Although they aren’t traditional cinnamon buns, they still fit the role

Time: 4.5 Hours excluding overnight rise

Difficulty: 2/5

Ingredient Availability: 5/5

Cinnamon rolls are a very popular breakfast dessert that I’ve never made from scratch before. Sure, I’ve had the premade ones from the cans from the grocery store, but they aren’t that great. This recipe is one I’ve had written down for a couple years now and I just felt like making it. While these buns don’t technically have cinnamon in them, I think they have the same essence as cinnamon buns. Plus, the cardamom this recipe uses is more interesting in my opinion. I don’t typically enjoy nuts paired with my desserts, but these looked pretty good, so I went ahead and gave it a try.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

Nothing was left out of this recipe, I think everything here really makes a difference in the final product. It is another recipe where I would recommend using a good quality butter that you like. I did substitute pecans for the walnuts because I already had them.

Tools:

• Stand Mixer

• Rolling Pin

• Rasp Style Grater

Cooking Review:

Sweet Yeast Dough: 1 hr 45 minutes (excluding overnight rise)

To make the dough for this recipe, I started by cutting up the butter into smaller pieces and putting into the refrigerator to keep it cool. I then warmed the milk in a saucepan for about 7 minutes. Half of the milk was combined with the yeast to check if it was still alive. While it didn’t foam a whole lot, the bubble activity was definitely noticeable. While the yeast was working, I measured out the dry ingredients in the bowl of my stand mixer. When the yeast was done, I tossed the butter in the flour mixture and I added they yeast mixture to the mixer along with the eggs and the rest of the milk. I mixed on a low speed for 2 minutes until the flour was moist, then for 3 minutes on a higher speed until the butter was melted into the dough. I scraped down the sides and let the dough mix at a medium high speed for 5 minutes until it pulled away from the sides of the bowl mostly cleanly. I did add 4 additional tablespoons of flour to get it to that point. The dough was lightly floured and transferred to another bowl to rise  for an hour. After that rise, it was transferred to the refrigerator to rise overnight.

Toasting Nuts: 16 minutes

While waiting for the oven to preheat, I broke up the pecans I had into smaller pieces before placing them on a baking sheet. I toasted them for 10 minutes and broke them down into smaller pieces after they had cooled a bit.. You might want to make yours a little finer than mine.

Sticky topping: 6 minutes

To make the topping, I combined the maple syrup, vanilla extract, brown sugar, butter, and salt in a saucepan and heat it until it was boiling. Once there, I let it continue to boil for about 30 seconds before pouring into the bottom of my baking dish and topping with the pecans.

Making Filling and rolling out dough: 30 minutes

The filling was made by combining the rest to the brown sugar with the orange zest, cardamom, and salt, massaging everything together. The remaining butter was melted and set aside. I turned out the dough onto a floured cutting board and pressed out the air before flouring both sides again forming into a square shape. I rolled the dough out into about a 1/4 inch thick rectangle.

Forming Rolls and rising: 54 minutes

I brushed the dough with he cooled butter and sprinkled the filling on top of it before lightly rubbing it to even it out. I then rolled it along the long side and evened out the thickness. The ends of the log were cut off before I cut the whole thing into 12 even pieces before sitting each piece on top of the topping in the baking dish. The rolls were left to rise for about 45 minutes.

Baking: 45 minutes

I baked mine a little longer than what the recipe called for to get some better color on them, 40 minutes. After cooling for 5 minutes, I flipped them out of the baking dish onto a cooling rack.

Analysis:

These buns are super soft. Even after sitting out for an half an hour or so, they were still very soft and pillowy. Although I think the sweetness is pretty perfect, the topping is very sticky, sticking to my teeth easily. The orange flavor is pretty obvious and pairs nicely with the cardamom. The toasted pecans work well with these flavors, which is something I wouldn’t have found obvious. As for the dough itself, it is pretty much the perfect transporter of all the flavors surrounding it. I’m glad that cinnamon wasn't used here, as I think it would’ve been a little less interesting flavor wise. I think this recipe deserves a 9/10. It’s not too hard, but it does take a while to make. However, once you’ve made it, I don’t think you’d regret it.