About those cinnamon buns

[rikibeth]

Okay. So. eternaleponine has very few sacred holiday traditions, but one of them is Cinnamon Buns On Christmas Morning.

Her preferred cinnamon bun is Pillsbury. From the tube. Preferably the big ones. Cream cheese icing.

Well, all they had left at the store yesterday was Reduced Fat. And, as we all know, reduced fat packaged foods are hardly worth eating.

So I offered to set them up from scratch.

Now, in the past, whenever I've done cinnamon rolls in a commercial setting, they've been plain or pecan sticky buns, done from brioche dough. And usually they have enough napalm glaze that they don't get icing.

I was not about to do brioche dough at home. MAYBE I had enough butter and eggs in the house. Maybe I didn't. But I wasn't up for taking my "fills a 5 gallon bucket" recipe and trying to cut it down.

Also, while brioche sticky buns are very good, they aren't quite the right sort of cinnamon bun.

So I turned to my Joy of Cooking. And they suggested using the dough for Overnight Rolls. So I looked at that. And aside from calling for lard -- nope, but I've got vegetable shortening -- and 4 1/2 cups of flour -- no, we don't need THAT many cinnamon rolls, I cut everything in half -- it looked plausible enough.

The yeast I had in the freezer didn't proof very strongly. I went ahead anyway, figuring the long rise would take care of any problems.

Nope.

When I took it out of the fridge this morning, it hadn't done ANYTHING. Fail.

Disappointment was met with Boston Creme Doughnuts, and I left the bowl sitting on the kitchen table while we pursued Movie And Chinese Food. I wasn't ready to scrape it into the trash just yet.

Now, my house is not really very much warmer than a refrigerator. Oil is expensive, and shrink-wrapping the windows only does so much.

When we got back from the day's excursions, I took another peek at the dough. Hey! What about that? It had risen some!

It had risen slowly enough that I figured it'd probably still be active tomorrow morning. But eternaleponine is working one of her Saturday shifts tomorrow. So she convinced me to do it tonight.

Rolled it out, rolled it up, cut it into 12 pieces, stuck it in muffin tins with some brown sugar in the bottom. Let it proof while I did the dishes and made a little cream cheese icing. It didn't exactly look like it was proofing, but I haven't got a lovely temperature-and-humidity-controlled proof box in my kitchen, or even a deck oven running at 375 where I can park it on top to keep it warm. Best I could do was to sit it on the stove top while the oven was preheating. Stuck it in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes, just like the book said.

Oven spring!

Managed to turn them out onto some parchment without napalming my hands on the melted brown sugar. Failed at patience for the frosting. They are definitely not the world's most attractive cinnamon buns. They are not the most attractive ones I've ever made.

But we did, in the end, achieve something closely resembling a cinnamon bun.

I'd better put yeast on the shopping list.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

But we did, in the end, achieve something closely resembling a cinnamon bun.

YAAYY!! FTW!

[chocorua.livejournal.com]

My experience is limited to bread, but it goes back 40 years and rising speed has always been closely correlated with temperature - what rises in an hour at 75F takes ~2 hours at 60F etc. Glad you got something out of it after all...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely -- that's why a proof box with a thermostat on it is such a lovely thing, and why the temps of my artisan sponges were so specific when I worked at First and Last. But this dough CALLED for an overnight rise in the fridge! I think it was the attenuated yeast.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Go you!

We have a chilly and drafty place, even if we aen't dealing with New England temperatures, and whether the yeast was hale and hearty or not, getting it to prosper in cold weather can be a challenge. When stringwoman was in serious bread-baking mode in cold weather, she would stick the dough, inside a large covered container, into the bathroom to proof, as we could get that spot fairly toasty with a space heater.

I wonder what a heating pad would do.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

We have a couple of space heaters, stored in the basement, but I haven't been willing to use them because I know they'll drive up the electric bill. I'm sitting here in leggings under my flannel pants, and a thermal undershirt under my cashmere turtleneck and a blazer over it, AND a fleece blanket on my lap, and my hands are still pretty chilly.

And I have no electric heating pad. I use a hot water bottle for my feet at night, and [Unknown site tag] microwaves a rice pillow.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the light bill--our heater gets used for baths and showers only, because the urge to crank it up 9and to acquire its cousins and crank them up) all the damn time would break the bank, even if TVA has cut its rates to local utilities this year.

I have a heating pad somewhere, but it's pretty well hidden, what with one thing or another. We keep the beds warm with feline and canine units, which stay warm all night, although some of those units have a real knack for parking on the knee joints which is suboptimal over long periods.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

But we did, in the end, achieve something closely resembling a cinnamon bun.

Hurrah!

[soon_lee]

Hooray for the successful salvage.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Happy Holidays, Rikibeth!