yesterday's super-fluffy cinnamon rolls
Aug. 21st, 2021 10:00 amYesterday was a research and baking day, and I posted photos of one of my baking projects to FB, which caused ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aryanhwy to ask for the recipe. Having just typed it up for her, I will post it here, too.
Super Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls
The night before (just before bedtime):
Put a cup of flour, some yeast, and a cup of water into a glass bowl, stir, cover with a damp cloth, and then put a plate over it (to keep the cloth from drying too fast). Let it sit overnight.
The next morning:
Mix ¼ cup milk powder with a little cold water, then stir in enough hot water to make two cups liquid. Add a heaping tablespoon of honey and a pinch of salt.
Stir in 1/3 cup butter (sliced thinly if it isn’t soft), and two eggs into the flour/water/yeast mix, and add the milk mix.
Add 1 cup of oat flour and enough (I didn't measure it, but might be between 6 and 8 cups flour??) white (wheat) flour to make a bread dough that is neither sticky nor dry, kneading it well.
Butter the bowl, put the dough in, turning it to get butter on every side, then cover with a damp cloth and the plate and let rise a couple of hours.
Punch the dough down, knead briefly, turn over, and let it rise again for another hour or so.
Mix 75 g butter with ~1 tablespoon of cinnamon powder and ¼ teaspoon of sugar till soft, creamy, and uniformly dark.
Break off a good-sized chunk of dough (around 2 cups???), knead it briefly, roll it out to a rectangle not more than 1 cm thick (but at least 0.5 cm).
Spread the spiced butter over the rectangle, roll into a log, pinch the seam shut to seal, and set it seam side down and roll the log gently back and forth to convince it to maintain its shape.
Take a length of dental floss, slide it under the log, about 1.5 to 2 cm from the end, and draw the ends towards one another to slice the log with uniform pressure from all sides at once (so that you don’t get flattened slices).
Set the rounds on a baking tray in rows, spaced about 2 cm from one another, and each row offset from the one before so that the distance between every round is the same in all directions.
Brush the tops with melted butter. Knead the remaining dough briefly, and return to the bowl, covered till you have the energy to start the pizza (alternatively, make more spiced butter and do more logs of rolls).
An hour after shaping the rolls, when they have risen enough that some of them are just barely starting to come into contact with one or more of their neighbours, brush them generously again with melted butter (since there are now cracks in the first coat of butter) and go back to writing that paper for another 1.5 hours.
Then brush the rolls, which are bigger now, with more butter, and then make a broccoli pie* with the remaining dough.
When the pie is done baking, finally bake the by-now quite huge rolls (I used 150 C in an oven with a fan), brushing them again with butter at about half way, and again at about ¾ way through baking, and again when they come out of the oven, after they just start to turn golden, but haven’t dried out yet.
The result is amazingly soft and fluffy, and it is a perfect project for a research day, when you need an excuse for the occasional break, but have something to keep you busy while waiting for the yeast to have its party in the dough.
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*Bonus recipe: broccoli pie
Grate the stems of two fresh, local, heads of broccoli and chop the flower ends into bite-sized pieces. Mix with 440 g tomato paste, a bit of water (used to rinse out the jar), and spices to taste (I used powdered garlic and onion, pepper, rosemary, basil, marjoram, thyme, oregano, coriander powder, and nutmeg) plus a spoonful of dried nettles. This made four cups of filling.
Roll 2 cups of bread dough out thin and line a large ceramic pie plate with it, cover with the veg mix, then roll out 2 more cups of bread dough and cover the pie. roll the dough edges in and pinch them shut to make a pretty frame and poke some air hols in the crust with a sharp knife (feel free to do a pretty pattern). Brush with butter and bake promptly at 150 C. After a few minutes take it out, brush the top with butter again, and put it in the oven. Repeat with more butter brushings as often as you feel for, until the pie is done. Set it aside to rest while you bake the cinnamon rolls, brushing the pie with more butter as needed every time you notice that it has fully absorbed the last batch.
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If you have any dough left after shaping the pie, make some plain rolls (I had enough to do six plain rolls, with 1/4 cup dough each), brush them with butter, and let them rise till everything else is done baking).
