I used to think that it is impossible to do good soft cinnamon buns without a ton of real butter. This recipe is proof that I was seriously wrong. I still eat butter sometimes, but already for years, this recipe here has been the only one I use for cinnamon buns. In fact, I use the same dough with other fillings too – in Estonia, we do a traditional yeasted pastry with all kinds of different fillings – carrot, cabbage, meat, mushrooms, jam, cheese, and pretty much anything else you can think of. The traditional dough is made with cow’s milk and butter, but I don’t see any need to use either, even if I sometimes do use some animal ingredients to fill the pastry.
Back to the cinnamon rolls – these are the softest, fluffiest and tastiest cinnamon rolls you have ever seen. Like really. You need to make them today. And the good thing is that they don’t take much time to bake at all. The resting takes time, and this is the process that you can’t skip, but everything else is effortless, and even a 5-year-old could do them. In fact, a very similar recipe (the traditional way) is the first recipe I remember myself cooking. I have no clue how old I was but definitely under ten, and I made a huge pastry called kringel in Estonian (it is a yeasted dough similar to this recipe here, filled with a lot of butter, sugar, raisins etc. and then braided into wreath) all on my own.
So no more waiting. Make them now, and let me know in the comments if you like them as much as I do!
Vegan Cinnamon Rolls
Cooking time: 1 ½ hour
Yields: 12 rolls
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups flour
A sprinkle of salt
2 tsp dry yeast
1 cup cashew milk
½ cup sugar
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
For the filling:
2-3 tbsp ground cinnamon
½ cup grapeseed oil
Instructions:
Mix the flour with salt and yeast.
In a small pot, heat the cashew milk with sugar and keep mixing until the sugar has dissolved and the milk is lukewarm.
Pour the milk into the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon until pretty much incorporated, then switch to your hands and knead for a few minutes until the dough is nice and smooth.
Cover the bowl and leave it to rest in a warmer place for about an hour. The dough will double in size.
Mix all the filling ingredients.
Once the dough has doubled in size, roll it out to ½ inch thickness and cover with the filling.
Roll the dough and cut into 12 equal pieces.
Now preheat the oven to 400 F and oil the baking sheet.
Add the rolls to the baking sheet leaving a little space between them; cover the pan and leave it to rest until the oven preheats but for at least 10 minutes.
Bake for 15 minutes until the buns are nice and golden.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!" Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: www.kahvliga.ee.