These Cinnamon Rolls are soft, fluffy, sweet and decadent.
Filled with gooey brown sugar and cinnamon, and topped with a cream cheese glaze.
They’re a hit with everyone and I’m sharing with you ultimate recipe.
Welcome to recipes by Carina where I share with you how to make classic and simply delicious
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These Cinnamon Rolls make the perfect Sunday brunch and one of the great things about this
recipe is you can make the buns in advance the day before.
Put them in the fridge overnight, bring them up to room temp the next morning while you
preheat the oven and bake them until they’re golden brown.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
We’re going to start off by making the dough for the buns.
You can do this by hand, by using a stand mixer, or in a bread maker.
Whatever you have or what is more convenient for you.
In a small bowl add the active dry yeast a warm milk, mix these together with a spoon
and leave for about 10 minutes to rise.
You can also add a half teaspoon of sugar here which will speed up the process.
We’ll need three cups or 375g of high grade, strong or bread flour.
Make sure you are using this type of flour instead of all purpose as it contains more
proteins which in turn will produce more gluten which is what makes the texture of bread quite
different to the texture of a cupcake.
You’ll notice I give the recipe amounts in metric and imperial so not matter where
you live in the world this recipe should be easy enough to follow.
If you would like the full recipe for these cinnamon buns it will be on my website as
well as the full measurements in the description box below.
To the flour, measure out a 1/4 cup or 30g of granulated white sugar.
This bread dough isn’t quite a brioche as we don’t want the flavour of the bread to
be to powerful but it is enriched with quite a few ingredients than what a standard white
bread is.
Measure out 1/2 a stick, 1/4 of a cup or about 55g of butter, salted or unsalted, and place
it into the bowl.
Make sure your butter is pretty soft so it will incorporate well into the bread dough.
You’re also going to need some salt, a little more if you’ve used unsalted butter.
Check on your yeast mixture, if it has foamed up and looks bubbly it’s ready to be used,
if it hasn’t you may need to give it a bit longer or your yeast may be out of date.
Pour it into the bowl with the other ingredients.
Lastly we’ll need need an egg.
Crack it into the bowl that was used for the yeast and whisk it up using a fork.
Pour it into the mixing bowl and we’re ready to combine the dough.
Either turn on your bread maker to the dough setting, turn your stand mixer on to low speed
or begin to mix the dough using a wooden spoon.
Let me know in the comments below if you’ve made bread recipes before or if working with
yeast makes you nervous.
Bread can take a few tries to get perfect and to really understand yeast but it’s
not too difficult.
A couple things to keep in mind is the temp of water or in this case milk you are using,
as well as making sure your yeast is in date and not expired.
The dough will take a few minutes to come together properly but once it does make sure
to check if it needs a little more flour or a little more moisture.
It’s hard with a bread dough for it to be exact every single time especially when you
are using an ingredient like eggs that do vary quite a bit in size as well as flour
which can have very different moisture contents.
You don’t want the dough to be sticking to the bowl, it may stick slightly to the
bottom, that’s fine but it shouldn’t be complete mess.
It should come together in a ball and be able to be touched without having a string of dough
form between the ball and your finger.
If it’s too wet add a few tablespoons of flour, giving it time to incorporate in before
you test again.
Again, you don’t want dry bits of dough at the bottom of the bowl, this would mean
it needs more moisture so add a tablespoon of water at a time until it’s about perfect.
The dough needs to be kneaded for around 10 minutes or until it becomes smooth and when
it’s lightly pressed it springs back.
When it’s at this stage, lightly oil a bowl so the dough doesn’t stick, shape it into
a ball and cover to leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour or so or until doubled
in volume.
This time can vary depending on the temperature so check after about 45 minutes.
While the dough is rising when can get started on the next part of the recipe, the filling
for the rolls.
There are two ways you can do this, mix up a paste or just sprinkle all of the ingredients
over.
I like to mix up a paste, I find this easier to spread as well as it makes sure all of
the ingredients are evenly distributed.
In a small bowl add your butter, you’ll need a stick, 110g or half a cup.
Make sure your butter is extremely soft as this will need to be spread.
If you’ve just gotten it out of the fridge you can melt it instead as it’ll have time
to firm up a little before we roll out the dough.
To the butter measure out 2 tablespoons of cinnamon and a cup of brown sugar.
