Caramel Apple Cinnamon Buns Recipe

We’ve just woken up to glorious sunshine, and a slight chill in the air, on our very first morning, in our gorgeous little holiday home for the week. Naturally, I’m taking the opportunity to have a proper little rummage; exploring all the offerings and treasures of our rather charming seaside cottage. Needless to say, the bulk of the board games and jigsaw puzzles were unearthed last night. However, I find myself feeling all kinds of lovely as I discover various candles in almost every drawer, along with an array of throw blankets stashed away under sofa’s, in cupboards, dressers and ottomans. This place is bloomin’ lovely. Complete with its fully stacked log fire, and fresh basket of kindling, I am absorbing all those hygge feels. After reading up a little on the owners, we discover that they have strong Nordic roots, so all those homely, hygge touches make perfect sense. I could venture off down to the village, watch the boats come in, or have a little wonder on the beach. I could snuggle up and get lost in the pages of a good book. But no, instead I’ve got another plan; (which you may well have guessed by the title of this post) I’m going to get my apron on, and BAKE. And what sweet treat is more hyggeligt than the cinnamon roll?! – Though on this occasion, I’m feeling a caramel apple twist.

In true Lisi fashion, I made a massive error which resulted in me back tracking, meaning that my recipe was by no means as plain sailing as it had been when I made a batch of cinnamon raisin rolls, a few weeks ago. As I mixed, beat, kneaded and even started the proving process, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was just not right with my dough. It wasn’t smooth. The texture wasn’t right. And I wasn’t getting that heavenly sweet doughy scent. Alas, I’d bloody gone and forgot the sugar. Disaster. So, ended up frantically boiling a load of sugar in water, and re-beating, and flouring my dough. It definitely didn’t do the taste any damage, but the rise wasn’t quite as effective as my previous batch. However, the recipe is still a good’n and the buns were thoroughly enjoyed by us all, so why not share it with you all..

Let’s get baking!

Makes 10-16 rolls – 1hr 40

Ingredients:

Dough :

• Plenty of plain flour- up to 6 cups worth

• 0.5 cups of Sugar
• 2 sachets dried yeast
• 1 cup of Milk
• 0.5 cups of Water
• 1 egg
• 100g butter

Filling:

• 25g melted butter
• 1 cup of demerara sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3 Braeburn apples
• 0.5 cup of water

Icing:

• 0.5 cups of brown sugar
• 0.5 cup of milk
• 0.5 cups of icing sugar
• 25g butter
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

(Mini Baker is optional, but advisable for adding a generous quantity of laughter and love into the recipe.)

Once you’ve got your ingredients, then we are ready to go!

Method:

Dough:

• Start by pouring 2 cups of flour, both sachets of yeast, and a pinch of salt into a large mixing bowl. Stir together and place to one side.
• Melt 100g of butter in a saucepan on the hob. Once butter is melted, add half a cup of sugar, 1 cup of milk, and half a cup of water. Mix thoroughly, and heat on hob until all the sugar is dissolved, and the contents of the pan is hot ( but not boiling!!). (approx 2 minutes).
• Pour contents of the pan into the mixing bowl with dry ingredients. Beat the ingredients together until it reaches a smooth, even consistency. Add one egg, continue beating, and adding flour until mixture becomes a soft dough.
• Kneed the dough, then place the dough back into the mixing bowl, cover with a tea towel, and leave to stand and rise for a minimum of 20 minutes.

Whilst the dough is rising, you have the perfect time gap to prepare your cinnamon apple filling- though this can also be done before hand, and the stewed apples should have cooled before moving onto the next step..

Filling

• Skin your apples, and cut out the cores, then finely chop your apples into small squares.
• Pour half a cup of water into a sauce pan along with your chopped apples, and a generous helping of cinnamon, and half a cup of Demerara sugar. Leave on hob to simmer and stew! If your apples are still feeling quite solid after several minutes, use a potato masher to break them up a bit. Once stewed, put to one side to cool.
• Melt 25g of butter in a cup, and put to one side.

Once the dough has been given time to develop you can move on to the next step.

• Sprinkle flour on the worktop to prevent sticking, then take your dough and roll it out into a rectangle, even in depth (approx 1cm thick). You may need to flour the rolling pin too, again to prevent the dough sticking.
• In a bowl, mix together half a cup of Demerara sugar and cinnamon.
• Using a greasing brush, coat your rolled out dough in the melted butter. Once this is done, you can sprinkle your cinnamon-sugar mixture onto the dough.
• Finally, you can now distribute your cinnamon apple mix in strips onto your dough. –truth be told, I only used 2 apples, but could have done with using more, hence why I have suggested 3 for this recipe.
• At this point, you want to think about warming up four oven, so pop the oven on 170.
• Find a baking tin, or dish, and either grease with butter or coconut oil, or cut out some baking paper to fit the baking container.
• Now comes the fun part; rolling up our dough. For this bit, the key is to keep it tight! This way, there won’t be too much risk of the cinnamon bun losing its shape. Slowly roll the dough, then coat ends in melted butter for final stick.
• Now you want to get hold of a good knife; one that is either very sharp, or may a little serrated, so that the cut is fairly clean, and there is no drag, as you may lose your filling and structure if you use the wrong knife.
• Cut the oblong rolled cinnamon Swiss roll in half, then cut accordingly- I aimed for each roll to be about 1.5inches thick. place rolls of tray. You may have created enough cinnamon rolls to do two batches, which is fine- just refrigerate or the 2nd batch until you enough oven and tray space.
• Place baking container into the over and allow 35-40 minutes cooking time. Be sure to keep a close eye, as if they do start to brown too quickly, you may want to chuck some tin foil onto them for the remainder of the cooking time. I’m not sure about you, but I’m a terrible judge of dough, in terms of whether it’s baked through or not… thankfully, these were though. Whilst your buns are blissfully baking away, you can now move on to the final stage; the caramel topping! Now, I am by no means a caramel expert, so if you are, please excuse my freestyle, slight questionable recipe below, and feel free to do your own thing here, but for me, this actually turned out surprisingly fabulous, and definitely gave life to the caramel aspect of my buns.

Icing:

• In a saucepan in a hot hob, pour half a cup of milk. Add 25g of butter and half a cup of brown sugar. (Apologies in advance for the obscene amount of sugar in this recipe, but it’s worth it, soooo..) stir together until bubbling and boiling. Stir for a further 2 minutes, ensuring the mixture doesn’t stick or burn.
• Pour into a mixing bowl, add a generous helping on cinnamon, (is there even such a thing as too much cinnamon?!) and stir is icing sugar, until mixture becomes more gloopy than runny. Leave mix to settle.
• Once your apple cinnamon buns are full baked, remove them from the oven. Allow time for them to cool, then top with caramel cinnamon ‘gloop’

Grab your self a cuppa, get your feet up, and ENJOY.

These really are a treat. And I hope you enjoy making them, and gobbling them up, just as much as my family, and I, did. And with any luck, a few less hiccups than me. Don’t forget the SUGAR.

Thanks again for reading, and if you have any questions, or suggestions, I am all ears!

Bon Appetite.

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