Abby’s Cinnamon Buns
Abby needs to Feed the World. She doesn’t realize it but she’s been starving herself, emotionally and physically, in her need to give to other people, ignoring her own hunger, her own desires, while she searches out the Meaning of Life. I’m pretty sure she was the Goddess of the Hearth — and the need to nurture is hardwired into her body. It isn’t until she drinks the Kool-aid that she starts to feel her own hunger.
Abby’s food is more than food for the belly. It’s food for the soul, divinely delicious and just slightly magical. You can’t eat one of Abby’s Metamorphic Cinnamon Buns without having your life change.
Think Cinnabon. But a hundred times better (and Cinnabons are pretty damned good).
She uses a touch of saffron (of course), fresh yeast, and the best cinnamon she can find. Sometimes she even grates her own from cinnamon sticks. She usually mixes a little Drambuie into the icing, but once she meets Kami it’s Kool-Aid all the way.
You can try making these. You need to listen to our soundtrack (coming soon) and think lustful, divine thoughts. And whatever you do, don’t overcook them!
Abby’s Metamorphic Cinnamon Buns:
2 packets dry yeast
1/2 c. warm water
9 c. white unbleached flour (approximately — baking is never an exact science)
2 c. lukewarm whole milk
1/2 c. granulated sugar
2 T. cinnamon
pinch of saffron
4 eggs
4 T. butter (softened, and never use margarine!)
heavy cream
1 1/2 c. confectioners sugar
2 t. vanilla
3 T. warm water of Kami’s Kool-Aid (or Drambuie if you’re feeling naughty)
Dissolve the yeast in the 1/2 c. warm water and let it stand and bubble in a nice healthy manner. Pour the dissolved yeast and 6 cups of the flour into a huge bowl along with the milk, and blend well with a nice big wooden spoon. Cover with a wet linen dishtowel and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk.
At this point you can add the granulated sugar, salt, cinnamon, saffron, eggs, butter and 1/2 c. of flour to your original mass and blend it well. Turn it all out onto a slab of Vermont marble lightly dusted with flour and knead gently, slowly adding the rest of the flour until the dough feels alive in your hands. Pull it apart into small pieces (about the size of a Barbie head) and roll them into long coils about 7 inches and then wind each one around itself, kind of like Princess Leia’s hair in the first movie. You should have about 32.
Put eight each in a round, buttered and floured cake pans (don’t use that nasty spray stuff — Abby wouldn’t), cover with another damp linen dishtowel and let them rise double in bulk. Brush the tops with the heavy cream, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake for no more than 25 minutes — preferably a little shorter. An overcooked cinnamon bun is hard and nasty. Instead, pour yourself a glass of something delicious, savoring the heavenly smells coming from the oven, and hover to make sure you get them out in time.
In the meantime, mix the confectioners sugar, the vanilla and the warm water (or Kami’s Kool-aid if you have any on hand) and spread them over the cinnamon buns the moment they come out of the oven.
Best eaten naked.
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Thanks so much. I may try them weekend. One question. What is the heavy cream for? Not that I’m complainin. Heavy cream goes with everything. Did I miss something?
This looks fabulous.
Of course, I’ll triple the cinnamon.
How are you guys getting around the trademark issue about the Kool-aid?
Hoo-baby! You should write cookbooks, too!
I was wondering about the cream, too. You know, if you put enough butter in cinnamon rolls, the recipe will tolerate about half whole wheat pastry flour. I suspect the heavy cream is boosting the fat content to make those super-soft rolls that just melt in your mouth!
I think I know what’s for breakfast tomorrow. I have guests and children at my breakfast table (and in-laws), so that kind of squelches the “eat naked” idea, but the thought will be with me!
My favorite part is the pieces the size of a Barbie’s head. That’s so Krissie.
DONT use butter to grease the pan. use shortening or oil, otherwise your buns may get soggy bottoms.
Oh, for a kitchen with an actual oven. I’m am bookmarking this one. Thanks, Krissie!
I can just picture it:
1. I make the World’s Most Fabulous cinnamon buns
2. I invite the man of my dreams over to consume said cinnamon buns.
3. Naturally, because it’s part of the instructions, we consume the food stuffs nekkid.
4. The m.o.m.d. says appreciatively, “Nice buns!”
5. “Why thank you,” I say modestly, only to realize that he’s merely commenting on my cooking.
