- [Chef] This episode of "Basics with Babish"
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(upbeat piano and drum music)
All right, so for our cinnamon rolled dough,
we're gonna start by making a tangzhong,
a cooked paste of flour and water
that's gonna help our rolls retain moisture
as well as delay the staling process.
In a small sauce pan, we're combining 150 milliliters
of water with 30 grams of all-purpose flour, cooking
and whisking constantly over medium heat to prevent clumping
and scorching until it almost has the consistency
of frosting and reaches 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
Then we're bringing this mixture
over to our awaiting stand mixer
and placing it in the bowl, still steaming hot.
And then we're adding 165 mil of cold buttermilk,
just a few splashes at a time
while the mixer is running to start so it doesn't get lumpy.
The resultant tepid mixture should make
for a nice environment for our yeast to thrive.
Once you got a nice smooth mixture
we're gonna add 450 grams of all-purpose flour, 50 grams
of granulated sugar, two teaspoons of kosher salt
and one packet or two
and a quarter teaspoons of instant yeast.
We're also gonna add two eggs, which I learned the hard way
you might wanna crack into a bowl first.
If you drop a little piece of eggshell into the flour
you might nuke your whole batch.
Beat up those eggs a little bit, add them to the bowl.
Affix dough hooks and apply low mixing speed
to start speeding up to medium once things come together
and kneading for about two minutes.
If things are looking a little too much like pancake batter
now's a good time to add flour one tablespoon at a time.
Once you have a dough that just barely clears the size
of the bowl, we're gonna add 70 grams
of unsalted room temperature butter, one tablespoon
at a time, waiting until each piece disappears completely
into the dough before adding the next.
This brioche-like process is gonna give our rolls
a brioche-like buttery richness.
Once all the butter's been added we're gonna let this guy go
on medium speed for about six minutes.
This stand mixer is violently shaking my table
so I'm gonna put it on the floor.
Let it knead until it forms as supple bouncy dough.
Place it back on the table, start it back up
and the audience will never know the difference.
The dough should be quite hydrated but not sticky.
You should be able to pull it down
off the hook without all of it sticking to your hands.
Now it needs to proof.
So I'm bowl scraping it into a well-oiled lidded container
covering it up and letting it rest
for one to two hours until it's doubled in size.
If it's a little chilly in your kitchen
you can proof in the oven.
Just turn on the oven light, not the oven itself
and let it reach a balmy, roughly 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Check on it every 15 minutes or so
because those oven lights are hotter than you think.
Once our dough has been bedoubled, we're generously oiling
or non-stick spraying our work surface, turning out
our big bouncy, jiggly, bubbly batch of dough.
I have a feeling this is gonna look satisfying.
Oh yeah. Somehow as delicious as it is alien looking.
Now with well-oiled hands and a rolling pin
we're gonna roll it out to a rectangle, roughly 12
by 20 inches with the rectangle facing you width-wise
because counterintuitively
that's the direction that we're gonna roll.
First, we're buttering things up with 60 grams of butter
unsalted and at room temperature for easiest spreading.
But if it's not spreading as easily as you'd like,
feel free to channel Jamie Lee Curtis
from that one episode of "The Bear"
and just spread the butter around using your hands.
Probably not the most professional thing in the world
but it works really, really well.
Plus, you get to go around your house and make the same joke
to all of its occupants that you now have butter fingers.
Now the butter's obviously gonna add a lot of flavor
but it's also gonna act as a glue for our spice mixture.
A simple and elegant combination of 80 grams
of granulated sugar, 50 grams of light brown sugar
and one and a half tablespoons of ground cinnamon.
I'm sprinkling this evenly over the butter by virtue
of a fine mesh sieve holding it just so you can't see it.
This both helps to spread it evenly
and filters out any brown sugar chunks.
And now from the bottom edge upward
we're gonna start rolling into a tight log.
Sort of go back and forth like a typewriter
if you have any idea what one of those is.
Roll it up evenly and gently pinch the seam shut, scoot it
over seam side down and it's time to carve this turkey.
First, we're gonna slice off the ends
so we have nice clean cuts on all of our rolls.
You can bake these up separately for a little chef snack.
And now we're gonna eyeball it into 12 equal pieces.
Doing this by placing a marker directly in the center.
Then another marker halfway between the center and the edge
and then two markers between those.
If you want more professional results
as it is so often said, use a ruler.
Now we're gonna slice these up and place them
in our prepared pan, which I forgot to prepare.
Standard issue nine by 13 casserole,
generously sprayed down with non-stick spray
and lined with a sheet of parchment paper
that's gonna help us extract the rolls once they're baked.
I'm placing a harsh crease in the paper
right on the edge of the pan to keep it outta my dang way
and then slicing and arranging my rolls
in the pan in a grid three wide and four long.
Now, if you rolled out the dough thin enough
and twisted it up tight enough, there should be plenty
of room between the rolls, which they're gonna need
because they're gonna grow dramatically
during the second rise.
All we gotta do is cover them up
with some well-oiled plastic wrap.
And if you want to eat these the same day
you can let them rise for an hour before baking
or you can cover them tightly with plastic wrap
and place them in the fridge overnight.
This has the added benefits
of an improved flavor and texture, plus the ability to bake
and serve these suckers first thing in the morning.
Soon as you wake up, take them out of the cold closet
which is a new name I just came up with for fridge.
Let them sit out for an hour to an hour and a half
until they've grown by about 50%.
Sorry for not wearing an apron.
I know that that's off-putting,
but it is genuinely morning and I am genuinely not awake.
