18th April 2020
Despite baking lots and running a professional cake company I very rarely, if ever, bake anything bread related. I’ve seen recipes that look and sound incredible but as soon as I see the ingredient ‘yeast‘ I freak out and revert back to a good old brownie or chunky cookie – these are the types of things I can bake with my eyes closed!
For those of you who want to jump straight to the recipe, click here – Cinnamon Roll Recipe for Beginners
For those that don’t mind a bit of waffling, carry on!
I’m not sure why I get so freaked out by bread-type recipes. Possibly because I always think it’s so time consuming and there’s more chance of failure. I don’t deal very well with failed bakes and the last time I attempted something that went wrong I didn’t bake again for another week! Stubbornness is not my best quality…
So why now?
Well, very simply put, I have time! Time like I’ve never had before and whilst I absolutely cannot wait for life to return to some kind of normality after lockdown the silver lining in this, for me, is that I’m getting to do things I kept on putting off before. Maybe that’s an excuse, I’m not sure, but it’s working! There’s a brand new sourdough starter bubbling away in baking cupboard (he’s called De Vito) and the next, far more tricky bake, will be a good loaf of sourdough – watch this space!
My favourite baker
Because I had no idea where to get a good recipe from for Cinnamon Rolls I have a go-to baker whose recipes never fail and I suspect many of you will know of her – Cupcake Jemma! If you’re not familiar with Jemma she owns and runs Crumbs and Doilies in London and has an amazingly successful YouTube channel where you’ll pretty much find any recipe you can think of, she’s fantastic! I also find her videos really easy to follow and her instructions simple and clear.
Cinnamon rolls are easier to make than you think!
I only very slightly adapted this recipe and that was because I thought the dough was way too wet and it also looked different to how Jemma’s did on the video. Lack of experience in bread-based baking could also be at fault here, maybe it’s supposed to be as wet as it was, I’m not totally sure. I’m aware lots of factors could have affected this part of process (melted ingredients too warm, not as good flour or too warm a kitchen even). Who knows… Jemma uses 345g of plain flour and I upped mine to 385g and it was still sticky but easier to work with. I also swapped dark brown sugar for light brown sugar purely because that’s all I had, but it worked perfectly fine so I’d continue to use this when I bake them again.
Oh, and we don’t have cows milk at home so I swapped for Oat milk and it worked absolutely fine.
My boyfriend LOVES cinnamon rolls so I baked these quite early whilst he was still in bed, I know, perfect marriage material right… 😉 I was hoping they’d either be in the oven baking and the smell would be amazing to wake up to, or they’d be finished in time to enjoy with his coffee…but then I realised not everyone likes something sweet for the breakfast and I slowed down a little! ha-ha.
How do they bake?
Perfect, literally perfect! I felt so proud, it was nice. I knew they were going to be good the moment I poked one as soon as it came out the oven. Soft, fluffy, full of flavour and delicious when a little bit warm or completely cooled.
Cinnamon Rolls Recipe
Prep Time
25 minutes
Cook Time
25 minutes
Additional Time
1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time
2 hours 20 minutes
Ingredients
For the Dough…
- 385g plain flour
- 60g caster sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 7g instant yeast
- 120 ml water
- 60ml milk (Oat milk works good too)
- 45g butter
- 1 egg
For the filling…
- 70g soft butter
- 1.5 tbsp cinnamon
- 60g light soft brown sugar
For the glaze…
- 120g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp milk
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
For the Dough
- In a large mixing bowl, (I used a stand mixer but you could do this by hand too), add your flour, caster sugar, salt and instant yeast and give a brief stir to combine.
- In a separate small bowl add your water, milk and butter and melt. I melted mine in the microwave for 40 seconds and this was fine. You don’t want it too hot, just melted. Add to your dry ingredients, make sure you’re using the dough hook attachment and mix on a slow-speed for around 20 seconds. If you’re mixing by hand a wooden spoon or spatula will be absolutely fine.
- Add your egg and turn up the speed slightly until everything is incorporated and the dough is coming away from the sides of the bowl.
- Flour your worktop – generously! Tip out the dough either using a spatula or a dough scraper if you have one and start to knead. I like the pull, stretch and turn method the most. Take your time, it will be sticky but eventually everything will come together in a nice neat smooth round ball.
- Pop your dough into a lightly greased bowl, lay a clean tea towel over the top and put aside to rest for 15 minutes.
- Whilst the dough is resting you can make your cinnamon filling. Add the soft butter, sugar and cinnamon into a bowl and mix up until a smooth paste is formed then set aside.
- Now it’s time for the fun part! Flour your worktop again and take your dough out its bowl. Using a floured rolling pin roll the dough out into a large rectangle shape.
- Spread your sugar and cinnamon mix across the whole sheet of dough, I stayed around 1.5cm away from the edges.
- Now you need to roll everything up into a nice sausage shape. I started at the side closest to me and stayed quite tight. Once you have the first roll or two done, the rest is simple.
- Slice into sections around 4cm wide and then place in your dish of choice (an 8″ or 10″ sized dish/tin will work perfect), making sure you leave room between each roll to double in size. Cover with tin foil and put somewhere warm. I popped mine into the airing cupboard where I knew it was warm after having the hot water on. 🙂
- Leave to prove for 90 minutes then remove from your warm spot and Bake for 25 minutes at 170°fan/190 convection/375°F – check at 15 minutes and if they’re looking a bit too brown pop the foil back on and leave to bake for the remaining 10 minutes.
For the Glaze
- Make the glaze whilst your cinnamon rolls are baking as it’s best to add this as soon as they come out the oven still hot.
- Pop the icing sugar, milk, salt and vanilla into a bowl and hand mix up, this takes no longer than a minute and should be thick but still a little runny. Once your cinnamon rolls are baked you can spoon this over them and spread with a spatula letting it fall between the cracks.
Notes
On my second batch I flavoured my glaze with orange extract. Once I added to the baked cinnamon rolls I also sprinkled over some grated dark chocolate – it worked SO well!
Jemma’s video is here:
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