18 December, 2015
Cinnamon buns
First of all, unlike most of my posts, this is not a recipe to use on a weekday evening, when you want to put together something quick, while waiting for your guests to arrive. It’s not difficult, but a cake made with yeast needs time to rise. I often heard people saying that yeast cake is so difficult to make and really, no bother, it will end up flat and not at all as it should be. Actually, I think I heard it only from Polish, we must be having some special complex on this or something!
So once again, making a cake with real yeast is not difficult, provided you follow these simple rules:
- Don’t soak the yeast with hot milk (or they may end up dead)
- Let your mixer prove why you paid for it so much – let it work the dough thoroughly (or you can do it by hand, it’s possible, my grandmother Bronka used to say that you need to work it long enough for the walls to start to sweat (I am sure you will notice when it happens), I however prefer to use the electric mixer…)
- Give the dough lots of time to rise at room temperature
And results are guaranteed!
So having some free time around Christmas, this is something you can do. And serve it, the American way, for breakfast on Christmas Day, to eat while opening the presents (unless according to the Polish tradition, all the gifts were already distributed on the Christmas Eve).
Ingredients
Dough
- 650g flour
- 1 sachet dry yeast
- 240 ml milk
- 75 g butter
- 70g sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 eggs
Cinnamon sauce:
- 240g brown sugar
- 50g flour
- 1.5 tbs cinnamon
- 160g butter
- 1 tbs sour cream
Instructions
- Mix half flour with dry yeast.
- Heat the milk, butter, sugar and salt, until the butter melts.
- Slowly add the liquid to the flour while mixing (preferably with an electric mixer with a wire whip).
- Add eggs, one by one, while mixing. Continue mixing for 1-2 more minutes.
- Change the wire whip to a dough hook (or just get your muscles ready I work the dough with your hands), adding the rest of the flour until the dough is smooth and flexible, around 3 to 5 minutes>
- Place the dough is a greased bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let it rest in a warm place for around an hour, the dough should rise to twice its original size.
- Place the dough on a flat surface covered with flour, cover with a kitchen towel an let it rest 10 minutes.
- In the meantime prepare the cinnamon sauce: melt the butter in a small pot, add all the other ingredients (except cream) and mix it. Set aside to cool.
- Roll out the dough to 1 cm thickness (or less), cover with the sauce.
- Roll it into a tube and cut into pieces 1 – 1,5 cm thick.
- Place or a greased pan leaving around 1 cm space inbetween them.
- Cover with foil and let it rise 1 to 24 hours in the fridge, but the last 30 minutes the buns should spend in room temperature.
- Using a brush, paint the top of the buns with cream and place in an oven heated up to 180°C.
- Bake for around 25 minutes.
