Chain coffee shops have done a lot of damage to the reputation of cinnamon rolls. A cinnamon roll should not be a microwaved stale glutinous mass half the size of a brick and covered in gritty glaze. Make your own cinnamon rolls and eat them still warm from the oven. A warm cinnamon roll you’ve made yourself is a treat not a dietary sin requiring two hours atonement on your Peloton bike.

These cinnamon rolls are perfect for sharing over a lazy breakfast and relatively easy, even for first time bakers. Imperfect cinnamon rolls are just as delicious as ‘instagram perfect’ ones but I’ve included a few of my favourite tricks to help make yours picture perfect.

The recipe makes two dozen nice sized cinnamon rolls, cooked in two 9 inch cake pans and is perfect for sharing. Cut the recipe half to make a dozen and keep them all for yourself

Useful specialised equipment; paper liners for your cake tins, some dental floss or fishing line, a measuring tape and a stand mixer for dough. It’s a very sticky dough – which also gives it richness. You can also use your food processor to knead or ‘stretch and fold’ in the bowl. The dental floss is used to cut the rolls without crushing or compressing them.

Top tips for great looking rolls:

• spread the filling evenly and don’t leave too much empty edge space;
• roll up your dough loosely (link to short video);
• use the dental floss technique or your sharpest knife to avoid compressing your sections (link to short video) ;
• line your cake tin with paper (link to tin liners):

Cinnamon rolls are a multi-step process: so here’s a quick overview:

• Make dough and let it rest for 10 minutes or so,
• Make cinnamon filling
• Roll out the dough and cover it with the filling.
• Roll up the dough and cut into pieces, allow to rise.
• Bake the dough.
• Allow the rolls to cool and then glaze.

It sounds intimidating but step by step instructions are in the recipe. Time to get baking.

Recipe

Ingredients

Dough

• 700 grams plain flour
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4  teaspoons active dry (or instant) yeast 
• 240 mls whole or semi-skim milk
• 120 mls water
• 100 grams of unsalted butter
• 2 eggs

Filling

• 90 grams unsalted butter
• 2 Tablespoon ground cinnamon 
• 100 grams light brown sugar

Icing

• 120 grams powdered (confectioners) sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 30 – 45 mls milk

Instructions

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and yeast in the bowl of your stand mixer.
2. Melt butter in the microwave until well softened. Add milk and water to the melted butter. It should be warm but not boiling.
3. Start the mixer and add the melted butter mixture to the dry ingredients. Roughly beat eggs and add to the dough.
4. Knead for 3 to 5 minutes. The dough will be soft and will not form and tidy ball. Cover the dough and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Make the filling.
5. Filling: melt the butter, add the cinnamon and brown sugar, combine well and set to one side.
6. Prep your cake tins. Line with paper.
7. Generously flour the work top. Turn the dough out on to the work top, divide in half. Put one portion to the side and cover while working with the other half.
8. Roll into a rectangle, 14 inches by 8 inches. (36 cm x 20 cm). Don’t be tempted to roll it out thinner.
9. Spread one half of the filling on the rectangle. Spread to within 1/2 or a centimetre of the edges. Gently lift the long edge and gently roll up the dough into a cylinder.
10. Cut a length of dental floss or fishing line, about 20 cms or 12 inches. Slide the dental floss under the roll about one inch in – cross the ends and cut the first segment off the end of the roll. Repeat and cut the roll into approximately 12 segments. Place the segments carefully into the first cake tin. The segments will expand to fill the tin when they rise. Cover with a shower cap or cling film.
11. Repeat with second portion of dough.
12. Allow the filled dough to rise until doubled. The length of time this will take is based on how warm your kitchen is. If it’s cold, heat your oven to 100C. Turn off the element, wait 15 minutes and put your covered dough in. It will double in 45 to 60 minutes.
13. Remove and preheat oven to 190C (no fan).
14. Bake the rolls for 25 to 28 minutes. Rotate the pans half way through if they are on different shelves.
15. Remove from the oven and cool. Prepare the icing and drizzle over the rolls.

Share the rolls out equally amongst members of your household or guests. People can be very crabby when they feel shortchanged on their allotment of cinnamon rolls.

