Sunday morning brown sugar cinnamon rolls

I have been thinking about cinnamon rolls since having a delicious one at DeliAro last Sunday morning. The DeliAro one was at the bready, fluffy end of the cinnamon roll spectrum whereas mine are at the other buttery, pastry-like end. Both are delicious but on this occasion I was after a tightly-wound, tender cinnamon roll.

I used a Dorie Greenspan recipe from her "all-American" classic baking book "Baking From my home to Yours" as a base, adapted it a little and it worked well. I started the dough on Saturday afternoon, left it to rise while I went out in the evening then rolled it out before going to bed. I left the tin to rise near the heated towel-rail overnight and that seemed to keep them nice and cozy.

I didn't bother with any extra glazes or icing to pour over after baking. The rolls sort of make their own glaze as the bake so if you turn them upside down they have a nice sticky toffee-ish coating.

Dough

1 sachet of active dried yeast

1/3 cup fill half way with hot water and topped up with milk (it should be just warm-to-the-touch)

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

2 small eggs (at room temperature)

1/8 cup sugar

180g butter (at room temperature)

Filling

Brown sugar

Butter

Cinnamon

Mix the yeast and milk/water mix in your cake mixer bowl and stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the flour and salt and mix to dampen the flour. Mix for a minute or two until you have a shaggy mass.

Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula and set the mixer to low. Add the eggs followed by the sugar. Beat for three minutes until the dough forms a ball. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter, two tablespoons or so at a time. Beat until each piece is nearly incorporated before adding the next. You'll have a very soft, batter-like dough. Now increase the speed to medium and beat for 10 minutes until the dough pulls away at the sides. Leave the dough to double in size (an hour or so) then deflate.

I then left the dough for a few hours, just out on the bench, until I was ready to roll it and it didn't suffer because of it.

Roll the dough out into a large rectangle. Mine was huge as I wanted thin, tightly-wound buns but roll to the thickness you desire. Melt some butter (30 grams or so) and brush on. Sprinkle with brown sugar. I rolled my dough out very late at night and was feeling particularly generous after several glasses of wine so perhaps was a little heavy-handed and sprinkled about 3/4 of a cup or so. Douse with as much cinnamon as you please (I used a couple of tablespoons worth).

Roll into a log and slice into rounds about2 inches thick. Place in a lined spring-form tin and leave to rise for at least a couple of hours or even overnight as I did.

Bake at 190 degrees Celsius for 30 mins. Leave in the tin for five minutes or so before inverting onto a cooling rack. Enjoy! And keep enjoying until they are all gone... these buns are best when still warm from the oven.