I think I have devised some uncommonly delicious cinnamon rolls — really buttery and tender
but also fluffy, and they hold a real tidy shape in the oven. I'll show you the standard
sugar glaze but I'm also gonna show you an unconventional frosting inspired by marshmallow
fluff. I love this frosting, my wife hates it — we report, you decide.
To make a yeast dough that is extremely buttery but also has a strong enough gluten network
to rise, we need to follow a kinda weird procedure. I've got a mixing bowl and that's a third
of a cup of milk, 80 mL. And I'll throw a little pinch of sugar in there for the yeast
even though they probably don't need it. They do need me to heat this up a little bit, which
you could do in the microwave but my stove has the advantage of being right here. I'm
just looking for body temperature, or something a little north of that.
I'm only making half a dozen rolls today, and yet I'm putting in a whole packet of dry
yeast, which is a lot — 7g, more than two teaspoons. You could use half that but I like
the flavor I get from extra yeast, and I will just let them rehydrate and wake up while
I grab butter.
Two tablespoons of butter, 30g. I'll melt that in the microwave real quick, and then
in goes a quarter cup of granulated sugar, 50 grams. That sugar will lower the temperature
of the butter, thus making it safe for my egg. If you were gonna bake a full dozen,
you could just use the whole egg. But I'm making half that so I'm just gonna use the
yolk in my dough. Pure yolk makes the rolls taste better anyway and I have plans for that
white.
In goes 3-4 grams of salt, which is like half a teaspoon of this Morton Kosher. I think
cinnamon rolls are far better with a noticeable amount of salt in them, and lastly a little
glug of vanilla, which you could skip. The frosting will have vanilla in it too. Get
that all stirred up and smooth.
My yeast is all frothy so it's time for flour. And you could use all-purpose flour, but I
think bread flour is better, and lately I am loving this 00 pizza flour that recently
arrived at my grocery store, #notanadjustafan. 00 is a super-fine grind of flour and it makes
these rolls noticeably smoother, but any flour is fine. The extra protein of the bread flour
will help these rise in spite of all that butter and also give them a heavier and silkier
mouthfeel.
Literally just as much flour as I can stir in there. If you want precise measurements,
watch somebody else. I think it depends on what kind of flour you're using anyway, so
I say just go by feel. As much flour as you can easily stir into this much liquid, which
for me ended up being just under a cup.
That I will simply leave to autolyse and pre-ferment for about a half hour. Over here with my fatty
liquids, I might as well stir in some flour too — again, just as much as I can stir
in, which ended up being maybe 2/3rds of a cup. There's so much fat in here that the
gluten in this flour basically won't be able to develop at all. But at least I can get
the particles hydrating a bit, which will cut down on kneading time. Plus, all the greasy
liquid here will be much easier to integrate with the other dough when it's in paste form
like this.
OK, I'll just cover everything in a damp towel and come back half an hour later. Clearly
a lot of fermentation and gluten development has happened. If we'd mixed everything together
at once, the huge amount of butter and sugar in this recipe would not have allowed that
kind of rise. I'll dust more flour on there and dump in my greasy paste. Use my floury
hand to scrape off the spoon and get to kneading. Kneed until this is homogenous, dusting flour
as necessary to keep it workable. Kinda groovy at this stage.
Yes, lots of popular cinnamon roll recipes have you mix everything together at once.
But you will note they probably have proportionally less butter than mine here. I've tried doing
the direct mix on a dough this rich and it just doesn't rise. You do it this way, you
get the best of all worlds.
I want enough flour in here so that the dough is just a little sticky, but I can form it
into a reasonably smooth ball. Perfect. Maybe two cups total of this 00 bread flour in here,
maybe 250g. Cover and let it rise again until doubled — an hour or two — during which
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So after two hours, this has about doubled. Don't be concerned if you don't get a huge
rise at this stage. Again, there's a lot of fat and sugar in there. Pull her out to a
board and a little dusting of flour so nothing sticks and then roll this out to a rectangle
about a foot wide, 30 centimeters. The closer you can get it to a perfect rectangle the
less waste you're gonna have at the edges. The bottom long edge I want to roll way thinner
than the rest. This will be the flap that I use to seal the roll.
Let me get some more melted butter ready, another couple tablespoons. We'll use this
for a couple things now, and this bowl's already dirty, so filling. A third of a cup of brown
sugar — 65g — or white sugar with a little glug of molasses because that's all brown
sugar is, and I actually want more molasses than brown sugar normally has so, heavy hand
with the molasses.