Thank you for following the blog, reading and cooking the recipes. Please send requests, comments and share photos if you make the recipe. Tag #mamadolsonbakes

Four simple ingredients.

Convenience food is amazing for productivity at home.  It is a gift from god to those busiest of people – working parents.    And almost everything we eat – even in Mama Dolson’s kitchen – has an element of convenience food.  Let’s work through an example.

It’s lunch time.  You buy a ham and cheese sandwich with mayo, crisps and a bottle of juice.  Breaking down only the sandwich; without ‘convenience food’ you would need to start with wheat, a pig, a cow, some chickens, a sourdough starter, corn to press for oil, something to make vinegar and a source of salt.   That is a lot of work for a ham and cheese sandwich with mayonnaise.   And I didn’t mention the preservatives, colouring agents, flavour ‘enhancers’, etc.

Modern life would be practically impossible without convenience food.   Unless you’ve grown it yourself, all the ingredients in the kitchen have an element of convenience. As a minimum, it’s convenient that they are there in your kitchen.   Butter is a convenience food – can you imagine getting fresh milk and churning your own butter before making toast in the morning?  Convenience food is a game changer.  But it’s worth knowing what you have given up for convenience.

I had  a life changing experience when I stumbled across a recipe for home made Oreos.  I made them and the result was amazing.  What I had made was what the creator of Oreos had invented.  But that Oreo vision had then fallen into the hands of marketing, supply chain management, packaging and dare I say it – the management accountant.  The original Oreo was modified so that it would last 12 months on the shelf, could be easily packaged, transported and so that each package would make the company money.  The ideal Oreo had become a money making convenience food.

It launched me and my family (and anyone else within reach whom can I feed) on a voyage of discovery.  I love taking a convenience food and finding out what it really tastes like.  I’m not a zealot looking to ban convenience food.  I’m an adventurer on a quest for authenticity.

For example, I used to joke that mayonnaise was the only fattening thing I didn’t like.  No longer true – I love fresh home made mayonnaise.   Mayonnaise is so much more than smooth white boring sauce and a convenience food.  Some foods deserve fresh mayonnaise (crab meat for example) or oeuf mimosa (mimosa eggs, coming in a future blog post).

So, let’s make mayonnaise.   The Davinator filmed me making it. The video is 1 minute and 2 seconds long because once you’ve assembled your ingredients – that’s how long it takes. Here’s a link to a video on YouTube.  Mama Dolson makes mayonnaise.      

And if you don’t like my video – there’s about 100 other ones on YouTube that will show you the same thing.

You do need the right equipment for this recipe to work.  You need a stick blender and cylindrical container.   Plus the ingredients.  You can make mayonnaise by hand or in a food processor but this way always works for me.  Once you trust the recipe, you can start to experiment with different oils, acids and spices.  One of our favourites is lime chilli mayonnaise with crab meat.

It only lasts a couple of days in the fridge but I’ve never had to throw any away. Think about how long a bottle or jar of mayonnaise or salad cream lasts…..what do you think they’ve done to it to make it last that long and never separate.

Recipe:

• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• a pinch of salt
• 240 mls of oil; I use 120 mls extra virgin olive oil and 120 mls corn oil

How to:

Break the egg into the container.  Put in the lemon juice, pinch of salt and the oil.  Give it a minute to settle then put the stick blender to the bottom, put it on a high setting and whiz away.  This will take less than 30 seconds and you have mayonnaise.

Watch the video, yes it is that easy.

I haven’t banned mayonnaise in a squeezy bottle because I don’t want to stop and make mayo every time the Davinator wants a sandwich.   But the Davinator has not touched the squeezy bottle since I made the first lot of home made mayo.  If there is no home made mayo – he uses another condiment. Which tells you everything.

A bit more on the equipment:  a stick blender costs about £10 on Amazon or you can get a slightly more expensive set that comes with a cylinder.  If no container with the blender, find a plastic container or a Kilner jar.  There are three things:

1. It needs to be a snug fit for your stick blender.
2. The sides need to be straight up and down.
3. It should be at least 12 centimeters deep.

A stick blender and a cylindrical container are mandatory for this recipe.

So, people.  Let’s make mayonnaise!