One of my friends gave me a cinnamon roll recipe on paper which I made a couple days ago, it turned out pretty friggin' awesome. I made a few adjustments to it to dial in the texture/sweetness, banged out a second test batch, and I think this recipe is pretty much optimal now.
These are chewy (in a good way), not too sweet, but still pretty decadent. I love 'em.
One thing I've learned is when you're baking, weigh everything. A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 100g-250g depending on how tightly you pack it. Using weight lets you replicate a recipe more accurately. Also, weighing things like butter is much easier/quicker than trying to cram butter into a measuring cup.
Oh, I hope you have a Kitchenaid. It's used twice here.
RECIPE
Pastry:
1c evaporated milk
1 tbsp sugar
1 packet active dry or instant yeast
600g or 4c bread flour
120g or 1/2c sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
80g or 1/3c butter
Filling:
80g or 1/3c butter
240g or 1c brown sugar
25g or 3 tbsp cinnamon
Icing:
300g/2c icing sugar
80g or 1/3c butter
120g or 1/2 bar cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
DIRECTIONS
Measure out the milk in a 2c measuring cup, stir in 1tbsp sugar and pitch the yeast on top. Give it a few minutes to wake up. Save the rest of the evaporated milk for coffee or tea, it's awesome.
Grab your scale and weigh out 600g of bread flour into your kitchenaid bowl. Throw in 120g of white sugar and 5g salt while it's on the scale.
Weigh your butter into a microwaveable bowl, and melt it in the microwave, takes about 30 seconds.
Throw the yeast, eggs, then butter on top of the flour. Grab your mixer's kneading hook, stir everything together by hand so the flour's mostly integrated, then knead with the mixer for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a greased bowl, cover in cling wrap and let it sit until it doubles in size. In my 20C kitchen, this took about 2 hours.
While the dough's rising, prep the rest of your stuff. Weigh out the brown sugar and cinnamon into one bowl, and weigh another 1/3c of butter into the same bowl you used earlier.
Also weigh out the butter, cream cheese and vanilla. You'll want this to be room temperature when it's time to make the icing, so it fluffs up nicely. Oh, clean your kitchenaid bowl, you'll need it to make the icing.
When your dough is risen, clean off your countertop. Melt the 1/3c butter and mix it into the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Punch down the dough and divide it into two equal sized balls.
Grab a rolling pin and roll each ball out into a 12x16" "rectangle". You'll drive yourself nuts trying to make a perfect rectangle, once you get it like this it's good enough.
Spread on half of the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Don't worry about getting it too close to the edges.
Then roll one up homie, and place it on a sheet of parchment paper. Roll out/spread/roll up the other one, and cover the two with cling wrap until they're doubled in size.
Grab a carving knife or chef knife and put a good edge on it. (<3 my Grohmann set, made here in NS and bought straight from the factory.) Grab a wet cloth to wipe sugar off the blade every few slices.
Slice the roll of dough into 1" thick slices, and place on parchmented baking sheets. You'll get about 16 good ones, plus ends (I bake these anyway). Set your oven to 375F, and when it's hot, throw 'em in the oven. They'll be in there 15-20 minutes, take them out when the edges are brown.
In the meantime, make your icing. Throw the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, salt and vanilla in the kitchenaid bowl, grab the paddle attachment, and give it a good whip until it's nice and fluffy. When it's ready, dump it out into a large ziploc bag - when it's time, you'll cut a bottom corner off the bag to make a ghetto icing funnel.
They're done!
I find that cinammon rolls leak their filling when you take them out of the oven. To fix this, 5 minutes after they're out of the oven, carefully flip them over. This coats both sides of the cinnamon rolls with melty sugary sticky goodness, and reduces the leakage.
Immediately after you flip them, cut the corner off your icing bag and cover them in icing. There should still be a bit of heat left in the cinnamon rolls, which will melt the icing a bit, but not too much.
