The autumn season may almost be over but it’s not quite there yet… Just before everything gets super festive and holiday themed/flavoured, why not enjoy the pumpkin season for just a little longer?
Today I’m sharing my recipe for a batch of pumpkin spice rolls – these are light and pillowy soft buns, filled with a spiced pumpkin filling (which tastes so good). All in all, if you like cinnamon rolls or similar – this is the recipe for you.
As mentioned above, these rolls are made with an enriched dough, which basically means the dough contains butter and eggs, which help too enrich the dough and make it as soft and pillowy as possible. To increase the tenderness of the bread, I have incorporated some pumpkin puree into the dough – pumpkin is great as acting as a egg replacement but thats not what we are using it for on this occasion, we are using it to further enrich the dough and add another level of tenderness to the bread. It will really show in the end results.
I won’t lie, this has been one of my favourite things to make this far during 2022 – probably because its so closely similar to my favourite baked good, the humble cinnamon roll,
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
Bread:
500g strong white bread flour.
8g salt.
10g dried yeast.
75g butter, at room temperature.
75g granulated sugar (you could swap this for brown sugar, if you’d like).
15g milk powder.
1 tsp ground cinnamon.
1 egg.
50g pumpkin puree (homemade or store bought will work well).
100-125ml water.
Filling:
200g light brown sugar.
200g butter.
1-2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice.
Up to 100g pumpkin puree.
Icing:
85g soft cheese.
60g butter.
200g icing sugar.
1 tsp vanilla extract.
Decoration:
Dash of ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice.
or
autumnal themed sprinkles.
Method:
Before you get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep work. I like to start by weighing up all of my ingredients, then getting any equipment I may need such as a stand mixer, mixing bowl and a spatial ready – now is also the perfect time to take your 9×13 inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper.
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 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 today 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 soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.
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