Nice buns, hey?
If there’s one reason to make these, it is that vanilla cream cheese icing. The icing is enough to convince you that licking your plate when you have guests over is socially appropriate. It may even have you reaching for an extra helping before you realize those same guests need to eat too.
The recipe was adapted from Sweet by Sam Linsell, a book in my collection that I often browse through just for the food photography. Be sure to check out her blog Drizzle and Dip for the gorgeous snaps.
In addition to the stupidly good icing, we have a soft, buttery enriched dough, slathered with more butter; and a filling of brown sugars (dark and light), a generous amount of cinnamon and fragrant orange zest. The aroma wafting from your kitchen when you bake these will have the neighbours dropping by.
Forget about the fact that these have enough calories to power a small household for a week (the engineer in me has to point out that that is not, in fact, a fact). Go ahead and add extra icing.
Homemade Cinnamon Buns with Cream Cheese Icing
Adapted from Sweet by Sam Linsell
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 60 ml warm water
- 10 g active dry yeast
- 65 g granulated white sugar, plus 1 tsp
- 200 ml milk
- 50 g butter, at room temperature plus extra for greasing
- 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp salt
- 560 g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
For the filling
- 100 g dark brown sugar
- 50 g light brown sugar
- 4 tsp ground cinnamon
- zest of 1 orange
- 50 g butter, at room temperature
For the icing
- 125 g cream cheese
- 125 g icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- A little boiling water, to thin it out
Method
- Make the dough: Combine the yeast, water and 1 tsp sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and allow to stand for 5 minutes to froth. Add 3 cups of flour, and the remaining ingredients and mix with a spatula till combined. Knead the dough on medium speed using the dough hook attachment. While kneading, slowly add in the remaining flour. Continue kneading till smooth (about 5 minutes). Shape the dough into a ball. Grease the bowl with butter, roll the dough in the butter to coat, cover with cling film and leave aside in a warm place to double in size (1-2 hours).
- Make the filling: Mix together all the ingredients except the butter.
- Bake the rolls: Sprinkle flour onto your work surface and rolling pin, then roll the dough into a 45 cm X 30 cm rectangle. Spread with the softened butter, then sprinkle the filling over evenly. Roll the dough from the long side into a log. Slice the log into 2 cm pieces and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave aside for 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and bake for 25-30 minutes. If it is browning too much, place a piece of foil over. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Or burn your fingers by grabbing one out to *taste*.
- Make the icing: Beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract. Slowly add in enough boiled water to achieve a slightly runny consistency. Drizzle over the cooled buns.
