Raisin - Cinnamon Rolls

Looking back to my weekly posts, it might seem like it has been cooking - baking week. Today I'm back with this Raisin - Cinnamon Roll recipe, which is part of my fake it till you make it initiative. This means I took the dough recipe from a trusted blogger and came up the filling myself. Maybe came up is not the right way to say as it's not my invention, it's just a choice. The result is so-so. I mean the taste is good, but it doesn't look as good as it should, due to the sugar foam, but more about this later.

The Story

Years ago I joined a Hungarian cooking blogger community, where I met a lot of wonderful people and have learnt a lot from them over the years. It was basic networking, similar to what we do on Hive. You publish a post, get comments, comment on other users' posts and so on. Like everywhere in life, there are people with exceptional skills and those don't go unnoticed. There was a lady who had some fantastic baking skills and recipes and even though this was years ago, I still go to her blog to look for recipes, when I want to bake something good.

Why was she exceptional? Well baking is not rocket science, but it's not easy either. You can try and fail, you can try again and fail again and so on. Learning the ropes takes time and besides experience, you need tools, ingredients and a very good oven. What I loved about her recipes was the great variety of dough and the large combination of yeast and leaven she used in her recipes. Most of us usually go for the simplest and fastest option as over complicating things is not something we like, but then again, if you want results, you need to make an effort. Now that I have a new oven, I've made some plans, so buckle up as more baking posts are coming, but let's get back to the raisin - cinnamon rolls first.

Ingredients for 20 rolls

• 500g flour,
• pinch of salt,
• 3 tsp sugar,
• 1 egg,
• 1 egg yolk,
• 250ml warm milk,
• 25g yeast,
• 8g vanilla sugar,
• 2 tsp cinnamon, (can be left out)
• 8g butter. source

Ingredients for the filling

• 1 egg white,
• 3 tsp sugar.

Ingredients after

• 50ml warm milk,
• 8g vanilla sugar.

So my dough recipe is almost identical with the original, but I added cinnamon to the dough and went rogue on the method. Not because the original was not good enough for me, but because my own stupidity. I did not pay enough attention and made a mistake, which was not fatal, not by far, but I wanted to mention it.

Method

First of all, I soaked the raisins in a good quality rum. Yes, my good old James Cook rum, which I had a few sips left of, perfect for the job. The raisins sipped it up all, so the bottle is empty now, but don't worry as I have another one already, same brand, just white. I left the raisins to soak up the rum for a good few hours.

The recipe says place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, except the butter. Most likely this is my first time, when I am not letting the yeast rise first and adding it to the mix, which is strange, but I trust this woman when it comes to baking, more than myself, so there was no question about changing the method. So I added all the ingredients and because my mind was elsewhere, I added the butter as well.

The original recipe says melt the butter and add slowly after 10 minutes of kneading (with the kneading machine). Adding the butter to the dough earlier is not necessarily a mistake as the dough will still be good, but maybe a little different, so I was not worried at all.

After adding the warm milk, it was ready for kneading.

Here's my dough after 10 minutes of kneading. I tried to cut the cross on top of the dough but it was too soft and the knife too thick it seems. Anyway, this failed cross served the purpose anyway. For those who have missed my previous posts about the cross, this is not due to some religious beliefs but to allow the dough to rise.

After that I covered the mixing bowl with a wrap and put it in the oven. This is a trick I've learned from my favorite Italian YouTuber, Federica. You know, every recipe that includes a dough says cover and let double in size at a warm place. Federica says heat the oven for 1 minute and put the dough in. That's what I did. It's a very good solution.

My dough tripled in size in 90 minutes, so I was satisfied with the result.

The dough was not white, because the cinnamon colored it a bit, but that wasn't a problem for me.

After kneading the dough for another minute or two on a floured surface, I rolled it out to this rectangular shape. Beat the egg white with 3 tsp sugar and spread it on the dough.

Spread the raisins over it and was ready to be rolled. Make sure the raisins are not soaking wet as that's not good for the dough.

I cut the roll into 3cm wide pieces. I got 20 in total.

Not the most beautiful shapes as none of them is round, but it's difficult to cut it right. Besides, the dough corrects itself during baking.

Baked for 25 minutes, at 180C. And voilà!

After taking out the rolls from the oven, I spread some vanilla sugar milk on them, which makes them soft.

The dough is very good, as you can see, it has risen nicely.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

Apart from adding butter in the mix, instead of adding it after the dough was knead, my only mistake was spreading egg white with sugar on it, which tastes good and looks horrible. When you sprinkle chopped walnuts, poppy seeds or cocoa over it, it becomes a mixture and the white can't be seen when it's done, but not in this case. This was just for us, the family, not for guests, so it was a good practice and a lesson learned.

Soooo, raisin - cinnamon rolls anyone? 😏

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