Cinnamon Bun Cupcakes

Cupcakes and cinnamon buns, the two best things ever. I guess maybe I am cheating a little bit when I say they are cupcakes, I was going to use a cake batter in these but at the last minute I switched it up for a more traditional cinnamon bun dough. The "cupcake" part is more in the icing and the decorations. This is my first instructable so hopefully I don't butcher this process too much! :)


Ingedients

Dough :
1 1/2 cups of flour
1 1/12 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup softened margerine/butter/shortening
1 1/2 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Cinnamon Filling :
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ginger
11/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp melted margerine

Cream cheese icing:
1 8oz. package of softened cream cheese
1/2 cup softened margerine/butter/shortening
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon

I always use blocks of hard margerine when I'm baking, it's what I've always got in the house and I really like the way everything turns out using it.

Pre-heat your oven to 400

Starting with the dough, sift all of the dry ingredients together then add the egg and margerine, slowly add the milk as you are stirring. I find sometimes you don't need all of the milk and your dough will get too soft. That being said, you still will be working with a very soft and squishy dough. (yay no rising time!!!) Once I am happy with the way everything is mixed up I put the dough into a *well* floured surface. I find even when I think I have plenty of flour, I still put more down because there is always places that want to stick. I rolled my dough into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick and roughly 7 inches x 15 inches.

 Mix your brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger in a bowl. Brush your melted margerine all over the surface of your dough and sprinkle on a hefty layer of your brown sugar filling. Now it is time to roll this all up. I rolled mine so I could cut a dozen 1 inch+ rolls to stick in my muffin pan. I cut them all up evenly with a sharp knife and placed them in. Originally I was going to bake the buns in the cupcake wrappers but I decided instead to grease the pan and then put them in wrappers once they were baked. Now bake these delicious buns asap so they can be eaten asap! They go in the over for 11 minutes depending on your oven. I just kept an eye on mine and they cooked up a lot quicker than I anticipated.

While your buns are baking you can start your icing, mix margerine, cream cheese, vanilla and icing sugar until smooth. Take a little less than half of your icing and put it in a new bowl and add your cinnamon, mix it all up. We are going to pipe both icings at the same time to give a cinnamon and vanilla swirl :) I took my piping bag and folded it down as almost to the tip and kept taking alternating spoonfulls of cinnamon frosting and vanilla until I had a bag filled half and half. I usually use a large star tip to pipe with but I think one of the little four legged critters around here might have stolen mine to play with. So with that I am just using a medium sized round tip. The process is also made easier if you have a fuzzy little friend to supervise.

Once your buns are cooled it's time for icing! I used a generous portion, I loveeee cream cheese icing. To finish it off I sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top with a tiny sifter. You could used just about anything to make it look extra pretty! Once done decorating I slipped them into my cupcake wrappers. Enjoy! :)