Relaxed Sunday morning baking doesn’t get much better than this!
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If you are an indulgent baker you are going to love this recipe! We make cinnamon buns regularly during the weekend, Dutch style, Norwegian ones, we love them all. And we also love making crème pâtissière or pastry cream. Combining the two, adding a good note of cinnamon to the cream, turned out to be a match made in heaven.
For the dough we use French type 45 flour which works really well if you like your buns to be light and fluffy. We also use a hint of freshly ground cardamom in the dough, especially good during the colder months, but you can leave it out of course.
As a final touch we add a simple sugar glaze on top for an extra hint of sweetness. We apply a very thin, almost translucent layer. It also gives the buns some extra texture to bite into before you reach the softness and creaminess of the bun.
Convinced by our story of sweetness, creaminess and bun heaven? Start baking and let us know what you think!
Ingredients for the cinnamon buns
900 g flour (we use French type 45 for this)
16 g salt
12 g instant yeast or 36 g fresh yeast
300 g milk at room temperature
230 g water
50 g butter softened
50 g sugar
ground seeds from 6 cardamom pods (optional)
400 g pastry cream (see recipe here)
1 tsp cinnamon added to the pastry cream (or to taste)
100 g raisins, washed and soaked
50 g soft brown sugar
100 g icing sugar plus water for glaze
What to make in advance
You can prepare the pastry cream in advance so it will be ready the next morning. You can find our favorite recipe for pastry cream here. All you have to add to the finished cream is a teaspoon of cinnamon (or add more if this is to your taste), stir well and put it in the fridge till needed.
Making the dough
In the bowl of a standing mixer combine flour, salt, yeast, water, milk (if you use fresh yeast first dissolve it in some of the water, instant yeast can be added straight to the flour), butter, sugar and ground cardamom (optional) and knead for 7 minutes. Kneading by hand will take about 15 minutes, depending on your technique. The dough should be silky and bouncy. Leave to rest for 1 hour at room temperature.
Making the cinnamon buns
With a pastry roller roll out the dough to a rectangle of about 60 x 50 cm / 23 x 20 inches. Take the prepared cinnamon pastry cream from the fridge and give it a good beating with a whisk to loosen it and spread an even layer onto the dough rectangle. Sprinkle the raisins and brown sugar on top. Roll up the dough (the long, 60 cm side facing you and then roll away from you) and cut it into 4 cm / 1.6 inch size rolls (15 in total) and place them, cut side up, in a nonstick or greased baking pan (the one we use in the picture is 30 x 40 cm / 11.8 x 15.7 inches). Leave to proof for 60 to 75 minutes.
Baking the cinnamon buns
Preheat your oven at 200 ºC / 392 ºF or around 190 ºC/ 375 ºF convection oven. We find the convection setting works best for us with this recipe. Bake the proofed buns in the oven for 22 to 25 minutes (depending on your oven of course).
Leave to cool slightly. Prepare the glaze by mixing icing sugar and water to form a smooth paste and brush on top of the buns. You can of course add lemon juice or vanilla or other flavors to the glaze but we just want to give them a sweet extra texture without adding more flavors since there is already so much going on inside this bun (cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom). You can decide for yourself of course!
The ‘day in advance’ dough way
Optionally you can prepare the dough the evening before baking day, however for this you need to add 2 g instant or 6 g fresh yeast to the dough instead of the full amount. Leave the dough after kneading to develop for 10 to 12 hours at cool room temperature. You can roll out the dough the next morning and continue from there.
Mary Sellers says
Hi, can you use a sourdough starter here instead of the yeast you suggest? If so, when would you add it and how should I alter the recipe.
Many thanks
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Mary,
We understand you wanting to do this and it is possible of course to adapt recipes, but there is not a simple formula we can give you that we can explain in a few lines. Every recipe (if done correctly) is a balanced formula and changing one thing means changing other things. It all comes down to time (and timing), temperature and amounts, so if you want to adapt a recipe, you have to know about the workings of these elements.
You can try with the day in advance method to add sourdough starter instead of yeast, but we cannot give you the exact amounts and times you need for this dough to get a good result based on our own experience.
If you do give it a try and you like the result, we would like to hear about it.
Enjoy your baking!
Mary Sellers says
Thank you – I think I shall not be so ambitious and follow your recipe!
Love your sourdough no knead soft rolls, they work perfectly every time.
Next project: brioche
Thank you
Weekend Bakers says
Wonderful! At the moment we love to make these mini versions of the no knead brioche:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…arl-sugar/
Alex says
Thanks you so much for listing your ingredients in metric measurements – grams and millilitres. I am from Australia and you can’t imagine how hard it is to convert American cups to metric accurately.
Our cups hold 250ml of liquid and 132gm of all purpose flour and our tablespoons measure 20ml.
It seems that US cups hold 235ml of liquid and around 120gm of all purpose flour and your tablespoons measure 15ml. But so many sites state different measures for cups it’s quite confusing and not helpful because exact measures are really important when baking.
So, to find a site that has all the ingredients in metric is a real blessing. Thank you. I’ll let you know how my cinnamon buns go. Can’t wait to try.
Weekend Bakers says
Yes, we can Alex, we can sympathize to a certain extent with all our hearts and know about the madness of conversions of butter and firmly packed sugar and 1/8 of 1/4 teaspoon of yeast and so on! But yours is on yet another level with your bigger spoons! We did not realize that.
Hooray for scales yet again.
