As you know, I got hooked on Pinterest recently. It’s been such a visual heaven that it’s hard resisting. And the fact that I can pin stuff using the iPad just makes it….errr…a lot easier to get lost in other people’s boards. It’s a bit like voyeurism. You get to sneak a peek (actually many peeks) at other people’s boards and get excited, pinning things into your own boards.
I try to limit myself to some surfing at night at Pinterest, just so, you know, I could check out what’s new out there.
Of course, like curation, unless someone takes the effort to curate new stuff, old stuff gets pinned and curated far too often and end up on everyone’s boards.
OK, enough griping.
Now what I DO like about Pinterest is that I get to check out some really new recipes.
I have two things I am quite partial to (but have very little time for) but I am hoping to change that this year. This year, I have decided that I shall spend more time doing things that feed and indulge my little Tiger soul.
I don’t know about you but I like doing things with my hands. I like making crafty stuff (here’s something I told Ai Lee just the other week – I learnt how to crochet when I was 11 because I was too penniless to buy my Sailor Barbie nicer, prettier Oscar de la Renta dresses!) and I like cooking.
Recently I’m into bread-making too thanks to my Lebensstill (god, how do you spell that anyway?) bread machine which I didn’t even had to buy. The initial plan was to get a smallish bread machine so that I could feel like a domesticate – adding baking to my repertoire of skills. I wanted to get a Tesco branded one but Nic has this thing against Tesco products, calling them cheap and awful. So THAT idea got scrapped. Finally I decided to look at my CIMB Redemption Booklet and what do you know, a Lebensstill bread machine smiled back at me!
I had enough (actually more than enough) points to redeem for the bread machine. So that’s how I’ve been making bread.
So Pinterest with a plethora of recipes and you know how recipes just beckon when they’re so damn visually exciting right? I got this cinnamon roll recipe off someone’s board and have been wanting to try it out because I am mad about cinnamon rolls. The combination of cinnamon and sugar and butter is too heady to contemplate.
I managed to make them just last night – my first time making them anyway but what a success! I could do a little jig here because I am sure anyone who has tried a new recipe for the first time has heart palpitations. What if the recipe turned out awful? Would I have to eat the stuff still? Or throw it out? And knowing that you spent a good amount of time and money on it, you’d be like me – disappointed!
I made this using the bread machine – it is really useful because it has a Dough setting that helps you slowly but surely combine all the sticky and wet ingredients into a proper lump of dough. (I even use the Dough setting to mix up my pumpkin man-tou – saves me a lot of time and prevents me from getting sticky dough on my hands).
The downside is, the Dough setting takes 1.5 hours to complete. The good thing is, you just put all the ingredients in and let the machine beat away for 1.5 hours. You can go read, watch TV, take a nap.
Cinnamon Rolls Recipe (makes 10 rolls)
Into your bread machine bowl, add ingredients in this order:
70 ml water + 100 ml UHT milk
280gm bread flour
15 gm (1 tbsp) milk powder
60 gm castor sugar
1 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
Program your machine to DOUGH setting. About 5 minutes of vigorous mixing, add in 50 gm of butter.
After the dough’s nicely combined (and the machine beeps to a stop), take it out, put it into a tupperware (with a lid) and let it rest in the fridge, overnight. So you can do this around 8pm and by 10pm, your dough should be happily snug in the fridge. Remember to grease the tupperware to make the dough easier to tilt out tomorrow.
This morning, I took it out and let it rest while I went and showered. Then I tilted out the dough, a very pillow-y soft dough, and divided it into 2 portions (easier to handle). I sprinkled more bread flour onto my rolling pin and started rolling it out like a longish sheet.
Then I dabbed pats of butter on to the flattened dough, sprinkled a good amount of brown sugar and ground cinnamon powder and of course, raisins. Then roll up the entire thing, cut them into little rolls and place them into a greased tray. At this stage, you need to let them rest and double up in size which takes about 45 minutes. (Do the same with the rest of the dough.)
About 20 minutes into this, you must start heating up your oven. I use 180C most of the time. Once the rolls have doubled, glaze them with beaten egg and pop them into the oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

If baking bread makes me swoon, then baking cinnamon rolls makes me swoon even more. The smells are delicious when they’re baking – so this is just another yummy reason to start making them now.
