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Cinnamon Buns
Use the bun dough, and roll one-quarter of an inch thick. Spread with:-- 1/2 cup butter softened 1 cup currants 2 tablespoons cinnamon 1 cup brown sugar Roll the dough as in making jelly roll, and cut into slices one inch thick. Place in well-greased pans, with cut surfaces up. When very light, bake in a moderate oven forty-five minutes. If the buns are desired quite moist, brush them over, after fifteen minutes' baking, with, molasses. Repeat this every ten minutes until finished baking.
Care must be taken not to burn the molasses; the oven should be cooler after the molasses is used.
A standard enriched yeast dough, filled and rolled. The one thing to watch is the baking time, which reflects a period oven and a much cooler finish than modern bakers use.
- The bun doughThis entry depends on the book's basic sweet bun dough, given elsewhere. Any enriched yeast dough will behave the same way; roll it out to the specified quarter inch.
- Moderate ovenConventionally around 350F, with period sources ranging from about 350 to 375F. Once you begin brushing with molasses the original tells you to drop the heat, and it is right: something nearer 325F for the remainder keeps the sugars from scorching.
- Forty-five minutes is longOne-inch slices in a greased pan are done in 25 to 30 minutes at 350F, when the centres read about 190F. The longer time likely reflects a slower, less even range; check at 25 minutes regardless.
- "When very light"The second rise, after shaping. The buns should look puffed and nearly doubled and hold a slow dent when pressed, usually 45 to 60 minutes in a warm room.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, a small seedless raisin, not fresh red or black currants. A brief soak in hot water, drained well, keeps them from drying out in the oven.
- Two tablespoons cinnamonNot a misprint, but assertive by current taste and drying to the filling. One tablespoon with the cup of brown sugar gives a filling closer to what most people expect; go to two if you want the older, more spice-forward bun.
- The molasses glazeBrushing every ten minutes builds a sticky, dark crust rather than a sugar icing. Use a light hand and the cooler oven, since molasses burns bitter well before the buns are done.
- Pan and yieldThe number of buns depends on the length of the roll; one-inch slices will fill a good-sized baking pan. Set them cut side up with a little space between, as the recipe directs; they will knit together as they rise.
Cinnamon buns belong to the broad northern European tradition of enriched, spiced yeast doughs rolled around butter and sugar, a form found in German and Scandinavian baking and carried into American kitchens through Pennsylvania and the Midwest; the jelly-roll method of shaping them is the same one nineteenth-century cookbooks used for filled cakes. The molasses brushing here is the older American touch, molasses being cheaper than refined sugar and long the default sweetener in domestic baking.