Epic Baking Fail - Cinnamon Bun Addition
Look at these cinnamon buns. They look pretty good, right? Crispy, sugary outside, warm and fluffy insi-.....ok wait. I have to confess. They were totally under-cooked. Like raw.
It started out so promising. I made the dough. Super good. I have a bread hook attachment on my KitchenAid Mixer (seriously, get one) so that part was so easy that I was like "I'm gonna be sooooo good at this". Put the dough in a greased bowl to rise for 90 minutes. It totally worked! Dough risen! ready to roll these babies out.
Pre-bake. Looks good right?
So I bust out the rolling pin and roll out the dough. It's like the baking fairy was on my side. It rolled out perfectly, not sticky or clumpy or uneven. Then I brush it with butter, nothing wrong with that. Next comes the sugar/cinnamon mix. Sprinkled it on, threw in some pecan bits for good measure. Rolled it up, sliced into little rounds (above) and let them rise a little more before they went into the oven. Somewhere along the way, the instructions said something about the loaf pan size. I only have one loaf pan so I'm like "I'm sure it's fine".
I pull them out of the oven after the recommended bake time (plus a few more minutes for good measure). They totally looked done. Well looks were deceiving because I pulled them apart and the oozy sludge of uncooked dough greeted me from the middle. And amidst all of this, I had been teasing my neighbor about sharing these hot cinnamon buns straight out of the oven. I was texting her and saying "get ready...they're gonna be amazing...just a few more minutes". My house smelled so good. What could have possibly gone wrong? Why oh why did this happen to me??
The truth is, the outside ones were fine. Hot, sugary and pretty tasty. I pulled apart the rest and stuck them in some muffin tins to try and disguise them as cinnamon buffins (get it? bun/muffin). It worked but by then I was over it. It's not like it was a huge social catastrophe and I ruined brunch or something. It was a Sunday, I had nothing else to do and wanted to see if I could do it. I wasted perfectly good flour and sugar but learned some stuff too. they should have been a lot shorter. Like 1/3 the size. I could have put them in a cake pan. Also, the sugar mix I got from the recipe wasn't the best. If I had thought it through, Brown sugar and some spices would have been waaaaaaay better. You live and you learn. Don't get me wrong, I still ate them (and gave one of the pretty and well-baked outside ones to my neighbor. She though it was great.)
