Audio By Carbonatix
This week’s question for our pastry chef: Why can’t I get my great-great-grandmother’s cinnamon roll recipe to work?
The winter holidays are focused on traditions, many of which take place in the kitchen. Mastering an old family recipe can make or break a special meal — so I took my friend seriously when she asked for help in making her favorite recipe work.
A friend asked for my help in
figuring out her great-great-grandmother’s cinnamon roll recipe. Her mother
would make these rolls from heart and in mass quantity for the whole family. It reminded me of my mother and
how she would dole out her own cinnamon rolls over the holidays, also.
Feeling completely inspired and anxious to help, I set out to help deconstruct the scribbles she had written down when she was very young after asking her grandmother for the recipe. Now, I’ve encountered this myself after going through my recipe box: finding a list of ingredients, but alas, no instructions — thinking that I would remember how it was done. Asking her family for help was not an option for my friend; her loved ones have passed away.
The main problem we ran into, as it turned out, was the order of the recipe. In
baking, it’s often very important that a specific organization be
followed. It’s been said that baking is scientific, which is true. It is
much harder if impossible to add ingredients later and may lead you to
starting all over again. Or giving up.
In the example of the cinnamon roll recipe, I found the ingredient yeast written at the bottom of the card, almost as an afterthought, and
directed my friend to make that her first step: priming your yeast with warm water
and sprinkling a little brown sugar over it to help activate the yeast.
I could go on and on listing many more examples of what specific
order a recipe must be done in, but you don’t have all day. I’ll leave you with this: If you’ve had problems in
the past trying to remember or figure out a family favorite, look to the
order of your ingredients and check other recipes online to see how similarly
it has been done, for this could be your culprit.
I’m happy to report that after 20 years my friend was able
to master the caramel cinnamon rolls she had always remembered and I was very
happy to help reunite her with something that she can again look forward to
year after year.
Now you can, too, because she generously shared the recipe.
Caramel
Cinnamon Rolls
From the
kitchen of Laura Hutchinson
Yeast
Mixture
1 ¼ cups
lukewarm water
1 package of
yeast
Sweet
Dough
1 ½ cups
milk
1/3 cup
sugar
1/3 cup
shortening
1 TB salt
6 cups AP
flour
Caramel
Sauce
8 TB, or ¼ #
butter
1 lb brown sugar
½ cup light Karo syrup
¼ cup water
Cinnamon
Sugar Mixture
½ cup sugar
2 TB ground
cinnamon
Sprinkle the
yeast over the lukewarm water and gently sprinkle about a tsp of brown sugar
over it. Let this sit for about 10 minutes and till it’s foamy.
Gently heat
the milk and shortening (do not boil) till it is warm or at a light
scalding. Add the sugar. Add the yeast
mixture. Make sure that your liquids are lukewarm before you add your yeast
mixture so as not to kill the yeast.
Begin by
adding 2 cups of flour and add the salt on top of the flour and mix. Keep
adding the rest of your flour at ½-1 cup intervals till it forms a soft dough.
Knead the dough by hand for 10 minutes, or with a mixer and dough hook for
about 4 minutes. It should be smooth and elastic. Let this rest in a clean
greased bowl with a towel over it for 2-2 ½ hours.
Meanwhile,
mix all the ingredients together for the caramel sauce and gently heat over the
stove. Prepare your greased baking pans by pouring ½- 1 cup of the sauce into the
bottom of the pan. Adding too much will make your rolls turn out too sticky.
Prepare the cinnamon sugar mixture.
Punch down the
dough and cut it in half. On a floured surface, roll out the dough into a
rectangle (12×16). Begin by rolling out one half, then switch to the other half
to allow the dough to become more elastic. When you have the desired rectangle,
sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the dough. Take 1- ½ cups of caramel
mixture and spread the warm sauce using a pastry brush till evenly distributed.
Roll the dough till it is a tight cylinder (might be difficult with the sauce
inside) and pinch the seam closed. Using a bench scraper or serrated knife,
make evenly sized rolls. Place the rolls into pans that have been prepped and
let rise with a towel over it for about 1-1 ½ hours. Bake at 350 degrees until
golden, about 25- 30 minutes. Let rest for a few minutes, then invert onto a
plate and serve warm.