The eponymous cinnamon. I like a whole tablespoon, which is a lot, but I like it spicy. This
is pre-ground, and pre-ground is generally less powerful, so you need more with it. A
teeny little pinch of salt is good, and then — this is important — just enough melted
butter to make this the consistency of damp sand. I'll stir this up real good and the
see if I need more.
If you put too much butter in the filling, it'll all melt out during baking and just
run all over the pan. But I need a little more in there, just to make the filling hold
together. If there's no butter at all, the filling is powdery and it just falls out of
the roll before you can even bake the thing. There — that consistency is a good compromise.
Take some melted butter and grease up the inside of the dough sheet, avoiding that thin
flap at the bottom. We want that the opposite of slippery. Dump on the filling and pat it
as even as possible. Don't bother getting it all the way to the edges on the sides,
because we're just gonna trim off that excess anyway, and keep it off that flap at the bottom.
That's our seal, and accordingly I am going to get it wet. This will glue the whole roll
together and keep it from bursting open in the oven.
Time to roll, starting at the long, thick end. Don't stress about rolling this super
right — it's even better if you don't — give the layers some room to puff up in the oven.
Get the seal on the bottom so gravity presses it down a little bit, and at this stage you
could put the roll in the fridge, slice it and bake it for breakfast in the morning.
I've got some leftover melted butter so I might as well rub it suggestively around the
whole cylinder — this'll make the edges bake up even tastier. And there we go. Time
to slice. Trim off that end first, and then you can get really clean, even slices. I'm
going maybe 1.5 inches thick, 4 cm, aiming for six rolls and there we go.
Grab a baking sheet, line with parchment if you've got it, and then very gently lay on
the slices, cut-side-up. This would actually be a lot easier if I had chilled the roll
overnight, though if you do that, you definitely want to cover these and let them warm up and
proof at least a half hour before baking, which I'm going to do anyway.
They're a little puffier after a half-hour proof, which is good, and in they go at 400ºF/200ºC,
convection if you've got it.
While we wait, here's that weird frosting I was telling you about. My reserved egg white
goes into a sauce pan along with another third of a cup of sugar, 65g. Heat on medium, and
then whisk continuously. If you aren't whisking when this reaches the critical temperature,
you're gonna suddenly have scrambled eggs.
Oh, I forgot, we need a glug of corn syrup, or honey, or some syrup that is not all sucrose,
like the table sugar is. If you don't use the syrup, the sugar recrystallizes and gets
super grainy. Just keep whisking and you'll see the egg proteins start to coagulate and
thicken and two minutes later I've got a mayonnaise-like consistency, so I'm done. I'll turn off the
burner, and in the residual heat I'll melt about a tablespoon of butter. Just melt it
in real gently so it doesn't break. Time for a splash of vanilla, whisk that in and there
you go.
Marshmallow glaze — it's Italian meringue but a little thinner and richer which makes
it better for a thin coating, and it has a strong marshmallowy flavor, which I believe
is basically the taste of sugar + protein.
The rolls have been baking for just about 10 minutes, and they're almost done, even
though they look kinda pale. If you over-bake these, the filling just melts and leaks out,
and you can see that starting to happen over there. Also if you over-bake them, the centers
start to push up like little spires, and eventually that causes the whole roll to fall apart.
Plus I think you want the texture to be soft and a little doughy, so when the edges are
just a little golden, that's it. Out they come and let them cool until they're firm
enough to pick up, maybe 10 minutes.
Meanwhile I'll mix up the more conventional glaze if you want to see that, which is just
a pile of powdered sugar, a little glug of milk and an even smaller glug of vanilla.
Stir stir stir, and really, it takes a tiny amount of milk to get this all dissolved into
a smooth, thick glaze. And you could glaze the rolls on their parchment paper, but hey,
this is already dirty, so let's do this professional-like, on a rack.
This is my marshmallow glaze over here, and my preferred way of doing this is to just
dunk in the top, get it completely coated in glaze, and as it drizzles down the sides
on the rack it'll spread in attractive ways.
Alternatively, you could just put one on the rack and drizzle with a spoon, side to side,
or you could do the little spiral pattern, or if you're four-and-half years old, you
could just try total chaos.
"Daddy, I can just mustard it."
"Mustard it? Sure."
That's the conventional glaze by the way, made with the powdered sugar and milk, which
looks about the same as the marshmallow one at this stage, but it tastes pretty different
and it dries to a more crispy texture with a matte finish. I like the marshmallow one
better, myself.
Now honestly, I know these don't look particularly remarkable, but the texture and flavor of
these is way better than any homemade cinnamon roll I've ever had before, including all the
ones I've made before. That pre-ferment step just makes all the difference in the world.
Try it if you don't believe me.