We got a preheated 375 degree Fahrenheit oven
where these guys are headed for 25 minutes,
rotating halfway through.
This is the perfect time to make the cream cheese frosting.
Into the bowl of our stand mixer goes 200 grams
of powdered sugar, 80 grams or three quarters of a stick
of butter at room temperature, 115 grams
or half a block of cream cheese also at room temperature
and a half teaspoon of kosher salt.
Grab your wire whip and beat these guys together
until they are smooth and creamy.
Then we're gonna stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl
and the whip real quick and beat it together one more time,
this time adding one to two tablespoons of heavy cream.
You can add more or less
but we want this frosting to be pretty loose
so that it drapes over the the hot rolls, speaking
of which it's been 25 minutes.
The thickest part of our rolls is registering 195
to 200 degrees Fahrenheit and they're ready to rest
in the pan for 10 minutes.
Then we're carefully pulling them out
by virtue of our parchment paper helper
and immediately spreading evenly with frosting.
Wanna do this while the rolls are still hot
so the frosting drips down the sides and melts
into the buns slightly to show off their twisty topography.
And there you have it.
Homemade hot, fresh, classic cinnamon rolls.
Maybe one of my favorite recipes on earth
and a great way to get some use out of that new stand mixer.
But lest we forget the acronym. (Chef sounding out F)
These rolls are a flexible form factor
for fun fillings and frostings.
So how about some strawberry Nutella rolls?
Same dough recipe, but this time, instead of butter
and cinnamon sugar, we're generously painting the dough
with Nutella leaving a one inch border at the far edge.
It's gonna help us seal the rolls shut
and prevent things from getting too smeary.
Attempt and fail to resist to lick the offset spatula.
Roll things up tight
and then it's pretty much the same procedure as before.
The only notable difference being
that you're gonna wanna wipe your knife down
with a wet kitchen towel between each slice.
If you've got excess chocolate on the blade
it's gonna smear across the top
of each roll and ruin your aesthetic.
Arrange, proof for one to one
and a half hours and bake as before.
Now I figured the best place
to introduce the strawberry flavor would be in the frosting.
And I'm gonna do this with one ounce
of freeze dried strawberries, which I'm going to process
in a food processor into a fine strawberry powder
that I can work into the frosting.
Strawberry smoke. Don't breathe this.
To make the frosting
it's pretty much the same procedure as before,
but this time we are
of course adding the sifted strawberry powder.
Now, not only are we adding a whole lot more powder
to this mixture, it's powder
that's specifically moisture absorbent
so we're gonna need to cut it with a lot more heavy cream.
I ended up adding about half cup.
Ideally, we're trying to achieve the same consistency
as our regular cream cheese frosting so that it still melts
over the rolls without looking too gloopy.
Now with that done, our rolls are headed out of the oven.
Probably the best looking rolls I've ever made.
The cleaner and flatter your cuts,
the more consistent results you're gonna get like this.
Let them cool for 10 minutes, yank them out,
and frost as before.
Now, I guess I was a bit of a coward with heavy cream
because things didn't melt quite as picturesquely
as the last batch.
But flavor-wise, these things are a triumph.
It's everything you love about Nutella strawberry crepes
with the welcome edition of more butter and bread.
Last but not least, it's that time of year again, buckle up
for pumpkin spice everything, including cinnamon rolls.
To make our pumpkin spice, we're combining 50 grams
of light brown sugar, 80 grams of granulated sugar
one tablespoon ground cinnamon, one teaspoon ground ginger
half teaspoon ground cardamom, quarter teaspoon all spice
quarter teaspoon kosher salt, eighth of a teaspoon of clove
and half a teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg.
I dunno why this is called pumpkin spice.
Could be anything spice, really.
Apple pie, apple cider donuts, other apple stuff.
Then once we've rolled out our dough,
instead of using butter as our spice glue,
why not use pumpkin puree?
About 250 grams worth are just enough
to apply a thin pastiche like we did in Nutella,
spread it on, spice it down and then it's business as usual.
Roll, slice, arrange, proof, bake and frost.
After proofing, however, I am gonna do something
I forgot to do with the original cinnamon rolls.
That is brush them down with melted butter.
I don't think this would work with the Nutella rolls
because it would smear the chocolate everywhere.
But for pumpkin or cinnamon, it works like a charm.
Bake those off and while they're in the oven, once again
we can contend with our frosting.
And if these are gonna be pumpkin spice latte cinnamon rolls
then they should probably have a coffee element.
So adding one teaspoon of instant coffee
to our two tablespoons of heavy cream, mixing
until dissolved and adding to the frosting as before.
And as it turns out, coffee and cream cheese icing,
really, really good.
So let's see how it plays with pumpkin,
a combination I've never really understood myself.
Now as you can see,
my rolls are a little all over the place.
I think I cut them sloppily and they rose
a little bit too much due to under proofing.
But with a little bit of cooling
and a whole lot of frosting, they look pretty, pretty good.
And to my surprise and delight, they taste even better.
The pumpkin's really subtle
and it doesn't taste artificial because it's not.
And the spices work surprisingly well with the coffee.
So add me to the pumpkin spice train. I'm on board.
Just a reminder, my new cookbook
"Basics with Babish" is coming out October 24th.
This recipe and over a hundred others are laid out
in mouthwatering detail with a healthy dose
of humor, honesty, and vulnerability.
Pre-order now and be sure to grab tickets
to my book tour at bingingwithbabish.com/booktour.
(lofi music)