Cinnamon Rolls

What to expect

Taste

Sweet and warmly spiced, but the dough itself is much less sweet than the filling and that contrast is the structure of the flavour. The crumb is faintly eggy and milky, closer to a brioche than to bread. The filling is where everything happens: brown sugar melted into butter turns to a soft caramel against the dough, and the cinnamon is strong enough to be slightly medicinal at the centre of the spiral where it is most concentrated. The icing is tangy from the cream cheese, and that lactic sharpness is the only thing in the roll cutting the sugar.

Aroma

The single best smell in this batch and the reason the recipe is worth making on a morning when people are asleep. Cinnamon and butter dominate, with the yeasty, milky smell of an enriched dough underneath it. It builds through the second prove and peaks about ten minutes before the tray comes out.

Texture

Soft throughout, and softness is the entire point — there should be no crust anywhere except a thin one on top. The crumb is fine, slightly stringy and pulls apart in layers along the spiral rather than tearing across it. The filling is wet and sticky where it met the dough, and the very centre of the spiral is the softest, wettest part of the roll, which is why people eat that last. The icing is cool and smooth against warm bread.

Sound

Almost none. The one to have is the roll being pulled away from its neighbours, which is a soft tearing sound.

How the flavour moves

Icing first — cool, tangy, sweet — then the plain milky crumb, which is quiet and holds for a moment. Then the filling arrives all at once as the spiral opens, and it is much sweeter and much more strongly spiced than anything before it. Cinnamon lasts longest and is still there after everything else has gone. Eaten from the outside in, which is how everybody eats them, the roll gets progressively sweeter and wetter towards the middle, and the last bite is the best one.

Serve it

Warm, and this is not negotiable. A cinnamon roll at room temperature is a noticeably worse thing than a cinnamon roll twenty minutes out of the oven: the butter in the filling is set rather than liquid, the crumb is firmer, and most of the aroma has gone. Fifteen seconds in a microwave restores nearly all of it.

Goes with

Black coffee, and a strong one. Cardamom coffee if the Scandinavian version is being made. Nothing sweet alongside.

Cook's notes

Difficulty

Moderate. Nothing is technically hard, but it is an enriched dough and enriched doughs take longer and behave differently from lean ones.

Cost

Low to moderate. Butter and cream cheese carry the cost.

Equipment

A 23 x 33cm tin, a stand mixer with a dough hook if you have one, a rolling pin, a probe thermometer, and a length of unwaxed dental floss or plain thread for cutting the roll.

When to make it

A weekend morning. The dough can be shaped the night before and proved in the fridge overnight.

Best season

None, though it is a cold-weather baking smell.

You know it is done when

Deep gold on top, pale where the rolls touch each other, and the spirals should still be visible rather than baked into one mass. The sides of the rolls should look soft and slightly damp.

And it feels like

The probe in the centre of the middle roll is the test. Without one, the middle roll should feel firm rather than doughy when pressed, and lifting one at the edge should show a set base rather than a wet one.

Food safety

Nothing unusual. The finished rolls carry cream cheese icing and should not stand for days at room temperature.

Where it goes wrong

• Adding the butter with the flour rather than after the knead, so the dough never develops enough strength.
• Killing the yeast with milk that is too hot. It should feel neutral on the wrist, not warm.
• Rolling the log loosely, which gives a hollow centre and a middle spiral that lifts out separately.
• Cutting the log with a knife, which squashes each roll flat on one side.
• Testing an edge roll for doneness rather than the middle one.
• Icing them when they are hot rather than warm, so the icing melts to a transparent glaze and runs off.

If it does go wrong

Hollow centres: the log was rolled too loosely. Filling leaked out and burnt in the tin: the filling butter was melted rather than soft, or the seam was not sealed. Dense, heavy rolls: under-kneaded, or under-proved, or the yeast was killed by hot milk. Dry: overbaked, and this is the commonest fault — 90C in the middle roll is done. Rolls squashed on one side: cut with a knife. Doughy in the middle of the tray: the middle roll was not the one tested.

