Happy Sunday Lovelies! 

This weekend has been quite kind to me I think, what with the sun-rain-wind weather that’s rather typical of September and my family showering me with attention that I so dearly crave all the time. Plus, we err- treated – ourselves with McDonalds and waffles yesterday so – an overall win-win situation in my opinion. 

(Although my dreams have been more anxiety inducing than normal… but nobody cares about that. Dreams are only interesting to those who have it. So whatevs. I’ll listen to some Fall Out Boy to get over it.)

Cinnamon Rolls, right. 

Soft, delicious and absolutely insta-worthy when you do the pouring thing right. You know the one. But difficult to master when you have a (still) non-functioning oven and a convection replacement that takes twice as long to do the most basic of baking. Not to mention, the dough is almost always too wet to handle so you need to have extra flour on hand.

I tried 4 different recipes and the closest I got to the “perfect” cinnamon roll is the one I’ll add in the recipe below. But here we talk about the not-so-great attempts. 

My first two attempts were from a recipe created by Sohla El-Waylly from BA that started at a level 10 of difficulty so yay me for being an idiot about it 🙂 The great thing about this recipe is that if you do exactly what it says, you get these phenomenal, fluffy, gooey cinnamon-date sticky buns that will be swiped off in one sitting. The downside is. Well. You need to do exactly what it says (because duh, level 10) – which involves a food processor, more vegetable oil than you would think, an oven that doesn’t burn the shit out of everything within the first 5 minutes, and a lot of patience. Also probably more flour than what the recipe suggests just in case. 

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That said, despite not 100% following Sohla’s recipe, the rolls tasted amazing, but not something I’d do again if I’m on a time crunch.

My third attempt was kanelbullar was from the Swedish Fika cookbook by Milo Kalen & Tine Guth Linse, gifted to me by the lovely geek squad whom I still miss so much it hurts. This one was a lot easier to make, didn’t have to wait 24 hours for the dough to proof, but again – lost brownie points against the flour to liquid ratio (seriously, what am I doing wrong? Comment if you have any idea), and since I was out of flour, we had to take out the aate ka handi and “improvise”. 

The final one was from one of my sister’s friends on her IGTV and worked great with the convection oven (even if it took like, a million years). After some mild modifications and combining it with the date paste from the BA recipe, we have our gorgeous, delectable, almost adorable cinnamon rolls.

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RECIPE

Prep time: ~3.5 hours
Cooking time: ~40-45 minutes
Feeds: 12 or 6 or 1 – depends on how much you love cinnamon rolls

INGREDIENTS:

Dough:

• 650 g all-purpose flour + at least another 150 g extra on the side
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 90-100 g sugar 
• 2 tsp. yeast
• 230 ml yogurt
• 77 g butter
• 230 ml buttermilk (put 1/2 tsp of vinegar in milk and let it sit for 5 minutes, then stir)

Date Paste:

• 1 cup of your preferred dates (pitted)
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 tsp. cinnamon cinnamon powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• Powdered/brown sugar to sprinkle

Glaze:

• 90 g powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp. buttermilk

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. In a large bowl, sieve the flour, baking soda and salt together, add the sugar, yeast, yogurt and butter and mix until well combined
2. Mix in the buttermilk, then form into a ball-ish shape (add some more flour if the dough if still too)
3. Cover the kitchen counter with a good amount of flour before placing your mixture on and knead until it looks less like a crumbly, liquidy mess
4. Then fold dough onto itself to make a small rectangle, flatten it slightly and fold over once more to make a square. Spread the dough back into the rectangle repeat folding process 5-6 times till you’re back to… square one. Eh? Eh? 
5. Once the texture is elastic enough, knead dough into proper ball, place it in a well oiled bowl and tightly secure with cling-film or a lid. Leave it to proof outside for 2 hours or until doubled in size
6. Meanwhile, soften your dates by adding them in a bowl of warm water for 10-15 minutes
7. Add soft dates, salt, cinnamon powder, and vegetable oil in a blender and mix until paste-y
8. Punch down the dough for some stress relief, then transfer to the (lightly floured) counter and roll out into a ~20 cm x 20 cm square. Don’t let the dough bully you as it inevitably will! 
9. Pour over the date paste and spread evenly, sprinkle a generous amount of powered or brown sugar. 
10. Carefully roll square into a – well – roll. Cut into even cross-sections (look up the thread or knife method on the web, this post is long enough)
11. Fit in your rolls in a well-oiled skillet or baking dish by playing dessert tetris. Cover with foil and let it rest for another 30 minutes-1 hour
12. Poke to check bouncibility (should be high) and place in an oven preheated to 185° C for about 25 minutes or till pale golden
13. Remove foil and bake for another 15-20 minutes to make it dark golden
14. Meanwhile, in a bowl add 90 g of powdered sugar, vanilla extract and buttermilk and combine to make glaze
15. Take out the cinnamon buns, brush glaze all over and let it rest for 20 minutes, then serve.
    

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Cinnamon rolls have left me exhausted and nearly sick to my stomach with its fragrance wafting across the house all the damn time, but my sister loves it and she’s the younger sibling. 

So obviously I have to make them. 

Alright bye!
❤