What I’m reading: The Panic Years & Masala Chai on Rosie Kellett’s wonderful Substack
What I’m listening to: Tom Odell on Table Manners
What I’m eating: dinner at Alma, Auckland - delicious Spanish food ft. the most enormous oysters I have seen in my life (below)
The cinnamon bun recipe test
Here’s a picture of a cinnamon bun recipe test I did in July 2022. I was working at the Happy Tummy Co in Westport, Ireland, at the time, and Karen (the owner) was kind enough to let me use the kitchen on my day off to do tremendously important and serious things - like bake 9 different cinnamon bun recipes in one day.
It was one of the more challenging recipe tests I’ve done, as I had to make 9 enriched leavened doughs, which required different lengths of time to prove - followed by 9 different fillings/glazes, each baked according to the specific recipe. In order to preserve my sanity, I introduced a few controls:
I shaped all in the same way - rolled up, cut into approx 2” rounds, placed into oiled metal rings (like these ones)
All had an overnight prove in the fridge and and a second ambient prove after being shaped
I would love to do more recipe tests like this - purely for fun (although I am invariably exhausted and hysterical by the end of the day), so let me know in the comments or in an Instagram message if there’s something in particular you’d like to see!
Here’s a little run down of my thoughts on each recipe, followed by some general notes, and finally, my own recipe.
Felicity Cloake: As usual, Felicity’s recipe was spot on - lovely texture, good filling, nice glaze
Buttermilk pantry: these were excellent. There was cream cheese in each of the three components so they were nice and tangy
Richard Snapes, Grant Harrington & Eve Hemingway (from the book “Bread and Butter”): nice dough and filling but IMHO could be greatly improved by a glaze instead of marmalade
Anna Brones & Johanna Kindvall (from the book “Fika”): lovely flavour but weirdly they didn’t prove that well - would recommend upping the yeast if trying this one (although they seemed to be the most authentic of the lot, so maybe the Swedish variation aren’t meant to be super soft and pillowy?)
Richard Bertinet: I liked these but the glaze wasn’t for me
Melissa Weller (from her book “A Good Bake”): I love Melissa and everything she does. 10/10 for dough, filling and glaze. Highly recommend buying her book and baking all the things
Dan Lepard: the filling in these was mad (crushed Ryvita??), only thing I would add (at the risk of sounding like a broken record) is a glaze
“Tastes of Lizzy T”: these came very highly recommended by the internet: they had cream poured over just before baking as well as an excellent cream cheese glaze - they seem to have a bit of a cult following and for good reason, very decadent, very yummy
Tangzhong
Tangzhong is a method used in Japanese baking where you pre-cook some of the flour and liquid to make a roux (like for Bechamel). It gelatinises the starches in the flour, making your dough kinda softer and springier, which I feel is the exact texture you want in a cinnamon bun. I’ve actually ended up incorporating a tangzhong into almost all enriched leavened doughs I make now. Even though it may seem like an unnecessary step, it’s actually a really quick and easy way of improving the consistency of your dough.
Glaze
I’ve been through several iterations of this glaze: it’s essentially a buttermilk glaze with a little salt and vanilla, which should be just thin enough to spread liberally over the buns while they’re still warm. I’ve tried a couple of cream cheese frostings too, but for me it’s just too much: this buttermilk glaze sets to a slightly fudgy texture, and complements the flavours perfectly, without distracting from the soft, pillowy dough.
Kneading
This dough is probably about 10 times easier to make with a stand mixer and hook attachment. That said, it is entirely possible to make it by hand. You just need a little elbow grease and a lot of patience - it will probably take 15+ minutes to reach full gluten development by hand. I recommend putting on a good playlist or podcast and really putting your back into it.
Filling
For a long time, I made the filling for my cinnamon buns with just the essentials: sugar, butter, cinnamon, a pinch of salt. The inclusion of Lotus (or speculaas) biscuits here, though, is a game changer. It adds some body and structure to the filling, and of course, more cinnamoniness (not a word but you get my gist). It also, along with the flour, helps to produce a sturdier filling, which means you can spread more of it on the dough - and it will stay put while baking, rather than running out the bottom of the buns as soon as the butter melts. Win-win.
Baking
I usually bake these in a “pull-apart” type situation: this recipe should fit 12 buns nicely in a 20x30cm baking tin. The picture above, however, used metal rings to achieve a neater result.
recipe: cinnamon buns w/buttermilk glaze
This recipe is the result of a lot of trial and even more error. Enriched leavened doughs are one of my favourite things to make, and these are perfect for weekend baking, as they have a fairly flexible schedule: make the dough in the evening, at your leisure - and then refrigerate overnight. Wake up approx 90 minutes before you want breakfast (it’s okay, you can go back to bed while they prove), and roll out and fill your buns. Prove for about an hour, bake and glaze - and impress all your friend with how effortless it all was.
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