Wake up to overnight no-knead cinnamon rolls
Half the prep work is done the night before
My resolution in 2015 was to eat more doughnuts.
I totally followed through — even frying up an apple cider version at home — and it was a happy year.
For 2016, I intend to bake more cinnamon rolls. An overnight recipe seems the best bet: half the work is done the night before baking.
The next morning, keep in mind that after forming the dough into rolls, they’ll need to hang out for another couple of hours. They need their rest, too.
In the meantime, make French press coffee, turn up your favourite playlist and make the sour cream glaze. It’s a super easy glaze to make, and the tangy sour cream adds depth to the sweet stuff you’ll drizzle over the warm rolls.
Overnight No-Knead Challah Cinnamon Rolls
MAKES ABOUT 12
For the dough: 4 cups all-purpose flour 1 ½ teaspoons instant or active dry yeast 2 teaspoons fine sea salt 2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk ¾ cup water ¹⁄³cup olive oil ¼ cup honey For the filling: 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted ¹⁄³cup sugar 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom (optional) Pinch of salt For the glaze: 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted ¼ cup sour cream 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Pinch of salt
Whisk together the flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Mix together the eggs, water, olive oil and honey in a smaller bowl. Dump the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until a wet, sticky dough comes together. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit on your kitchen counter for 10 minutes.
Uncover the bowl and grab an edge of the dough, lift it up and fold it over itself to the centre. Turn the bowl a bit and repeat around the en- tire ball of dough, grabbing an edge and folding it into the centre. Flip the dough so that the folds and seams are on the bottom. Cover bowl again with plastic wrap; let sit for 30 minutes.
Repeat the folding and flipping of the dough four more times. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 16 to 24 hours. (If you rest the dough longer than a day, you risk overproofing it.)
In the morning, it’s time to roll out the dough and turn it into cinnamon rolls. Start by greasing a 9by 13-inch baking dish.
Stir the sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and salt together in a small bowl. Lightly sprinkle a flat surface with flour and roll the dough into a rectangular shape about 18 inches by 12 by ½-inch thick. Brush the melted butter generously over the top. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Starting from the long end, tightly roll the dough into a log. Slice the log into 12 or so pieces and arrange them in the baking dish. (If you have leftover melted butter or cinnamon sugar, feel free to rub it over the top of the rolls at this point.) Cover the dish with a tea towel and let the rolls rise until puffy and almost doubled in size, about 2 hours.
Heat oven to 350 F, setting a rack in the centre. Bake the rolls until golden and cooked through, about 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the glaze. Whisk together the confectioners’ sugar, sour cream, vanilla extract and salt. It will look like too much powdered sugar at first, but keep whisking and it will begin to absorb the sour cream. It should be thick but still pourable. If the glaze is too thick, add a splash of milk. If it’s too thin, add a bit more sugar.
Drizzle the glaze over the warm cinnamon rolls and enjoy immediately.
Source: Recipe adapted from Yossy Arefi on Apt2BBakingCo.com, who based it off the challah recipe in Jessica Fechtor’s book Stir.