Enjoy your bun baking and stay happy and healthy!
Marieke & Ed
Geof Masey says
Good Morning
A teaspoon of cinnamon is used in the cream . Is this the cinnamon in the dough recipe ingredients?
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Geof,
Yes that is correct. We use a Ceylon cinnamon that is quite intense and with one teaspoon you can already taste it very well in this recipe. But of course you can judge for yourself if you want to use more.
Happy bun baking!
Zanzoona says
😱 😱 OMG OMG this is absolutely AMAZING😍😍😋😋. I dn’t know what to say, I tried your magnificent recipe and I ddn’t leave the dough for 12hrs, just as your recipe told me to do, the taste is formidable. I used caramelized soft sugar which I made it by myself coz we dn’t have brown sugar in Syria any more after war😢, but I can tell you guys the result was beyond your imagination 😉😉, thanks God. I’m always thanking all of you so so so much as you teach me a beautiful recipe just as your beautiful hearts😊😘😘. Have always great times.
Zanzoona says
I forgot to told you that I ddn’t adjust them in the pan, I put them separately and left about 3 cm between each one. This kind of pastry is very famous here in Syria, we call it Danish..
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Zanzoona,
So glad you gave this recipe a try too. It is a firm favorite and indeed very close to the famous Danish, we also know and love of course.
You are very creative, giving the recipe your own twist. You are inspirational in showing us and other bakers the joy of baking even under difficult circumstances.
Keep on baking and sharing and enjoy the process!
Zanzoona says
😱 😱 😱 OMG OMG 😍😍😍😍😘😘😘😘😘I should be so lucky to have these wonderful words of yours 😀😀😀. Thank you so much dear friends, I really appreciate your kindness 💝 💝 💝 💝
Zanzoona says
Pls tell me: how you made your Danish?
Weekend Bakers says
Don’t know if this falls under your definition, but these are perfect and so much fun to make:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…x-raisins/
tamsin says
I’ve just roasted a dense squash and pureed it and was wondering how best to amend the recipe to incorporate some of it into the dough. figured its best to add it in prior to kneeding, reduce the water by half and the flour by a little ! has anyone tried this ? thought Id then add some into the creme pat with a bit more cinnamon ..
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Tamsin,
We are intrigued by your idea. We have not tried it with this recipe but we do have this recipe for pumpkin buns: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…le-butter/
Based on that we would add the puree to the initial dough, right at the beginning. How much water must be reduced also depends on the moisture still present in the squash, but we would start ‘conservative’ because you can always add more after you see how the dough comes together.
We have no idea how the creme pat would turn out combined with the puree, but we are very interested to learn about your results.
Have fun with it!
Diane says
Looks great. Gonna add pecans
Weekend Bakers says
Always a good idea, love them too!
Cherry says
Hi, Can I halved the recipe? If so, how about for the day in advance?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi, of course you can halve the recipe, no problem. We freeze the buns we have left over, they freeze very well. Out of the freeze, just a quick blast in the microwave to bring them back to full fluffiness!
Chris says
Mooie site; ik heb vandeweek de miniboules gebakken en dat was een succes! Maken jullie zoete broodjes ed ook wel met zuurdesem?
Weekend Bakers says
Hoi Chris, fijn te horen dat het zo goed gelukt is. Wij hebben nog niet vaak zoete dingen gebakken met zuurdesem omdat wij de combinatie van zuur/desem en zoet in brood niet echt lekker vinden. Bijvoorbeeld chocolade/hazelnoten pasta op zuurdesembrood is niet echt ons ding, terwijl een plak kaas op zuurdesembrood wel lekker is.
Helen Simonson says
Hello Marieke,
Would it be ok to make these without raisins? Thanks!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Helen, you can of course leave out the raisins or substitute them for an other dried berry of some sort, like dried cherries, black berries etc.
Jeffery Clark says
I was going to make these for Christmas, but I would like to make the rolls and then refrigerate overnight to make it easier on myself on Christmas morning. Should I use the yeast from the original recipe or for the overnight recipe?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Jeffery, we never have made the complete buns the day before and put the in the fridge. However when retarding them in the fridge we advice to use the full amount of yeast from the original recipe. Happy baking!
Jeffery Clark says
Thanks for the reply. I will give the pre preparation a go and report back on Friday.
Marianna says
After making the croissants few weeks ago now attempting this bake this Sunday.
So far I guess all is ok but I had to use the flour type 500 (I only had that in the house :-)) so I hope it will still be ok 🙂
Enjoying your baking recepies 🙂
Marianna says
Just amazing 🙂 thanks for such a great recepie 🙂
Alison says
If doing the dough the ‘day in advance’ method is 2g instant yeast the total, or do I need to add the difference after leaving the dough overnight? These look delicious – can’t wait to try them!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Alison,
You use 2 g yeast in total and let time do the work. So no further adding of anything to the dough the next day, just roll out and continue with applying the layer of pastry cream.
Happy baking!
Marieke
Olga says
I made these yesterday…very delicious! I had some trouble rolling up the dough. I think my pastry creme was a bit too wet, so I pushed it put of the roll. But…the taste was so nice! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Olga
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Olga,
Thank you very much. I don’t know if you made our version of the pastry cream (see recipe here: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…am-recipe/) but with us this recipe yields a very firm consistency cream that is not wet and does not spread or anything when you apply it to the dough. It has a really velvety texture.
Happy baking!
Marieke