Cinnamon Buns

Easter week no hot cross buns, so I baked cinnamon buns. The picture from Indochine Kitchen just tempted me to bake these lovely cinnamon buns. I cannot resist cinnamon buns...especially when they are loaded with walnuts! These buns were really soft and fluffy. I shall attempt this again, this time, loaded with walnuts!

Recipe for Cinnamon Buns, adapted from Indochine Kitchen.
Makes approximately 18 regular buns

Ingredients:
300g Bread flour
148g Plain flour
91g Castor sugar
7g Fine salt
77g Unsalted butter
298g One egg + whole milk
3g Lemon zest (1 lemon)
6g Instant yeast

For cinnamon sugar
10g Ground cinnamon
60g Brown sugar
75g Unsalted butter, soften
--> Combine all together.

Method:

1. Combine salt, sugar and butter in a mixing bowl. Cream with paddle attachment until smooth and pale on high speed.
2. Add lemon zest. Beat until everything is mixed well, for another minute.
3. Add in flour, yeast, egg and milk. Mix over low speed until all ingredients are combined together.
4. Switch to dough hook and beat over medium speed for 15 minutes, until the dough crawls up the hook.
5. The dough should be shiny and tacky, not sticky. If the dough is too sticky, add a spoonful of flour at a time and scrape the sides of the bowl during middle of beating process. (Mine was slightly sticky. I added one more tablespoon of plain flour.)
6. Form the dough into a shape of ball. Place them in a bowl, spraying both bowl and dough with some oil if desired.
7. Cover dough with plastic wrap.
8. Let it proof at room temperature for 1-1.5 hours, until dough doubles in size.
9. Lightly dust working surface with flour. Transfer dough to the counter and roll the dough into a rectangle with 0.5 cm thickness.
10. Spread the cinnamon sugar all over on the dough. Roll the dough away from you to the end, not pressing it too hard. The roll should be quite loose.
11. Slice the roll into 2.5cm thickness buns.
12. Line pans with baking paper. Lightly greased paper with oil. (I omitted this step)
13. Place shaped buns on pan, spacing them about 2cm from each other.
14. Let it continue to proof at room temperature for another 75 minutes. The buns should have grown into one another and almost double in size.
15. Preheat oven to 180C and bake it for 20-25 minutes, or until brown.