Recipe: Lazy-Woman's Cinnamon Buns

Ok so I will start by saying the recipe title is slightly mis-leading. Yes, this recipe is arguably easier than cinnamon buns (but you probably shouldn't take my word for it, I've never made homemade cinnamon buns). But, just because the title says 'Lazy-Woman's' doesn't mean its as easy as whipping some pillsbury rolls out onto the cookie sheet. If homemade buns were on one side of a continuum and pillsbury rolls on the other, I would put this recipe more towards the homemade buns.

With that disclaimer I shall move forward. It was great to have a helping hand in the kitchen this past Saturday! A.H, a good friend since WAY before high school, came to visit and she leant me her helpful hand on this recipe!

I was first introduced to the recipe by another friend via facebook. Here is the inspiring recipe: Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread who borrowed it from these guys

Ingredients 


Dough:
2 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp. (or 1 envelope) instant dry yeast
2 large eggs, at room temp and beaten
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling:
1 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup butter

Directions

1. Attach the dough hook to stand mixer
2. In your stand mixer bowl, whisk together 2 cups of the flour with the sugar, yeast, and salt. Attach the mixer bowl to the mixer. 
3. In a medium sized bowl melt the butter then mix in the milk, water and vanilla extract 
4. Pour the butter/milk mixture in with the flour mixture. Turn stand mixer on to Speed 2
5. Add beaten eggs and continue to mix, increasing to Speed 4
6. With the mixer set between Speed 4 and 6, allow the mixer to kneed dough for approx. 5 minutes or until the dough is well mixed and slightly sticky to the touch
7. Remove the ball of dough from the bowl. Pour about 1 tsp of oil (such as canola or vegetable oil) into the bowl. Place the dough ball back in and turn to coat all over. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit in a draft free place to rise for 1 hour
8. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to create a rectangle about 30 x 50 cm
9. To prepare filling, mix together sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium sized bowl
10. In a small bowl, melt butter. Brush the surface of the dough with the melted butter then pour the sugar mixture evenly over the surface of the buttered dough
11. Cut the dough, either horizontally or vertically into 6 even strips then stack strips on top of one another. This was harder than it initially sounded. With our strips cut horizontally there was 50 cm of soft, sugary dough to lift off the hopefully well floured surface and onto the adjacent strip. With our 4 hands and 2 spatulas we were able to accomplish the task!
12. Once stacked, cut stacks into 6 sqaures (see the photo below for a visual)
13. Grease 2 loaf pans. Taking one stack of dough strips at a time, place in the pans so they are oriented vertically or, in other words, standing in the loaf pans like books lining a shelf (again, see the picture). Any dough that does not fit in the first pan you can bake in the second pan as your taste-tester batch.
14. Place a kitchen towel over the pans and let the dough sit for 30-45 minutes. Lesson of the day: read recipe instructions! (duh.) We didn't do this at all. But our dough turned out ok. I wonder if it would have made any difference?
15. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes or until the top is browned. 
16. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15-20 minutes before removing from the pans. Note: You want to remove the bread from the pans before the melted sugar has time to stick. 

Recipe in Photos

Egg mixture on the left, butter/milk mixture on the right

Combine flour mixture into stand mixer bowl

After the dough has been kneeded, it is set to rise

The dough rolled out. We rolled it out on a large cutting board which helped when it came to cutting as well as clean up

The sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg mixture - Yes, you put it ALL on the dough

stacked strips of sugary dough, cut into squares

Dough in loaf pan

 

Lessons Learned

• A friend in kitchen is worth more then just the 2 extra hands - loved the time together with AH
• Read recipe instructions a few times. Its amazing what you miss when you dont read things carefully. Like apparently the eggs were supposed to be room temperature and apparently the pans were supposed to sit before baking....who knew.... not us :)
• I think I over baked my bread. It was hard on top and difficult to pull apart sometimes but it was tasty!
• This bread keeps well for a few days. You know how much better cinnamon buns taste when you warm them up? Well same here. Pop a few pieces in a toaster oven for about 5-10 minutes and enjoy!

I give this recipe the highest whisk rating because I would not have tired it without my stand mixer. That being said, I do not believe the stand mixer is absolutely 100% necessary for the recipe.