’t frost them at all. My favorite cinnamon rolls (see comment above) are without any frosting. Frosting would be too sticky and sweet for me, I think. I do have a sweet tooth, though
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