Cinnamon Bun Cookies

Something that had long been on my baking "To Do" list were Cinnamon Bun Cookies. The name alone is enough to fill my nose with remembered scents of yeast, cinnamon and sugar. Ahhh Cinnabon where art thou?


But despite my fevered anticipation (or may be because of it), my Cinnamon Bun Cookie experience was not up to par. I had both assembly and baking issues, and honestly I just didn't think they tasted all that great. I thought there was too much cinnamon and the cookie part was kinda bland.

So now the recap:

The dough was easy to prepare. Here I am rolling it to 1/8" thickness between two sheets of waxed paper. Since discovering this method a few months ago I have never gone back to "floured surface" method. Using the wax or parchment paper eliminates the mess, the sticking, and the real hazard of adding too much additional flour to the cookie dough.


Here is the dough topped with its cinnamon-sugar filling. Notice how close I have the cinnamon-sugar to the long edge of the dough. Uh-Oh, this will come back to haunt me.


The rolling up of the dough was a little tricky. The dough got very sticky and tore in a few spots. I also had an issue with the center of the dough rectangle being thicker than the ends, so my log rolled uneven. This caused another set of problems during baking.


Here is the dough getting sliced. The center pieces looked really nice, all perfectly round and tightly rolled, but the pieces cut from the ends were lopsided and malformed (notice I didn't photograph them).


I take that back, I did photograph some of the deformed looking end pieces. To get rid of the gaps between the cinnamon-sugar and cookie dough layers I tried squishing it tight together. But ultimately my squishing didn't help.


Just out of the oven and Cinnamon Bun Cookie disaster! The outer ring of dough and cinnamon just kinda collapsed and fell flat. I was so disappointed.

With the second batch I squished the cookie rolls even tighter but the sides still fell over. Thinking about it now, I probably didn't leave a large enough sealing edge of dough. I probably scattered the cinnamon-sugar too close to the outer edge of the roll-up so there wasn't enough dough-to-dough contact to form a tight seal.

Poor little Cinnamon Bun Cookies how unlovable you look, but it is amazing how many flaws you can cover up with a little bit of icing.


So all-in-all not a very satisfying baking experience. The Cinnamon Bun Cookies tasted okay, but not good enough to warrant a second baking attempt.

If you want to see what they SHOULD look like, check out The Recipe Girl's version (and not mine).

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

I'm a big fan of Alton Brown and the Food Network's "Good Eats" show. I love Alton's quirky skits and how he uses cheap, everyday props to explain the chemistry behind the cooking/baking process. The episode on Overnight Cinnamon Rolls was one of my favorites, but I have to be honest I was too intimated by the whole yeast/proofing/rising thing to give them a try. Until this past weekend that is.

Ta Da. Behold my Overnight Cinnamon Rolls. Not too shabby, Eh?

The process WAS time consuming, but not too difficult.

First mix the eggs, sugar, butter, and buttermilk .


Add half the flour along with the yeast and salt.


Mix the dough until still soft, but not sticky.


Turn the dough out of the mixer and kneed by hand for 30 seconds. Place in a bowl for the first rising. I had a moment of panic at this stage. I was already cooking something in the oven and the microwave, so I couldn't put the dough in there to rise. It was a rainy, humid day and the AC had the house downright cold.

Where to put the dough?

I was stumped.

I don't bake bread often (meaning never) so I don't have any tricks to fall back on. In my panic I put the bowl inside the dryer. I sorry, sorry, sorry, but it was the only warm place in the house! Is that unsanitary? Is that totally gross? I had the bowl tightly covered and the dryer is brand new (about a month old), but I still whisper to myself, "How could you DO THAT?"

Once I was finished with the microwave, I transferred the (still tightly covered) bowl from the dryer to microwave for the rest of the rising cycle. I'm so embarrassed.

Next I rolled out the dough and sprinkled it with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Then rolled the dough into a tube and sliced it into twelve parts.

Into the buttered pan the rolls went and then into the refrigerator for an overnight stay.

The next morning, the rolls along with a pan of boiling water went into the cold oven for 30 more minutes of proofing.

And then the baking. Here they are just out of the oven. Warm and amazingly fragrant.


And the final product.

In the final analysis AB's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls were good but not great. I found them a little bready and they didn't have enough ooey, gooey, sticky filling for my taste. I read almost all of the 225+ reviews this recipe received on the Food Network page and found a few reasons why my cinnamon rolls weren't "to-die-for" [#1 The first rising needs to be longer than 2 1/2 hours (some suggest up to 8 hours). #2 Roll the dough really thin (too thick and the roll will taste bready), #3 more filling WITH pecans].

Next, and there will be a next time, time they will taste awesome.