Ever Wondered About... Food Mailcopiesto: never 202

There are *many* other variables, too. It's possible that the bread flour we use now has a higher proportion of hard (high protein) wheat, which means it takes up more liquid. I found that hot cross buns from her recipe were much improved by increasing the liquid. I have the impression that many bakers today are working with wetter doughs than in the past, anyway. And it's worth remembering that store-bought baked goods are often made with added glycerine and other things to make them retain more water. Having said all that, I posted a really good 'plain cinnamon bun recipe here a while back.... I'm astonished to find out just how far back, but if you Google Groups for 'Cinnamon Buns: The Recipe' you'll find the recipe. Be warned: it's an extremely wet-soft dough, and the wetter-softer you are able to handle it, the better the buns will be.

Now, the buns I made for the builder are from a recipe in George Greenstein's Secrets of a Jewish Baker, which is available as an import from Amazon.co.uk. There are a lot of interesting 'standard' deli breads in there. I'll post this recipe (with my modifications) as an example.

------------------------------ Sticky Buns 1 1-4 US cups warm water (my USian cup shows 250ml is a very little more than 1 cup). 1 package (1 tsp) dried yeast (I use the 'active' breadmaker yeast) 1-2 cup sugar (US dried measures seem to be the same as UK) 4 tbsp butter, softened 2 large eggs 1-3 cup skim milk powder 4-4 1-2 cups all-purpose flour (I use 3 1-2 cups strong white plus 1-2 or so plain white, reserving a last 1-2 cup of strong white for flouring while kneading, but I try not to use it all) 1 tsp salt

more butter, melted (at least 1-3 cup) 1 tsp ground cinnamon or more if liked at least 1 1-2 cup brown sugar (I use light brown muscovado) 1-2 cup raisins a good splurt of dark rum... about 1-4 cup? 50-100gm pecans, chopped

Make the dough: put the flour in a bowl and mix in the butter. Add the rest of the dry ingredients, then the water and eggs. Mix well (I do all this by hand), if you feel it's too soft to knead, just leave it for 15 minutes for gluten development to begin. Then knead it until it will form a nice ball (it should be much softer than bread dough). Place in a buttered bowl and leave to rise until doubled in volume.

While it's rising, put the raisins in the rum and leave to soak somewhere warm, stirring occasionally.

Prepare a baking pan with a rim at least 1-2" high to make it as non-stick as possible. I line a non-stick 9"x13" with a sheet of Teflon paper (absolutely non-stick). Thoroughly mix the cinnamon into the brown sugar. Preheat oven to 375F.

When the dough is risen, turn it out gently onto a floured surface and flatten into a rectangle about 24" long and 1-8-1-4" thick. Leave about 1-2" along one of the long sides clear of all the toppings that follow: paint the dough with lashings of melted butter, pouring any that is left into the baking pan. Sprinkle with about half the cinnamon sugar, then the pecans and the raisins. Sprinkle about 2-3 the remaining sugar over the base of the baking tin. Thoroughly moisten the naked edge of dough with the raisin rum to make it sticky to seal the roll.

Roll the dough up from the other long side, towards the seal. Seal :-) The recipe says 'makes 24' but I cut the roll into 14, spacing 5 down each side of the tin and 4 down the middle (we like Big Cinnamon Buns). Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar over the tops of the rolls and leave to rise until doubled.

Bake until well-browned. Allow to cool slightly before devouring.

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There's a 'Rum Bun' variation, but you'll have to buy the book for that

regards sarah

-- Think of it as evolution in action.