We went out for brunch today for our friend Ashley’s monthly potluck. Normally I make waffles because they’re easy, but last night, despite how busy we’d been, I decided to make cinnamon buns. I divided the buns up a bit for baking, partly to leave a few at home, and partly because they didn’t all fit in the big baking dish. The picture is of the small pan left at home, pre-icing.

First make an enriched dough.

Dough:

• 30 ounces of flour (I use AP)
• 10-11 ounces of bottled or water that has sat out for an hour (to declorinate it)
• 1-2 cups of sourdough starter (if you don’t have starter, you can plan on making your dough 2-3 days before hand and let rest in the fridge. It won’t be a perfect match, but it will have a lot more depth of flavour)
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Filling:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon

Fireball Icing:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 tablespoon Fireball Whiskey

Mix everything for the dough together. Add as little water as you can get away with. The dough should be shaggy. I’ve made this as no knead dough multiple times, but I needed it to be ready for the morning so I put 2/3 of the dough my stand mixer to knead for seven minutes. I let it rise for 2 hours, then patted it out into a rectangle on a cookie sheet that had a greased piece of parchment on it. I greased the top as well with the last of the melted butter, put another sheet of parchment on top of it, covered it with a tea towel, and put the sheet in the fridge.

This morning I mixed up 1/4 cup of butter with the same amount of brown and white sugar, added a 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon and spread it out onto the dough. Chilled, it was a lot easier to work with. Rolling it up was a breeze. I cut into 1 1/2 inch buns, laid them out in a parchment lined baking dish and let them rise for an hour on the counter. I preheated the oven when the hour was up, so all in they had about 80 minutes rising. They baked for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We didn’t have cream cheese, but we had heavy cream and fireball whiskey. So I mixed 1 heaping cup of icing sugar with 1/4 cup of cream, a splash of vanilla, and then 2 tablespoons of Fireball. I’m sure I could have doubled the amount of whiskey and they would have been fine, but I probably would have scaled back on the cream somewhat to keep the icing from being too runny.

They were amazing. Soft, fluffy, and rich. The icing was amazing. A little sharp and yet still creamy. The sourdough wasn’t just there for the yeast, it provided a depth of flavour that just yeast can’t provide. The enriched dough can sit in your fridge for up to a week, and each day it will be better for the extra time. I couldn’t plan anything five days in advance, though, so there is so much richness in the dough the extra time or starter isn’t necessary. This made thirteen huge buns and an extra little loaf, and the eight that went along to brunch with us did not last!