Cinnamon Twists

I got the idea for these after coming across the Copycat Cinnabon recipe that Slow Roasted Italian had posted. I did make a fair number of changes to their recipe, the main thing of interest was the use of vanilla bean paste in the melted butter that was brushed on the dough itself. Have to say that even with the changes the recipe turned out really well, although as the original uses a weird almost blitz puff pastry recipe, in the future any puff pastry (traditional or blitz variety) will be made from the recipes in my Professional Pastry Chef text book from my days in culinary school. The recipes in that text book turn out better, and no modifications are necessary.

But for a snack for today, these turned out well. They will make a good snack, especially when it comes to our SWTOR operations tonight.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Twists

Yield: 18 large twists

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup warm milk
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tbsp yeast
1 egg
3 tbsp chia seeds
3 1/8 cup flour
1 cup frozen butter, grated

Topping:

1/3 cup butter
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste

1/3 cup coconut sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon

Preparation:

Heat milk in a sauce pan over medium-low heat. During this time begin grating the frozen butter into a bowl. Once the milk has heated combine the milk, coconut sugar, yeast and chia seeds in the mixture bowl and stir together. This will allow the yeast to activate. It is likely that grating the remainder of the butter will still take another 5 to 10 minutes. This works well as you want the yeast to have at least 5 minutes.

Place the butter in the freezer until it is needed. Add the egg and flour into the mixer and mix well. At this point add the butter in 3-4 batches being careful to not mix it too much. As I had to make adjustments to the amounts used in this recipe to get a nice dough I pulled the dough out to knead it by hand before adding the butter. I added the butter in and needed it briefly after each incorporation to prevent melting. Form into a ball and wrap in saran wrap. I chilled the dough in the freezer for half an hour, although 2-3 hours in the fridge would be a better option to chill the dough.

Once the dough has had time to chill, flour the table and roll the dough out into a large rectangle. Complete 3 book folds (see below for picture instructions) before rolling to the dough into one long rectangle, approximately 1/4-1/8th of an inch thick. To make this next part easier roll it so the width is the desired length of the cinnamon sticks, then continue to roll out the length of the dough until it has reached the desired thickness.

Place parchment paper, or silicon baking mats on the bake sheets, and prepare the cinnamon sugar and vanilla butter mixtures into 2 separate bowls.

Brush the dough with the mixture of melted butter and vanilla bean paste.

Then sprinkle some of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the entire piece of dough.

Flip the dough carefully, and repeat this process on the other side. Slice the dough into sections that are approximately 5/8ths of an inch thick. You can use a pasty cutter or a knife, but personally I found that a pizza cutter was actually the fastest way to get this part done (and the easiest way).

Twist each section and place onto a lined bake sheet. If you have the fridge space you can allow the sections to chill again while the oven preheats to 400 degrees F, or if you are like me, and don't have enough space, then leave the dough on the counter to rest while the oven is preheating.

I had 4 trays in total, 2 with 5 and 2 with 4.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until it just start to brown, and the dough isn't really soft when you lift it off the trays.

Book Fold Instructions:

Place the ball of chilled dough on a well floured surface, and cover with some more flour.

 Roll the dough out into a rectangle.

Fold each end in towards the middle.

Fold the dough along the midline. Roll the dough out again and repeat this process 3x, each time folding the dough opposite of the last time so you don't always have the outside edge staying on the outside, but rather you keep working it into the dough.

And finally roll the dough out to the desired length.

This does work best when you a chance to chill the dough for up to 30 minutes between each fold, but as this is closer to the blitz recipe, you do not need to chill between each fold.