Cinnamon Rolls!

[Mike Nolan]

Who doesn't love cinnamon rolls? Here's a topic for talking about them.

I also moved a number of recent posts on cinnamon rolls to this topic.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made more bread this week. It's become very sour, some of which might be the starter (although it doesn't taste that sour) and some of which may be the length of time it is resting. I may need to shorten it all up.

I also tried making cinnamon rolls. Not sure how to ice the tops. And my shaping/forming/cutting needs some work but, as I said, it's a first attempt.

[Mike Nolan]

There was an article on the net a while back that had you spread the filling on the dough (using a paste made with softened butter, sugar and cinnamon) and cut them into strips before rolling them up. I've done that a few times, it takes longer but it does make for somewhat more consistently shaped rolls. I also prefer making a paste, its easier to spread on evenly.

I bought an adjustable 7-wheel pastry cutter, even if you only use it to score the dough into portions and cut it with a sharp knife or bench scraper it makes for more evenly sized rolls.

I've tried the dental floss method of cutting the rolls it seems too complicated to me. A good sharp bench scraper with a fast stroke works best for me.

[Mike Nolan]

I seldom bother to frost cinnamon rolls, but when I do, I use a cream cheese frosting. The classic ratio is 1/2 cup of butter for 8 ounces of cream cheese, but I think that makes the butter flavor too dominant, so I use about half that. I think a few drops of milk makes it spread more easily.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the tips on prepping cinnamon rolls, Mike. I wish I'd talked to you before I made them.

Cream cheese frosting is a no-go in my house as 40% of the people do not like it. I was thinking either caramel or a light confectioner's sugar/lemon glaze.

Next time!

[Mike Nolan]

For me the hardest part of making cinnamon rolls is getting the roll to stay consistent end-to-end and not have both ends look like a spiral-shaped ice cream cone. I find holding a pastry blade along an edge as I roll it up, first one side a bit then the other, helps keep the edge lined up.

Sometimes the middle still looks like a snake that swallowed a couple of big rats, though.

I make something similar to a burnt sugar frosting, though I find the taste is more subtle if I use Lyle's Golden Syrup instead of making burnt sugar syrup, it'd make an interesting icing for cinnamon rolls, with some caramel flavor notes. When I put it on a yellow cake, everybody asks what the flavor is. (But most of them don't know what Lyle's Golden Syrup is, either.)

Penuche frosting would be good on cinnamon rolls, too.

[BakerAunt]

Navlys--I saw that recipe, and I thought: all that work for ONE loaf? That's one recipe I will not be tearing out of the catalog to save!

Aaron--I have taken to sprinkling a cinnamon sugar mixture onto my sweet roll dough before rolling it up. I do not butter the dough or use melted butter on it, as I think that the butter makes the filling run out. (I got that from Bernard Clayton's bread book.) The King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book has a wonderful all whole wheat cinnamon roll recipe that uses egg white in the filling, and that one is spread onto the dough. Unlike Mike, I'm a devotee of the dental floss method. The trick is to get it under the dough, then cross above it, and cut.

I make a simple glaze of 1 cup powdered sugar (sift after measuring), 1-2 Tbs. milk, and 1/4 tsp. vanilla. I let the sweet rolls cool for 15-20 minutes before I put it on.

[Mike Nolan]

Has anyone tried an old-fashioned wire cheese slicer for cutting cinnamon rolls?

Jimmy Griffin's Youtube page has a new video of his 8.5 kg two meter long Conger sourdough loaf. Not that any of us have an oven it would fit into. But the shaping, rising and scoring steps are interesting to watch.

[Mike Nolan]

Another interesting filling for rolls using egg whites would be the butterscotch filling in this recipe for Kringle. I've used it for Kringle and for Danish, you could increase the cinnamon amount and use it for cinnamon rolls.

See https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/kringle-recipe0-1941189

[BakerAunt]

Mike--I'm going to look through my boxes of kitchen implements. I think that somewhere I have an old cheese slicer. That would be worth a try.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA and Mike - both the cheese slicer and dental floss are worth trying. We have dental floss but I do not think we have a cheese slicer. I used a bench knife this time which was handy because I could cut then scrape and place it in the pan. This is what the bakeries I've been in have done but they also make a couple dozen a day. When you do something that often you work out a system to become consistent with whatever tool you're using.

I have a few ideas from you both for fillings to try. I need to make them more and that means I need someone to give them to, especially as we only have Sam with us for another couple days before he is back off to college.

There are no eggs in this recipe. After tinkering around with a bunch of different ones I used my recipe for schnecken. I made them a few months ago and had some extra which I used to make cinnamon rolls (Violet's suggestion).

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--my sweet roll dough recipe comes from the "Snails" sweet roll recipe that was a signature recipe of my husband's aunt, who got it from a friend with a Scandinavian last name. I have wondered if these were originally the Scandinavian sweet roll that is split and filled with cream before the glaze.

[Mike Nolan]

Cinnamon rolls freeze very well. I've been making them using a tangzhong dough recently, it makes about 18 of them and I freeze them in bags of 2.

Snails (or schnecken in German) seems to be a common name for products that are rolled up into a spiral.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, I think our schnecken are probably cousins. They are a German Jewish treat for the New Year. Mom's recipe came from the Settlement Cookbook, which, sadly, fell apart in my hands as we were cleaning out my parents' house. So it has been lost to the ages. I can probably find a copy somewhere.

My recipe comes from a Jewish baking book from a Canadian Jewish baker and is very similar to my mom's. They're baked in muffin tins. First a brown sugar/butter/cinnamon mixture (similar to the filling) is put in the muffin tins. Then the rolled, cut dough is placed in the cups on top of the mixture which turns liquid in the oven. When they're done baking and flipped out of the tin, the part that was in the tin is the top and is coated with the liquified sugar/butter/cinnamon. And the dough has expanded into the tin so they do have a shell like shape.

Oh, and traditionally they (and my mom's always did) have nuts. Mom used walnuts.

[BakerAunt]

I think that we should have had a separate Cinnamon Rolls Thread, as we have confused Chocomouse who posted this week's baking in this (last week's) thread. [Been there, done that.]

Aaron--I have posted the recipe(s) in the recipe section. None says how much the recipe makes, I'm thinking A LOT, since most involve 8 cups of flour!

[Author]

Posts