To this day I still think of cinnamon buns as the ultimate hanger cure when you’re in a shopping mall for too long, or the snack you grab from IKEA because you’re hangry… and you’ve been at IKEA too long. Basically, it’s the best indulgent snack that cures the hangries (which I am very guilty of having) and I wanted to make my own, so I could control what went into it, and so that my house could smell like cinnamon and deliciousness. After multiple trial and errors and recipe tests, I am ready to share my ultimate cinnamon bun recipe with you.
These buns are yeast-raised, and yes, I know raising dough by yeast takes forever and a day. There are plenty of yeast-free, baking powder-leavened, quick-bread, cinnamon bun recipes out there, and if you don’t have the patience, feel free to go ahead and use one of those. This recipe, however, uses a brioche dough base, and although it does take a while to let the dough rise, the taste and texture is totally worth it in the end. What I enjoy about yeast-raised doughs versus quick breads, is definitely the texture, which you get from all the gluten development. It is more pleasant than a short, cake-like texture — unless you’re having cake, of course.
This recipe is worth the 3-4 hours it’ll take to make, I guarantee 100%. Look on the bright side, the brioche dough can be made way in advance, so make it before, and enjoy cinnamon buns when you crave them.
Note: this dough starts with a sponge, which starts off the dough’s fermentation, creating a better taste and structure. If you’re in a time pinch and choose to skip this step, just add the sponge ingredient amounts to the final dough ingredient amounts. The ideal flour for this is bread flour, but if you don’t have any, all-purpose will work too.
Yeast-Raised Brioche Cinnamon Buns
This recipe makes 12 buns.
Ingredients
For the dough:
sponge
192g (1-1/2 cup) flour
65g (1/4 cup) soft butter
144g (2/3 cup) milk
2g (1/2tsp) instant yeast
For the rest of the dough (aka final dough)
3 eggs
5g (1 tsp) instant yeast
11g (2 tsp) salt
60g sugar, divided into two equal parts
210g (1-1/3 cup) flour
75g (1/3 cup) cold butter
For the filling:
90g (3/8 cup) butter
12g (2 tbsp) ground cinnamon
300g (1-1/2 cup lightly packed) brown sugar
For the cream cheese frosting:
125g (1 cup) cream cheese, softened
30g (2 tbsp) milk
25g (1/4 cup) icing sugar
note: you can add 2 more tbsp milk to make a runnier icing — more similar to a glaze.
Method
For the dough:
- Sponge: mix your flour, butter, milk, yeast with a paddle attachment on 1st speed until combined in a stand mixer. Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap, and let sit for 30 min.
- Switch to a dough hook on your stand mixer. Add your eggs, salt, half your sugar, and yeast to the sponge. Mix on low speed for a few seconds just to break up the sponge.
- Add your flour and mix on low speed for 5 min to bring the dough together.
- Turn the mixer up to medium speed and mix for 8 min to develop gluten.
- After 8 minutes, add your sugar and butter in small chunks while your mixer is running on medium speed. Let it mix until there are no more chunks of butter visible. The dough is ready when the sides of the bowl looks almost clean.
- Using a dough scraper, scrape the dough onto plastic wrap. Wrap and store in the fridge for up to 12 hours, or freeze for 2 months.
- To bake buns, refrigerate dough until thoroughly chilled, roll out into a rectangle 12 inches by 19 inches. Crumble the cinnamon mixture over the rectangle, leaving an inch on the top and bottom edge free for brushing water over. Roll carefully and evenly, and refrigerate the log until firm.
- Cut the log into 12 equal pieces and place on a tray lined with parchment.
- Proof (let rise) in a cool oven with a pan of hot water on the rack below for 1-1.5 hours or until doubled in size. Bake for 25 min at 180C/350F.
For the filling:
- Cream the butter, sugar, and icing sugar until smooth, refrigerate so the filling can be crumbled over the dough.
For the cream cheese frosting:
- Using an immersion blender, or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, blend/cream the cream cheese, icing sugar, and milk until smooth. Drizzle or smear over buns when they come out of the oven.
Enjoyyy!!!!! 🙂
ally bakes 
Wow, homemade brioche…yum!! (:
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Yum indeed!! I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets excited about brioche 🙂
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Are grams and ml interchangeable for milk the way water is?
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I personally interchange them and find there’s no difference! For my recipes I would suggest measuring in grams 🙂
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Great thanks. You have ml listed above in your recipe but I used grams. Also in step 2-
“Add your eggs, yeast, half your sugar, and yeast to the sponge”…I think you mean salt in place of the second yeast?
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Oh yes you’re right haha thanks for pointing it out! I’m going to correct that right away haha 🙂
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