My mother used to make cinnamon rolls that were becoming a local legend. I have been experimenting the last few weeks to recreate it. Very basic recipe. Standard slightly sweet white bread, filled with brown sugar cinnamon and butter and then topped with grated coconut that is roasted golden brown while baking and then topped with a cream cheese or butter cream frosting .
I settled on an Amish bread I was real happy with but the filling all boiled out of the rolls while baking. I am wondering if I applied the brown sugar and cinnamon dry and just painted the butter on the rolls would the filling might be more stable?
Roll the log up as tightly as possible. Use the butter sparingly or not at all in the log. Painting on after baking sounds like a good idea. Good luck, and invite me over!
It’s supposed to boil out. I make them as a log, cut them into pieces, and place the pieces into a cake pan. They’ll rise together (in fact, let them rise again before you cook them). The filling will stay in the bottom of the pan and the tops will stay dry.
Definitely use lots of sugar and butter. You need it to make the ooey-gooey good part.
I also spread softened butter on the dough and then sprinkle a healthy amount of cinnamon/sugar mix on top of that. After I slice the rolls, I freeze them for a good amount of time which seems to help prevent the filling from leaking as they bake.
I am actually trying to duplicate my mothers recipe. They have to be folded a specific way. which is a 3 fold instead of a roll, they need to finish about 3" wide and 6" long and 2 " high with the flat part on top covered with roasted coconut. So the sides are open.
I nailed the taste this last time but my dimensions were off, too high and too narrow. I didn’t roll the doe out flat enough. That and all my filling boiled out, the gooey stuff on the bottom was tasty but got a little too hard. I wonder if I pre cooked the filling and painted it on would it work better and boil out less?
The filling should have a touch of flour in it. Just enough to make the filling a paste, like a cinnamon sugar roux instead of turning to syrup once the butter melts.
I’m not sure I’m getting the picture of how you are shaping them. But when I roll out regular ones, I always make them thinner in that middle than on the outside. That way when they expand the filling gets pushed inside instead of all over the pan.
However you are doing it, there needs to be a slight channel there for the filling.
Different recipes (and different assembly methods) behave differently while baking. People’s impressions of what is “the right way” come purely from their individual experience, not from God’s supreme cinnamon-roll recipe.
The flour might be link I was missing, my moms never boiled out. I will make up a crumb mix just like I do for a crumb cake but a bit less flour and a bit more cinnamon
hmm…my husband’s gammy made him ‘cinnamon rolls’ back when he was in the single digits, but out of pie crust, with melted butter brushed on, cinnamon and sugar, rolled up tight, sliced, and baked. I can NOT TELL YOU how many times he has tried to replicate that recipe. Dozens. Hundreds. It’s one of those things that you had in childhood, now gone, and can’t be duplicated, and if you can, it just don’t taste the same.
When I make the rolls at work I roll the dough out into a big rectangle and cut a given weight of butter into small blobs and place them more or less evenly over the dough. Then I scatter a mix of brown and whitle sugar over the dough, sprinkle cin cinnamon, roll up the dough and cut it. Rolls are placed cut down in the pan, and then the dough is set to rise. Then I bake them.
My mom made those same things but they weren’t what i would call tightly rolled, We called them cinnamon crispies. My mother always used shortening, I prefer lard. I also use lard in my cinnamon rolls in place of oil. If I remember right it seems she would build a small stack of the cinnamon crusts and then roll them up and slice them.
I’ve used Alton Brown’s recipe with no issues. Roll out the dough to a rectangle, brush with melted butter, cover with the sugar/cinammon mix, then press in lightly - I cover with plastic wrap then use a flat pastry scraper. Roll up, cut, place in baking pan, then refrigerate.
The only problem is that like many of Alton’s breakfast recipes, you have to start making it sometime around lunchtime the day before.
The only way I’ve seen it done is: roll the dough out into a big rectangle, spread it with softened butter, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar then roll it up. After rolling, cut it in pieces and put in pans to raise overnight.
I have been considering longer rising times for the finished uncooked rolls. I am pretty happy with the dough but I would prefer a little larger holes in the dough. I am thinking about making a warm dough box just for rising rolls waiting to be cooked.
