These bunz will go right onto your bunz!!!

It's true! They are oh-so good but oh-so bad at the same time. But really, who cares as long as they taste good, no? *winks* Anyway, it's that time of the month again: the DB challenge! And again my fellow baking soul mates have yet come up with another unbeatable crowd favorite: cinnamon buns and/or sticky buns. We have our Pip in the City, the lovely Marce to thank for this awesome selection. The recipe we used is the one from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Since I'm not a huuuge fan of sticky buns, I chose to make cinnabunz only.

I associate cinnabunz with warm childhood memories. I remember having my first cinnabun some time when I was in my teens, while vacationing in America with my aunt's wacky family. At the time, I was living in Singapore and found every facet of American culture (including food, of course) supremely fascinating. My first cinnabun seemed to me a warmly luxurious and luscious , even though it was just a snack we bought at the shopping mall we were in. I distinctly remember the cinnamon-y fragrance just wafting into my olfactory neurons and the pillowy concentric dough melting in my mouth, transporting me to the realms of cinnabun heaven, albeit for a few minutes only. So I was uber excited about this month's DB challenge!

This isn't my first time baking with yeast, so I wasn't too nervous. I have made some yeast-based goodies before here and here, but never cinnabunz. I thought making cinnabunz would be pretty complicated, what with the pretty swirly shape and getting the pillowy texture right. I ended up making it twice because the first time round, I overbaked my buns despite only baking them for minimal time. The second time, I decided to crowd the buns a little bit more before baking and the buns' mouth feel turned out to be closer to the desired cinnabunny, chewy and pillowy texture!


Contrary to my expectation of cinnabunz being hard to make, it was pretty simple (especially if you have a Kitchenaid mixer, which I must say is a dream machine for all bakers!). The only adjustment to the recipe that I made was instead of using only cinnamon for the cinnamon sugar, I used a teeny bit more pumpkin pie spice, which basically comprises of a combo of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice and nutmeg for extra spice! Besides spacing the buns correctly and slightly underbaking them for the right duration, the most challenging part of the recipe was the rolling of the dough! It was quite difficult to roll the dough tightly so that the concentric swirls aren't too far apart. Fortunately, despite the lack of talent in the dough rolling department, the bunz didn't turn out grotesque or anything!


Baking with yeast never fails to give me a sense of earthy satisfaction and accomplishment. I remember the first time I used yeast, I underestimated the temperature and ended up killing my poor Saccharomyces cerevisiae (geek talk for yeast). The maiden bread was a heavy, brick-like thing that was reminiscent of a brick. Since then, thankfully, I've become more adept at not killing the dynamic baking ingredient.

Points of improvement for the future includes possibly rolling the dough thinner so that the circular concentric layers aren't as thick and underbaking them even more. It's pretty cool to have made something that seems to difficult. My lab mates (who I share all my baked goodies with) are all amazed that someone (or really, anyone) makes cinnabuns from scratch at home. And as usual, it's a great joy to be able to share my passion (or at least, the results of it) with people around me! Do check out my fellow baking soul mates' efforts here. They're pretty darn awesome!