Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients

• 1 cup Milk
• 2 teaspoons Instant Yeast
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1/4 cup Butter, softened
• 3 cups Flour
• pinch Salt
• 1.5 cups Sugar
• 1/2 cup Butter, softened
• 4 tablespoons Ground Cinnamon

Method

Warm the milk to 38°C — hand-temperature — and combine with the instant yeast, 50g sugar, eggs, and softened butter in a large bowl. Mix until shaggy, then add the flour and salt. Knead for eight to ten minutes by hand or five minutes in a stand mixer. The dough should be smooth and tacky, not sticky; you're building enough gluten-development that it stretches without tearing, which you'll verify with the windowpane test: pinch off a walnut-sized piece and gently stretch it between your fingers until translucent. If it tears before light shows through, knead another two minutes and test again. Weak gluten means the rolls collapse during baking instead of rising in the oven.

Bulk fermentation happens at room temperature for ninety minutes until the dough roughly doubles. You're after visible bubbles at the surface and a jiggly, gas-filled mass when you poke it — not a tight, dense ball. This is yeast-fermentation: the cells are producing carbon dioxide and alcohol, developing flavour depth that commercial speed-rise methods sacrifice.

While the dough rises, combine 300g sugar with 125g softened butter and the cinnamon. The ratio here — roughly two parts sugar to one part butter — prevents the filling from leaking out during rolling. Too much butter and it slides away; too little and the filling stays gritty.

Tip the risen dough onto a lightly floured work surface and pat it into a rectangle roughly 30 by 40 centimetres, working from the centre outward. Spread the filling evenly, leaving a 1cm strip bare along the top long edge. Roll tightly from the bottom long edge towards the bare strip, seal the seam by pinching, then cut into twelve even pieces using a sharp knife (a bench scraper dragged through the roll works well). Place them cut-side-up in a buttered baking tin and proof for thirty minutes until they're pillowy and touch one another.

Brush with melted butter and bake at 190°C for eighteen to twenty-two minutes until the edges are deep golden and the centres still give slightly when pressed — they'll continue to cook in the residual heat. A skewer inserted into the middle should show only a few moist crumbs, not wet dough. Spread frosting (or glaze) immediately onto the hot rolls so it melts and soaks in. Cool for ten minutes before tearing apart and serving.