O the shame…
I printed this out for trial. I love baking and cinnamon buns in particular. I will go against my nature and just make the recipe per directions before trying to make the version with raisins and pecans, or dried cranberries and almonds. If I make it myself does it count as my yearly allowed Cinnabon? I’m very intrigued by the saffron.
After I read the first paragraph of this, the hunger in the Abby meets Chris scene made more sense. I just wasn’t getting that Abby wasn’t used to being hungry, or was and used to be able to ignore it. I just thought she should eat a sandwich already and stop bellyaching. The strangeness and newness of the hunger would make that scene make more sense because new things are distracting. Well, off to continue TUMF. And drool at the thought of the better naked buns.
Um, I hate to be nit-picky, but I’m having trouble with the concept that nine cups of flour will only produce 16 Barbie-heads. Could it be Chatty-Cathy heads?
(-: I think I make dinner rolls like this — long coil tied into a knot. I call them Belly-buttons when no one is listening, or “roses” when we’ve got company. Maybe I can now call them Metaphorical Dinner Rolls, and really impress the guests!
Yeah, the barbie doll head was my best bit too
OK, I screwed up. First, you use the heavy cream on the top of the buns before you put them in the oven.
Second, it makes 32 buns (and you use four pans or whatever pan you want that will fit them all and give them a little room to rise).
Hey, it was late.
*drools like Homer Simpson. Those sound delish. Loved the Barbie doll heads bit. I wish I wasn’t just getting back on track with my diet, I’d bake these this weekend and eat them all. Naked.
I’d make them to take to my in-laws next weekend but my MIL’s specialty is cinnamon buns and if I showed up with ones better than hers… . Yeah, that would be bad. Real bad. I come from a long line of women who speak their minds and stand up for themselves, she comes from women who use emotional blackmail to get their way. It’s not pretty.
‘Best eaten naked’
I assumed this meant that you weren’t supposed to put jam on the buns but should just enjoy them as they are when they come out of the oven. Why does everyone else take things literally?
Put jam on cinnamon buns? Inconceivable!
As I’m sure you realize, “buns” is yet another word that is different across the Atlantic.
American buns are soft, sweet, and ready to be enjoyed.
British buns are … not.
American buns are soft, sweet, and ready to be enjoyed.
British buns are … not.
They can be. Hot cross buns, for example, are soft and sweet. In general, I’d think of a ‘bun’ as being plain bread in a round shape and you’d cut it open to put the filling inside. What would you call that? A roll?
However, my husband, who’s from Lancashire, thinks that buns are sweet. What I’d call a fairy-cake (maybe what you in the US would call a cup-cake? They look like tiny sponge cakes) he’d call a bun.
If the recipe calls for butter, we use butter - never contradict the cook. Especially not if you’re thinking to replace delicious butter with something nasty like modern shortening or plain vegetable oil. Depending on choice, you’ll triple the bad fats, have none of the flavor, and neither allow a nice crispy chewy edge. Why bother? Buttah is bettah.
We have hamburger buns which are just bread rounds cut in half.
I’m trying to think if we call any other pastry “buns” but I think it’s just cinnamon buns. Maybe “buns” for us is just some form of round bread, sweet or not?
Oh, and in my neck of the woods, they’re called cinnamon rolls, so each to her own.
I am so hungry for cinnamon rolls.
I call them rolls, too - and the food that many people call “sticky buns” are called pecan rolls at my house. Because the pecans are important and the dough is rolled up and “bun” conveys very little info.
I should make some, but probably won’t, as it’s too hot for baking these days…
Thanks for the corrections, Krissie. I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to recipes, and I guess I could have winged it, but I wanted to know what *your* cinnamon buns are like. This weekend, I’m going to treat myself, and there will be NO whole wheat flour or anything to dilute the experience! Thanks again!
(I imagine women drooling into their keyboards all over the world, thanks to this post.)
I just made these and they were fab. My house smells divine. I halved the recipe and they turned out fine (as much as I’d happily eat 32 cinnamon buns, it wouldn’t be good for my actual buns : ) )