My husband and I started dating in 2002. As our relationship grew, he began to call me “babe” as a term of endearment. I have to say, I hated it! After a short while, I finally mentioned to him how much I disliked being called “babe” and wished he’d call me something else. Over a lovely dinner and a bottle of wine, we came up with, ‘Baba.”
It was great – but now I wanted to call him that and he wanted to call me that, too. We came up with a solution that night…I’m ”Baba One” and he is “Baba Two!” These Cinnamon Buns are for you, Baba Two 🙂
Baba’s Cinnamon Buns w/ Cream Cheese Icing – Bread Maker Version.
What you will need:
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 egg
For the Filling inside Buns:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2-½ tablespoons cinnamon
- 1/3 cup margarine, softened (not melted)
- 1 cup of chopped walnuts (optional)
For the Cream Cheese Icing:
- 8 tablespoons butter
- 1-½ cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup cream cheese
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
The Buns:
- Warm milk and water on the stove top. When a skin begins to form on top of milk mixture, remove from heat and add butter. Let butter melt into milk mixture. Let cool to warm temperature
- Dissolve the yeast into the warm milk mixture
- Place flour, sugar, egg and salt in bread maker
- Select “Dough Cycle” and let flour mixture mix
- Slowly add milk mixture to flour mixture as it moves in bread maker
- Dough cycle takes approximately one hour.
The Filling:
- While the dough is mixing, find 3 small bowls:
- Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in first bowl
- Soften butter in the microwave in the second bowl
- Chop walnuts and place in third bowl
Roll out the Dough:
- When the Dough Cycle is complete, roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface, until it is approx 21 inches long by 16 inches wide and ¼” thick.
- Spread the softened margarine over the entire surface of the dough
- Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon evenly over the surface.
- Sprinkle Walnuts over surface, if desired.
- Carefully roll the dough from shorter side (see photo below)
- Cut the dough into 1 3/4 inch slices, and place pieces into a lightly greased muffin pan
- Preheat oven to 375° degrees
- Let them rise for 15 -20 minutes in a warm place
- Bake for 10-15 minutes or until light golden brown
The Icing:
- While the rolls are baking, combine the Cream Cheese Icing ingredients (listed above) together in a medium-sized bowl and mix well
- When the rolls are just warm (wait about 10 minutes after taking them out of the oven) spread icing generously over buns
- Enjoy!
Looking for a Better Cinnamon?
Tips from the New England Innkeeper:
The bread Maker on the ‘Dough Cycle’ is a great way to help with the kneading process. Be sure to use a good quality flour, one that is untreated with either bleach (powdered bleach belongs in your laundry, not your bread), or potassium bromate, a suspected carcinogen. Despite the fact that some machine recipe books call for bromated flour, it isn’t necessary to the success of your bread, and also poses a health risk.
Fun Facts
Cinnamon rolls are known in Sweden as “kanelbulle.” This word literally means cinnamon bun. Other than kanelbulle, cinnamon roll and cinnamon bun, they are also known as sticky rolls and sticky buns.
Cinnamon is one of the oldest spices known. It was mentioned in the Bible and was used in ancient Egypt not only as a beverage flavoring and medicine (it has shown promise in the treatment of diabetes, arthritis, high cholesterol, memory function, and even leukemia and lymphoma) and also as an embalming agent. Long ago , it was so highly treasured that it was considered more precious than gold.