Coffee Cinnamon Buns

What do you get when you mix a Five Senses Coffee employee, significant time in Sydney lock down and a love for coffee and baking? You get an easy and delicious recipe for coffee cinnamon buns, that might just be enough to get you through this tough time at home!

While there are a few steps in a yeasted dough recipe like this, it’s pretty easy to follow and what you end up with is a warm, toasty and caffeine filled bundle of joy. The buns I made were 100% vegan so this recipe gives you the option to veganise it or keep it with regular milk & butter – totally up to you!

Coffee Cinnamon Buns

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 40g butter / vegan butter
• 240ml (1 cup) of milk (can be any sort, I used oat milk!)
• 7g dry instant yeast (equals to 1 sachet or 2 ¼ tsp)
• 1 tbs caster sugar
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 450g (3 cups) plain flour

For the filling:

• 40g butter / vegan butter
• 1 (20ml) espresso shot*
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (I used a spice mix of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg)
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g brown sugar
• 1 tsp finely ground coffee grinds (optional)

For the glaze:

• Icing sugar
• Up to 2 (40ml) espresso shots*

*Coffee Note: For the espresso components, I used the Dark Horse blend and my trusty Breville home machine. If you don’t have an espresso machine at home, you could create a plunger/French press concentrate of coffee so you still get that coffee flavour coming through.

Scroll Recipe

1. Heat your butter and milk in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter is melted and the mixture is just hot.
2. Pour the milk into a large mixing bowl and leave to cool until the temperature is the same of a warm bath – if it’s too hot, it will kill the yeast. If you have a thermometer, you would need the milk at about 43°C (I didn’t use one for this recipe).
3. Sprinkle the yeast over the milk/butter mixture, then leave to sit for 10 minutes to active the yeast.
4. Stir in the sugar and salt gently and then add in your flour slowly; ½ a cup at a time, with a wooden spoon. Mix until all the flour has been added and empty the bowl out onto a clean bench top.
5. Using your hands, bring the dough together and begin kneading the dough for 1 minute until the shaggy dough becomes smoother and you end up with a round ball shape.
6. Quickly clean out your bowl and wipe some unflavoured oil around the bowl. Place the dough in the centre, cover with cling film and place in a warm spot to proof (rise) for an hour or so — until doubled in size.
7. While the dough is proofing, melt your butter in the microwave and set aside to firm up again. The water will separate from the butter as it cools (you can speed this up in the fridge). We are essentially replacing the butter’s water content with espresso! Drain out the water from the butter and add in your hot espresso shot, mixing to combine the two.
8. Next, mix in your spices to the butter espresso mix. This is what you will spread across your dough.
9. Once your dough has doubled in size, roll it out onto a floured bench into a rectangle, about 1cm – 1.5cm thick.

1. Spread on the butter/spice mix, then sprinkle on the sugars (brown & castor) and coffee grinds evenly.
2. Roll up your dough into a log. You can start rolling from either edge — I did mine from the short side as I wanted more layers in my scrolls!
3. Using a serrated knife or dental floss, cut the log into ~2.5cm thick scrolls and place in a lined baking tray leaving about an inch space around each scroll.

1. Cover your baking tray with cling film and leave again to rise in a warm area for around 1 hour, or until the scrolls have increased in size and just touching each other. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 170°C.
2. Brush the buns with some butter and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the buns are slightly golden on top. Remove from the oven and top with the glaze so it can soak into the buns.
3. Enjoy immediately!

Glaze Recipe

1. Combine sifted icing sugar/mixture with espresso, adding the liquid a little bit at a time, to create a texture that you can drizzle over the buns.

NOTES

These are best served the same day of baking or if serving the following day, I would advise heating them up in the microwave and adding some coconut yogurt or ice cream.