You’ll also need a good pinch of salt if you are using unsalted butter.
I’m usually always using salted butter so I’m going to skip this step.
Use a spoon to mix the paste together, making sure all of the ingredients are really well
combined and leave it uncovered at room temp until it’s ready to be spread onto the dough.
When your dough has doubled in volume, flour a work surface and turn the dough out.
Knead it a few times, just to knock most of the air out.
If it’s sticking quite bad to your hands make sure to use a little more flour.
This dough recipe also works great for many different sweet breads like pull aparts, scrolls,
sticky buns and many more so if your thinking of trying something other than cinnamon rolls
you can also use this dough.
We want to roll it out into quite a large rectangle and this is easiest done using a
rolling pin, if you don’t have one a wine bottle actually does a pretty good job here
too.
We want it to be about 40 by 20cm or 15 by 10 inches, it helps if you’ve got a ruler
here as this is going to determine the size of our cinnamon rolls.
Of course it doesn’t need to be exact, just around this measurement.
I’m also using a dough scraper here just to define the corners a little more but you
can also use your hands.
Once you’re pretty happy with the shape, take your cinnamon and brown sugar paste and
add it on top of the dough.
Use a spatula and spread it over in an even layer.
If you’ve chosen to not make the paste, instead spread the butter over and then sprinkle
over the cinnamon and brown sugar.
Spread it out evenly, getting to all of the corners.
This is why it’s important that we have pretty soft butter to make this step as easy
as possible.
It may seem like you don’t have enough of the paste but we don’t want a thick layers
so keep spreading until your dough is evenly covered.
This is for basic cinnamon rolls but there are a couple of ways you can change it up
here or add something a little different.
One of my favourite additions is cubed up apples, they pair perfectly with the brown
sugar and cinnamon to make an apple type scroll with salted caramel sauce on top.
You could also raisins or sultanas, a few different spices, it’s completely up to
you.
Start with the longest side of your dough and begin to roll it as tightly as you can.
Start at one side, do a small section before moving along to try and get it as even as
possible.
We want to keep the roll pretty tight, this will just help your cinnamon rolls keep the
best shape, as well as keep all of the filling perfectly inside.
Don’t worry too much as you roll it if the side are looking a little uneven, just cut
those ends off.
We want 8 pieces so cut the roll in half, each half in half, and each of those halves
in half again to make 8.
There are a few tricks with using floss instead of a knife but these rolls still have to rise
so any dents will pretty much disappear so I’ve never found it worth it.
Place each of your rolls into a greased baking dish.
I’m using a 30 by 20 cm or a 11 by 8 inch but something similar will work perfectly.
Make sure to space them evenly as they will rise.
Cover the rolls and either place them somewhere warm for an hour or so or in the fridge overnight
if you are making these ahead of time.
After the cinnamon rolls have risen, they are ready to be baked.
If you put them in the fridge overnight, let them come up to room temperature for 30 mins
to an hour before putting them in the oven.
Bake the cinnamon rolls at 180C/350F for 25 minutes.
While the rolls are baking, quickly whip up the cream cheese glaze.
I wouldn’t skip this part, the rolls are delicious but they really do need this glaze.
In a medium sized bowl add the room temperature cream cheese and butter.
Using a hand mixer or a whisk, beat the butter and cream cheese together until soft.
You don’t need to whip it, just incorporate them together, making sure there are no lumps
of butter or cream cheese.
Add in the icing sugar or powdered sugar, these are the same thing just different names
depending on where you live in the world.
Use the mixer again to mix the sugar in, just enough until it’s incorporated.
Lastly you’ll need some vanilla extract and about a tablespoon or two of milk to thin
out the glaze depending on what consistency you would like.
You can have it quite thick or thin so it can be poured over.
It should be soft, smooth, tangy and sweet.
Remove the cinnamon rolls from the oven and leave them for about 5-10 minutes to cool
so they aren’t burning hot.
Spread the glaze over the top, watching it melt down the sides.
Alternativly you can serve the cinnamon rolls and let everyone spread over their own glaze.
These are best served warm, a few minutes out of the oven but they can be reheated if
you do have leftovers.
I hope you try out this recipe and send me photo, I would love to see a picture your
recreation.
Thank you for watching, I hope you enjoyed this recipe and I will see you in my next
video.