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Cinnamon Buns - 12 rolls Recipe by Bill Howard, www.ivorydigits.com
Dough
This recipe makes a loose dough. You will need extra flour for kneading and rolling out the dough. Loose dough means sticky and very soft. There is a certain amount of patience in acquiring a comfortable ability to work easily with a loose dough. By the fifth time making these delicious buns, you will have that comfortable confidence. And then there are the smiles from everyone enjoying these sweet soft delectables.
Prepare a bake pan. You can use a 9x12 bake pan, or bake sheet or a cookie sheet. Spray with a vegetable no stick spray or lightly oil, or, my favorite, lay parchment paper (no oil needed). Clean up is way more easier with a parchment lining.
Place a 1/2 cup of water, nice and warm to the touch into the big mixing bowl.
Sprinkle a packet of active dry yeast over the water.
Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over the yeast.
Beat one egg in a separate bowl just enough to get it all mixed up uniformly.
Melt a half stick of butter, not too hot.
Add ½ cup of whole milk. Check temp with your finger. Should be nice and warm, not hot.
Add ¼ cup of sugar.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt.
Stir in the egg from above and dissolve the sugar.
The yeast should have woken up by now and be a little frothy. Stir it up to dissolve.
Pour the other liquid mixture into the yeast.
Add 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour.* Mix thoroughly and knead lightly. Again, this dough is loose and soft. You will need extra flour. Put the dough back into the bowl, cover, and let rest while making the cinnamon spread, make some coffee or tea and relax moment.
The Spread
Mix 2/3 cups light brown sugar with 2 teaspoons cinnamon.
After the dough has had a moment to relax and rise for awhile, roll it(or pat it) out to a rectangle of about 12”x18”. Spread the cinnamon spread over the dough leaving about ½ inch exposed on one of the 12” wide ends. Roll the dough beginning from the opposite 12” end. Slice the roll into 12 equal slices and place evenly on the baking sheet or pan.
Cover and let the buns rise until about double in bulk. If you want to speed things up a bit, warm up the oven, set at the lowest temperature possible but just long enough to make it nice and warm inside but not hot. Place a pan of hot water in the lower rack then the pan of buns on the upper rack.
Once the buns have bulked up, take out of the oven if that is where you let them rise. Preheat the over to 350F. Bake until nice and brown. The time it takes will depend if you are using a cookie sheet: 12 minutes; a bake pan where they are touching each other: 18 minutes; a 9x12 pan: 25 minutes. Let cool for bit. Mix the icing and coat at will.
Icing
1/2 cup Confectionary sugar. 1 teaspoon vanilla and 4 teaspoons milk or water.
*Flour measurement in dry form is always in the light and fluffy sifted style. 4 cups of sifted flour is 1 pound. If you measure without sifting, be careful, you may end up with more flour and a stiffer dryer dough and less soft, dry buns.