Making it ahead

The best route is to shape the rolls, cover the tin and refrigerate overnight after the first prove. In the morning take the tin out, let it come up for an hour or so until swollen, and bake. Icing is made in five minutes while they cool.

Keeping it

Covered at room temperature for two days, or in the fridge for four. Room temperature is better for texture.

Reheating

The best thing to do with a day-old roll: 15 seconds in a microwave, or split and warmed in a dry pan cut side down.

Freezing

Baked and un-iced rolls freeze well for two months. Shaped, unproved rolls can be frozen in the tin, thawed overnight in the fridge and given their second prove in the morning, which is the useful version for a breakfast.

Leftovers

Split, buttered and griddled, or cubed into a bread and butter pudding, which is very good indeed.

Scaling it

Halves cleanly into a 20cm square tin for six. Doubling needs two tins rather than one deeper one, since the tray bakes from the outside in.

Substitutions

The cream cheese icing can be replaced with a simple glaze of 150g icing sugar let down with 2 tbsp milk, or with nothing. Cardamom in place of, or alongside, the cinnamon moves the recipe towards its Swedish relative. Dark brown sugar in the filling gives a more treacly, wetter result.

Dietary swaps

Contains cereals containing gluten, eggs and milk. Vegetarian, nut free. The dairy can be replaced throughout with plant milk, a firm plant butter and a plant cream cheese, though the crumb is drier.

Shopping for it

Fresh ground cinnamon. Cassia is the standard supermarket cinnamon and is strong and slightly harsh; true Ceylon cinnamon is milder, more floral and more expensive, and it changes the roll noticeably.

Keeping the cost down

Ordinary supermarket ingredients throughout. Ground cinnamon loses its aroma within a year of opening, so a fresh jar is worth more here than any other upgrade and costs almost nothing.

Nutrition

An enriched sweet bread with an iced top. Substantial rather than light.

Worth it?

The longest recipe in this batch and the one where almost all the time is the dough working without you.

Where it comes from

Origin

The United States for this form; a closely related and older Scandinavian tradition exists separately.

Also called

Cinnamon roll or cinnamon bun in American English. The Swedish relative is kanelbulle, plural kanelbullar; the Danish is kanelsnegl, meaning cinnamon snail.

Said out loud

kanelbulle is roughly ka-NEEL-bull-eh.

What the name means

Descriptive in every language it exists in. The Danish snegl, snail, describes the spiral.

History

Sweet enriched doughs rolled with spiced butter are a Northern European tradition. Sweden's kanelbulle is documented from the 1920s, following the postwar availability of butter, sugar and cinnamon at ordinary prices, and Sweden observes Kanelbullens dag on 4 October. The American cinnamon roll is related but distinct: larger, softer, sweeter, iced rather than sugared, and its most familiar commercial form dates from the later twentieth century.

Why it matters

In Sweden the kanelbulle is central to fika, the institutionalised coffee break, which is a genuine social structure rather than a habit. In the United States the cinnamon roll is a breakfast and holiday-morning food and strongly associated with domestic occasion.

When it is eaten

Weekend breakfasts, Christmas morning, and in Sweden any afternoon at all.

The traditional way

The enriched dough, in which fat is worked in after the gluten has been developed rather than with the flour.

How it changed

The American roll has grown steadily larger and sweeter, and the cream cheese icing is a relatively recent standard. The Swedish bun has changed much less and is still finished with pearl sugar rather than icing.

Regional variations

Swedish kanelbullar are smaller, spiced with cardamom as well as cinnamon, and topped with pearl sugar. Finnish korvapuusti are shaped differently, pinched rather than cut. American versions are larger, softer and iced.

How this version differs

The butter is added to the dough after the initial knead rather than with the flour, which most home recipes do not specify, and the roll is cut with thread rather than a knife. The internal temperature is given because the middle roll of a tray is the only one worth testing.

Sources and credit

None available.

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Categories

Cuisines

American

Courses & dish types

BakingBreadBreakfastDesserts

Diets

Vegetarian