Wait at least 10 more minutes for the rolls to cool down and the icing to gel, so you don't lose everything over your clothes when you try to eat. Enjoy!
These are chewy (in a good way), not too sweet, but still pretty decadent. I love 'em.
One thing I've learned is when you're baking, weigh everything. A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 100g-250g depending on how tightly you pack it. Using weight lets you replicate a recipe more accurately. Also, weighing things like butter is much easier/quicker than trying to cram butter into a measuring cup.
Oh, I hope you have a Kitchenaid. It's used twice here.
RECIPE
Pastry:
1c evaporated milk
1 tbsp sugar
1 packet active dry or instant yeast
600g or 4c bread flour
120g or 1/2c sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
80g or 1/3c butter
Filling:
80g or 1/3c butter
240g or 1c brown sugar
25g or 3 tbsp cinnamon
Icing:
300g/2c icing sugar
80g or 1/3c butter
120g or 1/2 bar cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
DIRECTIONS
Measure out the milk in a 2c measuring cup, stir in 1tbsp sugar and pitch the yeast on top. Give it a few minutes to wake up. Save the rest of the evaporated milk for coffee or tea, it's awesome.
Grab your scale and weigh out 600g of bread flour into your kitchenaid bowl. Throw in 120g of white sugar and 5g salt while it's on the scale.
Weigh your butter into a microwaveable bowl, and melt it in the microwave, takes about 30 seconds.
Throw the yeast, eggs, then butter on top of the flour. Grab your mixer's kneading hook, stir everything together by hand so the flour's mostly integrated, then knead with the mixer for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a greased bowl, cover in cling wrap and let it sit until it doubles in size. In my 20C kitchen, this took about 2 hours.
While the dough's rising, prep the rest of your stuff. Weigh out the brown sugar and cinnamon into one bowl, and weigh another 1/3c of butter into the same bowl you used earlier.
Also weigh out the butter, cream cheese and vanilla. You'll want this to be room temperature when it's time to make the icing, so it fluffs up nicely. Oh, clean your kitchenaid bowl, you'll need it to make the icing.
When your dough is risen, clean off your countertop. Melt the 1/3c butter and mix it into the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Punch down the dough and divide it into two equal sized balls.
Grab a rolling pin and roll each ball out into a 12x16" "rectangle". You'll drive yourself nuts trying to make a perfect rectangle, once you get it like this it's good enough.
Spread on half of the sugar/cinnamon mixture. Don't worry about getting it too close to the edges.
Then roll one up homie, and place it on a sheet of parchment paper. Roll out/spread/roll up the other one, and cover the two with cling wrap until they're doubled in size.
Grab a carving knife or chef knife and put a good edge on it. (<3 my Grohmann set, made here in NS and bought straight from the factory.) Grab a wet cloth to wipe sugar off the blade every few slices.
Slice the roll of dough into 1" thick slices, and place on parchmented baking sheets. You'll get about 16 good ones, plus ends (I bake these anyway). Set your oven to 375F, and when it's hot, throw 'em in the oven. They'll be in there 15-20 minutes, take them out when the edges are brown.
In the meantime, make your icing. Throw the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, salt and vanilla in the kitchenaid bowl, grab the paddle attachment, and give it a good whip until it's nice and fluffy. When it's ready, dump it out into a large ziploc bag - when it's time, you'll cut a bottom corner off the bag to make a ghetto icing funnel.
They're done!
I find that cinammon rolls leak their filling when you take them out of the oven. To fix this, 5 minutes after they're out of the oven, carefully flip them over. This coats both sides of the cinnamon rolls with melty sugary sticky goodness, and reduces the leakage.
Immediately after you flip them, cut the corner off your icing bag and cover them in icing. There should still be a bit of heat left in the cinnamon rolls, which will melt the icing a bit, but not too much.
Wait at least 10 more minutes for the rolls to cool down and the icing to gel, so you don't lose everything over your clothes when you try to eat. Enjoy!