DISASTER BAKING #2: Streusel-Topped Cinnamon Buns (We Knead Your Vote!)
Dear Disaster Bakers,
This weekend, I measured out flour and genuinely felt that Ina Garten could never.
The scent of cinnamon drifted across the kitchen (the rare pleasure of a studio apartment; most of the time, it just smells like Thai takeout), the triumphant whine of "thank u, next" (no thank u, Ariana Grande) oozed out over the speakers, and marathoners pounded the pavement outside.
It was the platonic ideal of a Sunday. I felt ensconced from the world! The breeze filtered in, and New York snapped like peanut brittle. This is the best season, these weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. Bright blue skies, the chill without the biteāit won't last forever. That's what makes it so delicious.
But of course, it's foreshortened in 2018 because Election Day comes smack in the middle of it (as in, now; GO TO THE POLLS), and so our sacred time (the feeling of the holidays, all the squash varietals, minus the dread and the ritual and the family of it all) is punctuated.
Sunday morning, but reality creeps in.
How to keep the terror at bay? Well, vote. For starters. Remember the fact that we can laze around for even a few hours makes us luckier than most people on this planet. Do a headstand. Swab a cotton ball in nail polish remover and wipe off that chipped varnish. Watch the new Shahs of Sunset.
Then, make two cake pans of cinnamon buns. I think it'll help.
When I was little, we were allowed to pick whatever we wanted to eat for breakfast on the weekends. A Shabbat treat. Frosted Flakes, pumpkin muffins, crumb cake from Gruenbaum's in Riverdale. No decadence was denied to us. My brother and I (see below; I'm the small one, punching him in the head) liked to team up on our selections. If there were two of us, the adult tasked with the purchase tended to overestimate, and we ended up with leftovers. We ate the extras on Sunday afternoon when it had all gone a little stale. Mmm. Toothsome.
For the better part of a decade, cinnamon buns (from Fairway Market, but they've changed the recipe so don't bother) were a fixture. The gushiest morsels in the center, caked in so much glaze it made my teeth hurt a little. I would have gone into battle for them. My mother once called our pediatrician to ask whether we could eat them if we had a fever. Shouldn't we have...rice? Or toast? Something plain?
No, he said. A craving is good. Bodies want. That's how we know they're working.
A craving is good. I think about that all the time. Dr. Donald Gribetz knew it. So does Chrissy Teigen!
Me too, Teigs. Me too. So what do I want, let's see:
An outcome on November 6 that doesn't force me to relive (or even faintly to recall) Election Night 2016.
A reckoning within U.S. law enforcement that'll convince them to stop terrorizing people who just want safe harbor and really noodle instead on how to combat the rising threat of white nationalism.
These absurd Feit boots, handmade and lined with wool for a cool $1,000. I want to be chic when I get to the Canadian border.
A million photos of these cinnamon buns delivered to this inbox (just reply, or email disasterbaking@gmail.com) because you've all made them and want to show off. Buns don't cure fevers or political malaise, but there is something optimistic about yeasted confections. Also, kneading dough relieves anxiety.
Coconut Oil Cinnamon Buns, Topped with Macadamia-Nut Streusel and Glaze Because You're Fucking Worth It
Servings: 10 buns (which I divided across two cake pans; that way you can freeze half if you'd like)
Distractability (on a scale of 1-10): 8
Scratch pad: Two points each for the dough that needs to be kneaded for 15 minutes and the streusel that can be hand-mashed. An extra four points because the recipe uses dental floss to slice the rolls. The satisfaction!
Notes:
The cinnamon bun recipe is adapted from the incomparable Stella Parks at Serious Eats. Find it here. I made it with coconut oil instead of butter, because I find that oil extends the shelf-life of the finished buns. (But butter works well if that's what you have, and no one is going to complain that these are too transcendent and delicious.) I also swapped out the cream cheese frosting for a simple streusel and a classic glaze. I have to be honest that I think cream cheese frosting is overkill on these and drowns out the flavor of the bun beneath. Sue me!
In the streusel, nuts are optional. I like macadamia because they make me feel wealthy or walnuts (not quite the same tax bracket, but fine). A little spelt flour subbed in for up to a third of the AP flour will make the crumbs a little lighter and snappier. Choose your own adventure.
Ingredients:
For the filling:
8 tablespoons coconut oil, soft, but not liquid (115g)
3/4 cup light brown sugar, gently packed (170g)
2 tablespoons cinnamon (And indeed, I'm aware this seems like an insane amount. Do you want to be bathed in the fragrance of autumn or not?) (15g)
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg (optional; I threw in the same amount of cardamom just for a kick.)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or a pinch if you only have table salt on hand.
For the dough:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (450g, plus some more for rolling)
1/2 cup sugar (100g)
2 teaspoons instant (or RapidRise) yeast (Stella Parks, who wrote this recipe, distinguishes instant yeast from RapidRise yeast. But I used RapidRise with no trouble. What won't work is active dry yeast, which needs to be proofed before it can be added to dry ingredients. Don't use that.)
2 teaspoons kosher salt or just one teaspoon of table salt (7g, no matter which salt you use! Isn't math fun?)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons coconut oil (115g)
8 tablespoons milk (I used almond because that's what was in the fridge. This is a forgiving dough, and I bet it would embrace Oatly even, so go wild) (115g.)
1 cup unsweetened Greek yogurt, any percentage will work (True confession: I made these with coconut yogurt! I know I went momentarily insane, guess what it was fine?!) (225g)
For the glaze:
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar (140g)
2 tablespoons milk (Again, any kind will do) (30g)
1 teaspoon maple syrup (6.5g)
For the streusel:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (225g)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar (65g)
1/3 cup granulated sugar (65g)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or just a pinch if you only have table salt on hand.
