My mom is known for her cinnamon rolls. I remember staying up with her until midnight to make the cinnamon rolls, and then she would get up at 5 or 6 AM to bake them. And when she made the cream cheese frosting my brothers and I would always fight over who got to lick the beaters. Yum!
As I prepared to bake the next recipe in the King Arthur Baking School book I wondered how these would compare to my mom’s cinnamon rolls. This dough starts with a tangzhong. I weighed my ingredients, then whisked them together on the stove until the mixture thickened. This only took a minute or two.
Then all the ingredients went into the stand mixer, starting with the hot tangzhong.
I mixed the dough in the stand mixer until it was elastic and no longer stuck to the sides of the bowl.
Then I allowed the dough to rest for an hour. During the rest I prepared the filling. I have never used a cinnamon roll filling that incorporates melted butter into the filling. I’ve always spread room-temperature butter on the rolled-out dough and then sprinkled the cinnamon sugar over top. This filling also incorporated flour, which was new to me as well.
After an hour the dough was ready, so I rolled it out into a rectangle and sprinkled the cin Amon sugar mixture on it.
Then I rolled it all up into a log, pinched the seam closed, and cut the log into 8 pieces.
I greased a 9×13 pan, arranged my cinnamon rolls in the pan, and left them to rise for an hour.
When the rolls had risen I baked them for 18 minutes: a shorter time than I would have expected. The rolls were just barely golden on top when I took them out of the oven.
While the cinnamon rolls baked I made the frosting. This is a butter-based frosting that does not use any cream cheese. The frosting was very easy to whisk up by hand.
At last, I frosted the warm cinnamon rolls and tucked right in.
Ok, don’t tell my mom, but I think these might be better than her cinnamon rolls? The short bake causes the cinnamon rolls to be extremely tender. I do think 18 minutes was slightly underbaked (a few of the rolls were slightly doughy) and I would bake these for 20 or 22 minutes next time. The dough has great flavor and doesn’t taste yeasty at all (a yeasty flavor is the only gripe I have with my mom’s cinnamon rolls). The filling is perfectly spiced and is ooey-gooey without running out of the baked roll. I prefer a cream cheese frosting because that’s what I grew up with, but I didn’t miss the tanginess of the cream cheese with these cinnamon rolls. If I were to open a bakery selling cinnamon rolls, I would absolutely use this recipe.
Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out.
A Baker's Education 