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Royal Cinnamon Buns
2 1/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 4 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 2 tablespoons shortening 1 egg 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup sugar 2 teaspoons cinnamon 4 tablespoons seeded raisins Sift 2 tablespoons of measured sugar with flour, salt and baking powder; rub shortening in lightly; add beaten egg to water and add slowly. Roll out 1/3 inch thick on floured board; brush with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Roll as for jelly roll; cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces; place with cut edges up on well greased pan; sprinkle with a little sugar and cinnamon. Bake in moderate oven 30 to 35 minutes; remove from pan at once.
This is a baking-powder dough, not a yeast dough, so it is mixed and shaped like biscuits and goes into the oven immediately. Treat it as such and it works; treat it as bread and it will be tough.
- Moderate ovenA "moderate" oven of the period is generally reckoned at 350°F to 375°F; set it toward 350°F and preheat fully before mixing, since the leavening starts working as soon as the liquid goes in.
- Watch the timeThirty to thirty-five minutes suits a slower, uneven range. In a modern oven buns this size are likely to be done sooner, so start checking at 20 to 25 minutes, when the tops are golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- Handle like biscuit doughRub the shortening in only until it is in small flakes, and stop stirring the moment the dough holds together. Overworking is the one thing that turns these from tender to bready.
- ShorteningIn 1920s usage this means lard or a vegetable shortening such as Crisco. Butter works and tastes better, but keep it cold when rubbing it in.
- Seeded raisinsRaisins that have had their seeds removed, as muscats once required. Ordinary seedless raisins are the direct substitute; 4 tablespoons is roughly 1 1/4 ounces.
- The unmeasured butterThe filling calls for melted butter with no quantity given. About 2 tablespoons brushed over the rolled sheet is enough to hold the sugar and cinnamon without running out at the seam.
- Filling splitTwo tablespoons of the half cup of sugar go into the dry ingredients; the rest is for the filling and the sprinkle on top. Divide it before you start so you do not lose track.
- Leavening ratioFour teaspoons of baking powder to 2 1/4 cups flour is on the high side by current practice, unsurprising in a book published to sell baking powder. Three teaspoons gives good lift with less of the metallic aftertaste some brands leave.
- Yield and the panExpect roughly 10 to 12 buns. Removing them from the pan at once matters: sugar from the filling that leaks out sets hard as it cools and will glue them down.
The New Royal Cook Book was published by the Royal Baking Powder Company, one of a long line of American promotional cookbooks in which the leavened recipes generally specify the sponsor's product by name. That commercial motive aside, the book documents a real shift: cinnamon buns of the kind German, Scandinavian and Dutch bakers brought to America were traditionally raised with yeast over several hours, and here the whole thing is reduced to a biscuit dough that can be mixed, rolled, cut and baked within the hour. Chemical leavening, widely available in the United States from the later nineteenth century, is what made that compression possible, and books like this one worked hard to persuade cooks that the quick version was not a compromise. The "roll as for jelly roll" instruction assumes the reader already knows the jelly roll, a form that has faded further than the cinnamon bun has.