I’m a complete baking novice and my cinnamon rolls turned out excellent.
Cool them for an hour and then dig in! The rolls are soft and fluffy (and nary a bread tenderizer or bread improver in sight!).
Try this recipe and let me know how YOURS turned out!
oh no! now, all i can think of are these wonderful cinnamon rolls!!! they look wonderful, and i can’t wait to give it a go! 🙂
Haha, Dots, your choc chip cookies made me drool OK! Bad girl. Bad girl. But I am thinking of baking them, the baker that I am not (I sort of never bake cookies because my oven’s too darn fussy for it) but I shall try!
Hi Maya,
I came across your recipe while looking for simple ways to make bread. I tried out your recipe using my new bread-machine (like yours also a Lebenstill, and like yours mine came free with my reward points!). However, that’s where the similarities ended. The outcome for me was a disaster! The dough was wet and clingy at the end of 1.5 hours. I suspect this is because my machine was not kneading all the time. There were times when it stopped for a long time, continued for a while and then started to knead only to stop after a short time again. Is this what should happen? Or am I doing something wrong? I actually started the machine again to work the same dough for another round on “dough” setting, i.e. for another 1.5 hours (though the second time too, the machine did not knead away all the time like I thought it would). This was my first try at bread making and I was inspired by you. Maybe you can save me too!?
Thanks a million,
sharm
Hi Sharm: The bread machine does stop after some time of “kneading” to let the bread rest and rise (and then it starts kneading again after some time so it’s perfectly normal). It happens regardless of the bread setting or program (Basic, Dough or others). Yes, the dough will be wet and soft when it comes out of the bread machine. Don’t let this deter you. That is probably what makes the bread soft and fluffy. If the dough is wet and clingy, dust your hands with some flour before you handle the bread dough. Then oil your tupperware before you put your dough in so that it can slide out the next day. Even the day after (after a night sitting in the fridge), the dough will still be soft and clingy – a tip is, if it is still overly clingy, just knead it with your bare hands with some bread flour, so that it is manageable. As you can see from my photos, the dough looks soft even the next morning. I hope this experience won’t put you off bread forever. It happens to everyone…it could be a new machine and we’re all freaked out when the outcomes aren’t so appealing. I remember a friend who told me her bread making adventures often turned into disasters she had to “bury” in her garden for fear her husband might find out! I’m cheering you on….go make that bread girl!
Dear Maya,
You are awesome! Thanks for the promptness, the detailed explanation, the care, and the time. I really appreciate this. I’m going to have another go this weekend. This time I’ll succeed — and my kids will be having fragrant cinnamon rolls for breakfast for a change as opposed to pancakes and toast — as I’ll have you cheering me on. Thanks so very much!
Sharm
Hi Sharm: Great! Let me know what the results are. Where I live, there’s a lot of sparrows, starlings and mynahs. When my bread turns out not so nice, guess which animals are eating bread? The birds! 😉 They love any bread – old, crusty, soft, hard. I hope you have some “bread recyclers” too.
Will surely let you know, Maya! “Bread recyclers”. Hmm. That’s an interesting concept. Makes me want to bake bread more. But I have a feeling the vultures in-residence will leave nothing ….
Take care. I do enjoy reading your blog. Keep up the good work!
sharm
Hi Maya,
I wrote an email to you earlier about pegaga plant.
Then I continue to read more about yourself… what do you know… we have some similarity… I’m in Penang too.
Are you from USM? I’m from USM Physic school graduated 1999.
I’m from Sarawak & I see that you hubby is from Sarawak.
I like baking, so was browsing thru your cinnamon rolls; I believe I will give it a try later this week but might want to try something different using “water roux” to see if will keep the texture soft for longer time.
Saw your bread maker; I dont have the same model but I noticed the tiles behind it; it’s the same as mine… LOL.
Anyways, just dropping a line or two to chit chat & be friend with a total stranger in the www. (oops; I believe it’s more that 1-2 lines)
cheers, Jacob
Hi Jacob:
Thanks for the nice comments. I graduated from USM Mass Comm School in ’98. My husband is also from USM, but he did Fine Art and graduated a year before me. Oh yes, please try the cinnamon rolls and tell me how they turn out. I’ve been wanting to try it again but so many things keep popping up in my life that each time I want to bake some bread, it gets postponed. Do you have a blog too?