From My Kitchen

Well these lasted all of about 5 minutes before they’d all been scoffed, they are THAT GOOD. They take a bit of effort, time wise, but there’s no crazy equipment or skills needed. The trick is to do most of the work during the day before the day you want to eat them, then in the morning you can just fling them in the oven and ta-daaaaa! Cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Recipe from BBC Good Food Magazine with a few tweaks from me. Makes 12.

Ingredients

Dough:

500g strong white flour

7g fast action yeast

7g free flowing salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

50g caster sugar

2 large eggs

200ml wam milk

100g unsalted butter

Glaze:

100g caster sugar

50ml water

Filling:

150g light brown sugar

2 tbsp ground cinnamon

125g unsalted butter

Large pinch of salt

Icing:

100g icing sugar

50g cream cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla paste or extract

Method – the day before, at least 3 hours before you want to go to bed

1. Put all of the dough ingredients bar the butter into a stand mixer bowl and use the dough hook to knead the mix for about 5 minutes (or mix together in a large bowl, then knead on a floured surface).
2. Make sure your butter is really soft (I’ve been known to fling it in the microwave after forgetting to take it out of the fridge), then add it in in small pieces with the motor running until its fully combined (or knead it in one piece at a time).
3. Take a large piece of cling film, pop the dough onto it, flatten a little into a large rectangular disc (if that’s not an oxymoron), wrap it up and put it in the fridge to firm up for at least an hour or two.
4. Grease and line a square, rectangular, or even round deep baking dish, around 20 x 30cm ish.
5. Make the filling by mixing together the cinnamon, sugar and salt, set aside 2 tbsp for later, then beat in the butter for a minute or two. Set aside.
6. Make the sugar syrup by putting the sugar and water in a small pan and heating, swirling every now and then, until the sugar dissolves. Set that aside too.
7. Make the icing now too (so you don’t need to do it in the morning) by beating together the ingredients, then scrape it into a small sealable bag, or just leave it in the bowl, covered with cling film on the surface so that it doesn’t dry out.
8. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until it’s about 35 x 25cm – the size isn’t crucial, but try to keep the edges neat with straight sides. Keep the long edge closest to you.
9. Place lumps of the filling all over the surface and use your hands to spread it all over evenly. I find that the heat from my fingers helps, if I try to use a spatular I just scrape up the dough.
10. Fold the bottom third of the dough up to a third of the way down from the top, then flip it over again up to the top. You now have 3 equal layers of dough.
11. Wrap it back up and put it back in the fridge for 30 minutes.
12. Roll the dough out again, to around 40 x 30cm, again with neat straight edges, then roll up into a tight spiral from the long edge.
13. Wrap the spiral sausage in clingfilm and put it in the freezer for 15 minutes, cutting it in half first if you need to.
14. Now that its reeeeeallly chilled you’ll find it easy to gently cut into 12 equal pieces using a sharp knife without squashing them in the process. Put the rolls into the tin, spiral side up, with a 0.5cm gap separating them.

Cover with cling film, pop into the fridge, and GO TO BED. The rolls can stay in there for up to 24 hours, so there’s no hurry.

Method – an hour before you want to eat

1. Put the rolls somewhere warm as soon as you’re up (airing cupboards are useful here), and then heat your oven to 180C fan.
2. Bake the buns for 20 minutes (cover them in tin foil if you want soft buns, leave it off for a crisper top), then sprinkle over the retained cinnamon sugar, and bake again for a further 15 minutes.
3. When you take the rolls out of the oven immediately dab the sugar syrup glaze all over them and down any visible sides, then leave them to cool a little.
4. Push the icing down to one corner of the bag, snip off a little triangle from the tip, and pipe the icing over the buns. If your icing is in a bowl, use a spoon to let stripes of icing artfully fall across the buns.
5. Munch away and look at the happy faces around you. They’re especially amazing while still a little warm.