Cinnamon Buns

I've had a busy week.  I know, everyone's busy, join the club.  I had no idea what Pin to use for inspiration this week.  My lovely friend Robyn gave me a Jam Melon.  I didn't know what it was.  She suggested I make jams and use this melon as a base.  I don't have fruits to use, need to buy some jars.  Hmm.  I'm still looking for inspiration.

Remembering my goal ten weeks ago, if I Pinned it then I thought it worthy of using.  So, I browsed the Pins I had repinned and saw a recurring theme - Cinnamon Buns!

Look, here's a few I repinned:

And don't be ridiculous, of course there are hundreds more cinnamon bun recipes than these.  Look, there are pages and pages of them.

I simply chose these because they resonated with me.  The gluten-free one looks good for my fructose free diet.  But!  Are they dry and bland?  Hmmm.  I love the look of the Strawberry Sweet Rolls.  Yummo!  But my daughter doesn't really like strawberry jam filling in donuts so will she like these?  Hang on.  The Dr Oz recipe says "Low Fat & Low Calorie".  That's got to be the one!  Let's go.

This Week's Pin:  Dr Oz's Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

Original Source: http://www.drozfans.com/dr-ozs-recipes/dr-oz-cinnabon-cinnamon-rolls-recipe-made-low-fat-low-calorie/

Who's This For?:  The whole family

Difficulty:  Easy Steps but at about 7 hours from start to finish!

I printed the recipe and found the ingredients.  Gee Dr Oz for a low-fat-low-calorie recipe, that's a fair amount of butter.  The recipe also asks for Xantham Gum.  Don't worry it's easy to find in the supermarket and not expensive.  It's a product used to keep gluten free products moist so I have it in my pantry all the time now.  When you're baking with potato flour, rice flour and other non-wheat products, the final product can get dry, crumbly and pretty yuk so it's a great additive.

After 5 minutes of mixing, I found that the mixer was getting really hot as the consistency was pretty firm.  I was using the dough attachment but the last thing I wanted was to overheat my machine and burn out the engine.  So, I was kneeding on my bench, listening to the radio and happy, happy, happy.

Kneeding done, popped into the bowl, covered and left in a warm spot, this is how it looked at the start.

And 4 hours later, this is how it looked.  The strange thing is that the recipe asked me to cover it and leave it in the fridge for 5 to 6 hours.  Ok, so the yeast is really going to have a battle doing it's thing in the fridge, me thinks!  That's why I left it on top of my coffee machine, bathed in sunlight and happily growing in size.  For the middle of Winter in Australia, a sunshine bathed kitchen is a delight so I took advantage of it.

I spread the pastry out on the bench.  I have to be honest and admit that I don't own a rolling pin.  I've put it on my shopping list for next week because I really needed it.  There's a great big hole in the right hand side and no matter how I squished it and flattened it, the hole just stayed there.  Never mind, on with the show!  Dr Oz's recipe asked me to spread MORE butter on the pastry and then cover with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon (wait, I mean INDONESIAN cinnamon) and Xantham Gum.  OK, look what the heck is Indonesian cinnamon?  I've got Dutch cinnamon so that's what I'm using.  You might be able to see on the left hand side I also sprinkled a little chopped walnuts.  I had a lot of cinnamon and sugar mixture left.  I will reduce the quantity next time or perhaps roll the pastry out larger.  Yep, with a rolling pin I'm sure I can achieve that.

Rolled up, sliced and placed in the tray, I got 12 cinnamon buns.  I think the recipe calculated 10 buns but these are large enough.  They were then left in the oven for a further hour with a bowl of boiling water underneath.  So while resting and rising again, I made dinner.  The children were confused why the cinnamon buns smelled of garlic and the pasta smelled of cinnamon.  There was a lot going on in the kitchen at once.

When they were plump and ready for baking I warmed the oven.  The temperature of the oven in the recipe was in farenheit so I guessed and warmed the oven to 180 degrees celcius and baked away for 20 minutes until they were golden brown.

I prepared some vanilla icing (my son doesn't like cream cheese, or any cheese for that matter) while the buns baked.  The mixture was a little thick so I just dollopped it on top, hoping the warmth of the buns would melt the icing.  Nope.  Who cares?  Let's eat.

Here they are.  Yummy, warm, gooey cinnamon centre and vanilla icing blobs on top.  The dough was cooked all the way through and moist!  All four fussy eaters loved them.  Lunch boxes were filled the next day too.  Life is good.

Next week, ANOTHER busy week. I'l be away in the beginning of the week in Sydney with a lovely man.  Let me show you why....

I'll be at the Red Carpet of 'Man of Steel' with my lovely son, Matt.  My neice asked me to touch Superman as my Pin for the week and write about it in my blog.  I asked her "With or without getting arrested?"  "Either way" she replied.  Yikes what a challenge.  What if the only star from the film there is Russell Crowe.  Does that count, I wonder?

Soops

"Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it" - Salvador Dali