If you don't have enough people at home to eat the rolls promptly, freeze them, and enjoy later by thawing them in the microwave for 30 seconds.
aryanhwy to ask for the recipe. Having just typed it up for her, I will post it here, too.Super Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls
The night before (just before bedtime):
Put a cup of flour, some yeast, and a cup of water into a glass bowl, stir, cover with a damp cloth, and then put a plate over it (to keep the cloth from drying too fast). Let it sit overnight.
The next morning:
Mix ¼ cup milk powder with a little cold water, then stir in enough hot water to make two cups liquid. Add a heaping tablespoon of honey and a pinch of salt.
Stir in 1/3 cup butter (sliced thinly if it isn’t soft), and two eggs into the flour/water/yeast mix, and add the milk mix.
Add 1 cup of oat flour and enough (I didn't measure it, but might be between 6 and 8 cups flour??) white (wheat) flour to make a bread dough that is neither sticky nor dry, kneading it well.
Butter the bowl, put the dough in, turning it to get butter on every side, then cover with a damp cloth and the plate and let rise a couple of hours.
Punch the dough down, knead briefly, turn over, and let it rise again for another hour or so.
Mix 75 g butter with ~1 tablespoon of cinnamon powder and ¼ teaspoon of sugar till soft, creamy, and uniformly dark.
Break off a good-sized chunk of dough (around 2 cups???), knead it briefly, roll it out to a rectangle not more than 1 cm thick (but at least 0.5 cm).
Spread the spiced butter over the rectangle, roll into a log, pinch the seam shut to seal, and set it seam side down and roll the log gently back and forth to convince it to maintain its shape.
Take a length of dental floss, slide it under the log, about 1.5 to 2 cm from the end, and draw the ends towards one another to slice the log with uniform pressure from all sides at once (so that you don’t get flattened slices).
Set the rounds on a baking tray in rows, spaced about 2 cm from one another, and each row offset from the one before so that the distance between every round is the same in all directions.
Brush the tops with melted butter. Knead the remaining dough briefly, and return to the bowl, covered till you have the energy to start the pizza (alternatively, make more spiced butter and do more logs of rolls).
An hour after shaping the rolls, when they have risen enough that some of them are just barely starting to come into contact with one or more of their neighbours, brush them generously again with melted butter (since there are now cracks in the first coat of butter) and go back to writing that paper for another 1.5 hours.
Then brush the rolls, which are bigger now, with more butter, and then make a broccoli pie* with the remaining dough.
When the pie is done baking, finally bake the by-now quite huge rolls (I used 150 C in an oven with a fan), brushing them again with butter at about half way, and again at about ¾ way through baking, and again when they come out of the oven, after they just start to turn golden, but haven’t dried out yet.
The result is amazingly soft and fluffy, and it is a perfect project for a research day, when you need an excuse for the occasional break, but have something to keep you busy while waiting for the yeast to have its party in the dough.
****************************
*Bonus recipe: broccoli pie
Grate the stems of two fresh, local, heads of broccoli and chop the flower ends into bite-sized pieces. Mix with 440 g tomato paste, a bit of water (used to rinse out the jar), and spices to taste (I used powdered garlic and onion, pepper, rosemary, basil, marjoram, thyme, oregano, coriander powder, and nutmeg) plus a spoonful of dried nettles. This made four cups of filling.
Roll 2 cups of bread dough out thin and line a large ceramic pie plate with it, cover with the veg mix, then roll out 2 more cups of bread dough and cover the pie. roll the dough edges in and pinch them shut to make a pretty frame and poke some air hols in the crust with a sharp knife (feel free to do a pretty pattern). Brush with butter and bake promptly at 150 C. After a few minutes take it out, brush the top with butter again, and put it in the oven. Repeat with more butter brushings as often as you feel for, until the pie is done. Set it aside to rest while you bake the cinnamon rolls, brushing the pie with more butter as needed every time you notice that it has fully absorbed the last batch.
****************************
If you have any dough left after shaping the pie, make some plain rolls (I had enough to do six plain rolls, with 1/4 cup dough each), brush them with butter, and let them rise till everything else is done baking).
If you don't have enough people at home to eat the rolls promptly, freeze them, and enjoy later by thawing them in the microwave for 30 seconds.