8 tablespoons coconut oil, melted (113g)
2/3 cup raw macadamia nuts, chopped (100g)
OK, buckle up.
Here we go.
For the filling:
Now Stella Parks came up with a genius idea to help the filling adhere to its cute bun wrapper, which is she whips it into a kind of mousse that spreads easily once the dough is ready. As you know, I don't own a standing mixer (Spon me, KitchenAid!), so this wasn't a possibility for me.
If you're #blessed, beat coconut oil, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in the bowl of the mixer until it becomes light and very soft, which should take about 5 minutes. Then, transfer it to a bowl.
If you're #not and/or have never had a chance to register for gifts that your friends and family are culturally obliged to purchase for you, just take a fork and mash the filling together as best you can. Will what you end up with look like a caramel-colored pillow? Or those K-beauty bubble masks that briefly swept the internet? No. Your filling will look like dirt. Accept it and move on.
For the dough:
Not to belabor this point, but if you have a mixer, you can continue the process in there. Just wipe the dregs of the filling out of the bowl with a paper towel. Then in either the bowl of your mixer or a normie bowl if you're like me, whisk together flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and baking soda. On the stove, melt coconut oil over low heat (as in, don't let it boil). Stir in milk and yogurt, which will maybe sputter. It's fine!
Add that mixture to the flour mixture in the bowl and (if you have a mixer blah blah), knead on low with a hook attachment for 20 minutes. (What! Insane! Couldn't be! Well it is. Turn up the volume on the Housewives and moisturize your calves.)
If you don't, roll up your sleeves and get in there and knead that dough for at least 10 minutes. Set a timer, freaks! At the 10-minute mark, when you're like I can't possibly go on, remember that our democracy is at stake and the least you can do is deliver the best goddamn cinnamon buns of your life to your friends and family. Then set a timer for five more minutes, and get the fuck in there. At this point, I found the dough a little wet and gloopy, so I added another 50g or so (a heaping palmful) of flour, which worked. This is a sticky dough, so it's fine if it doesn't look smooth and firm, but you don't want it floofing all over the bowl.
What I mean is this is a soft white dough with the barest hint of structural integrity, so picture Mitt Romney on one of his better days.
Now the dough is ready for its first rise. Cover the bowl with plastic and set it to rise for around 90 minutes. When you take a peek at it, it should be doubled in size, and if you press your finger into it, it should leave a mark. Good? Good.
To shape the dough, roll it out onto a floured surface. (I like to drape a piece of parchment paper over my biggest cutting board and tape it down so it doesn't move. Painless clean-up.) Once the dough has been rolled into a square (around 13x13 in size), rustle up that filling you made 10 centuries ago and spread it across the dough.
Roll it up into a log, leaving it seam-side down once you're done. Here's the fun part. Shimmy some dental floss under the dough until you reach the middle. Cross the ends over the top, like you're about to tie a bow, but don't. Instead keeping pulling them tight so that the log divides in two. Cut each half into five or six slices. (I got five out of each half. Technically, you could eek out six.)
Divide the slices between two parchment-lined 8-inch cake pans or one 9x13 inch sheet pan. I prefer two cake pans because now you can either put both pans in the fridge for a second cold rise, or freeze one of the pans for semi-instant cinnamon buns at some later date! Put whichever rolls you want to bake in the near future in the fridge, and let them rise undisturbed overnight or for up to 48 hours.
Once that's done, pre-heat your oven to 350Ā° F and take the rolls out of the fridge to let them soften a little at room temperature. Make your streusel. This part's EZ. Whisk the sugars, spices, and salt, then pour over the melted coconut oil. When it's all combined, add in the flour and mix until it feels almost like cookie dough. At this point your oven is pre-heated and you've been making these cinnamon buns since the New York Times saw no clear link between Russia and the Trump administration in October 2016! Wow! Pour yourself a drink, soldier. Then, take chunks of streusel and mound it over each lil roll.
Ooh BB! Now chuck those rolls into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes. (I checked on them at 30, and they were perfect, so keep an eye.) While the rolls bake, whisk together the ingredients for the glaze, which is sheer madness but who is going to fight us? When the buns are still the toastiest from the oven, pour the glaze over them, and film it for Instagram. I didn't, and I'll regret it for the rest of my life. Eat up immediately, or wrap the buns tightly in plastic wrap and heat up for 20 seconds in the microwave when you're ready to sink your teeth into them. I'm sobbing just thinking about it.
DistractiLinks
Watch Rep. John Lewis dance to Pharrell's "Happy."
Vote because this man is an icon of Civil Rights and a voter who was beat up and bloodied so that all Americans could cast their ballots. Also vote because we will likely get more dancing videos if Democrats win and we likely will not if Republicans do. OK. There. I put it in the starkest possible terms. (While we're here, learn some of the stories the textbooks left out with this thread. And follow Nikole Hannah-Jones, as a rule.)Listen to "thank u, next," Ariana Grande's epic breakup anthem that demonstrates she's not just an international popstar, but also has nice manners. I've had it on repeat for 48 hours.
Read TimothƩe Chalamet, avec moody earring, in conversation with Harry Styles in i-D. Each sentence is a Walt Whitman poem!!!!!!!! We hated the celeb interview, now we love it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fork over That Dough
ProPublica, for doing some of the best journalism out there on both voting rights and white supremacist groups.
City Harvest, HBD to pal of the newsletter Jaya Saxena! A good person! Who asked that people donate to this newsletter-relevant organization to celebrate one more turn around the sun.