Lifestyle
The cinnamon bun is perfect for holiday baking but there are simpler variations that can be tried anytime
Updated : Oct 22, 2011, 10:15 PM IST
It’s an early holiday morning. Sleepy-eyed, you sneak out of bed into the kitchen. The only sound you can hear is the soft whirr of the refrigerator.
You pull out the tray of cinnamon buns from the refrigerator and then jump back into bed for about an hour and a half or so. That’s just the amount of time the dough needs before it meets its fate in the oven. Another thirty minutes of baking, and the whole house is redolent with a sweet, warm, cinnamon rich smell.
It’s a smell that you always want your house to be enveloped in, a smell that was worth the break in your sleep. The oven timer goes off, you pull out the tray to be greeted by golden-hued spirals of sweet buns. It’s time to summon the family and share cinnamon buns over coffee.
Making cinnamon buns is no big feat. It takes as much active time as, say, cupcakes. The inactive time is spent either waiting for the dough to rise or for the buns to bake in the oven (You do know that poking into the dough in anticipation is not counted as active time?) It probably feels like a lot of work because of all the expectation that builds while you wait, that you can’t think of anything else but how the dough will transform into cinnamon clouds of heaven.
There are two types of cinnamon buns you can make. The flaky, almost pastry like (the kind you get at Cinnabon) or the ones made with dough that’s enriched with milk, eggs and sugar — a poorer cousin of the brioche. The latter is simpler and one that I have baked many times. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you won’t need to wait for a holiday to bake. Also, you can use the same dough to make dinner rolls, the Jewish Challah or the Babka.
The first time I tried a cinnamon bun recipe, I went all out — piping hot sugar syrup to make caramel and a hunt for pecans around the city to make sticky cinnamon buns — caramel coated and spotted with bits of toasted pecans. That was dessert for breakfast.
Other variations worth a shot include: nuts and raisins rolled into the filling, cream cheese icing spooned over the buns or a generous amount of fig jam spread on the dough before rolling.
Cinnamon Bun Recipe
Ingredients
Dough: 1/4 cup warm water l1 tsp instant yeast l60g sugar l3/4 cup milk l100g butter l 3 large egg yolks l 500g flour
Filling:100g demerara l1 tbsp ground cinnamon l100g unsalted butter