Homemade Cinnamon Buns

Since the quarantine/stay-at-home order, I've been doing a lot more baking. I'm an essential employee (my school program isn't closed), so I'm still going to work during the week, but after school and on weekends my husband and I are acting like homesteaders and baking our own bread and trying to avoid the grocery store.

In the last two weeks I've made this recipe twice and decided to document it (mostly so I don't forget and go 5 years without making cinnamon buns again). Cinnamon buns seems a little daunting, they definitely seem like more work than they actually are. Most steps only take a couple of minutes and the majority of making cinnamon buns is waiting for the dough to rise.

Dough

4- 4 1/4 cups of AP Flour (reserve the 1/4 cup for later)

3/4 cup milk

6 tbs melted butter

1 1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tbs yeast

2 eggs

Filling

1 cup brown sugar

1-2 tbs ground cinnamon (or more depending on how much you like cinnamon)

Icing

3-3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

3 oz cream cheese

1-2 tbs milk

Put all of the ingredients for the dough into a mixer with the paddle attachment (or bowl and mix by hand) and mix on low for 1-2 minutes. Everything should be well incorporated. Then cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes.

After the dough has rested, switch to the hook attachment and knead the dough for 4-6 minutes. The dough should look smooth and feel a little like elastic. It shouldn't be sticking to your finger. Cover the dough and let it rise for 60 or so minutes. The dough should be noticeably puffy.

While the dough is resting, mix together the cinnamon and brown sugar and set aside.

I use a small pastry cutter and slide the dough out of the bowl in one piece and dust with flour. Split the dough in half, which I am not great at doing evenly. Put one half aside and work on shaping the other half into a rectangle. Roll out of the rectangle as evenly as possible, like 10x20 to so. The more square and even the sides are, the more even your buns will be.

Once rolled out, fill the rectangle with 1/2 of your cinnamon sugar and spread all over.

Starting at one of the long sides, begin rolling the dough until the entire rectangle is rolled up. Next, use a pastry cutter or something equally sharp to cut the roll in half. Then cut the half in halves and depending on how many cinnamon buns you want, split the second halves in half again. This recipe makes between 12-24 cinnamon buns.

Repeat this and the previous step with the second chunk of dough.

Carefully scoop the sections up and place them into a greased 9x13 dish.

Cover and let rise for an additional 60 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 during the last few minutes of rising. Put the dish on the second or third rack from the bottom and bake for 23 minutes or until the tops are just a little brown. You don't want to over bake.

The cream cheese and butter you want to be very soft, otherwise they won't mix right in the frosting. Cream cheese bubbles in frosting is kind of jarring.

Mix the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar in a bowl until well combined. I used my stand mixer with the beater attachment and after a minute or two had a really smooth icing. Taste test and add more sugar as needed. The frosting shouldn't taste exactly like cream cheese, but it also shouldn't taste like powdered sugar.

When the buns are done baking, remove them from the oven and spread with the icing. Or, if you don't plan on eating the entire dish in one sitting, remove a couple buns and spread icing on them. Keep the icing in the fridge. The cinnamon rolls can be covered with plastic wrap and will stay good (and soft) for up to 5 days.

To reheat, turn the oven to 350 and give the buns a couple of minutes in the oven and then add icing.

Since the cinnamon buns came out of the oven, we've eaten 5. They're delicious and make an excellent breakfast.