Cinnamon Rolls

Today I’ll be showing you how to make cinnamon rolls, my personal favourite baked good!

October is my birthday month, so I thought I’d make a few of my favourite baked goods – starting with this week’s recipe for cinnamon rolls.

These are easily my favourite baked good, it starts with a fluffy bread dough which is filled a cinnamon brown sugar filling and once baked, topped with a cream cheese icing. If you think the store-bought ones were good, wait until you try these.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

 

Bread:

500g Strong white bread flour.

8g Salt.

50g Fresh yeast.

75g Butter.

75g Granulated sugar.

15g Milk powder.

1 Egg,

175ml Water (Luke warm).

 

Cinnamon Filling:

250g Light brown sugar.

250g Butter.

25g Ground cinnamon.

 

Cream Cheese Icing:

85g Soft cheese.

60g Butter.

200g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

 

Methods:

Before you get into any baking, you’ll want to do some prep work first. Take the time to weigh up all the ingredients, lightly oil a bowl and get any equipment ready. When the time comes, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

Bread:

To start on the bread dough, place the bread flour and salt into a bowl and give it a good mix to incorporate the two together.

 

Then place the remaining ingredients into the bowl, then mix them all together on a medium-low speed until a dough has formed. The dough should be soft, if it’s sticky, add a little flour.

 

Flour the work surface with a generous amount of bread flour and place the dough onto it. Knead the dough until the dough is smooth and elasticated. This takes around 5-7 minutes, depending on how well mixed it was in the first place.

Place the dough into the lightly oiled bowl, cover the bowl with cling-film and allow to proof/prove for around 60 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

 

While the dough is proving, you can make the cinnamon sugar filling. Into a bowl, place the butter, light brown sugar and cinnamon into a mixing bowl.

 

Beat all the ingredients together until they are all well combined, they should come together and form a cinnamony-brown coloured spreadable paste.

 

Once the dough has completed its first proof/prove, you’ll want to generously flour your worktop and place the dough onto it. You can then knock the dough back, this is just the process of removing the gases that had built up.

 

Now the dough has been knocked back, onto a floured worktop, bring the dough into a ball shape and start to roll the dough out using a rolling pin. The dough may resist being rolled out, this is a sign that the gluten has formed, this is a good sign. You’ll want to roll the dough out to roughly 40cm x 60cm.

 

Take the cinnamon sugar filling and spread it all over the dough, until you have a generous and level amount spread on the dough.

 

Take the long side of dough (the one nearest you) and start to roll it up. Start by rolling around 2cm of the dough into the first roll and then just continue the rolling until you’ve fully rolled the dough. Make sure that you keep each roll of the dough tight.

 

Slice the dough at around 1 inch for each roll. Do this for all your rolls.

 

Place the rolls into a deep sided tray, my first tray I got 6 into it but you may be able to get more-or-less depending on the size of your tray.

Cover the tray/s with cling film and allow to double in size. Prove for around 30-45 minutes – these will batch while baking, this is normal.

Bake in your preheated oven at 180˚c/350˚f for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

While your cinnamon rolls are baking in the oven, it’s the perfect time to make the cream cheese icing which will top the rolls.

Into your mixing bowl of choice, place the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Beat together on a medium-high speed until all of the ingredients have become fully combined.

 

Once you have been mixing the cream cheese icing together for around 4-5 minutes, you should notice that the mixture goes from a yellowish colour to a lighter yellow but more white colour and should be much lighter and fluffier in consistency.

 

Set the cream cheese icing aside until its needed later.

Now that the cinnamon buns are baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool down, almost fully before you finish them off.

Once the cinnamon rolls are almost cooled down, you can start to add the cream cheese icing on to the buns. I start with a little on each and adding more as its needed – add as much as you’d like.

 

Then to finish the rolls, you’ll want to give them a light dusting of some ground cinnamon. This is optional but I really like cinnamon, so why not?

 

Well, that’s how you make cinnamon rolls my way. They are (fairly?) quick and easy to make, which makes them that bit more enjoyable. If you make too many, bake them off, then wrap them with some cling film and place into the freezer. You can keep the rolls in the freeze for up to 3 months, just make fresh cream cheese icing when you take them out.

 

That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below.