Recipe: Matcha cinnamon rolls

It finally feels like summer here. The weather has been sunny for many days after the continuous rain. I could wear my flip flops, wear sunglasses, and not wear any jacket. As funny as it sounds like, it is hard to experience real summer here. Once you have it, you just have to make out the best of it. 

Ph.D. life is good. I love doing my work, and I have many friends that I can talk. Whenever the weather is warm and sunny, I and my peeps will eat outside, sit on the grass, and enjoy the sun. We talk about our work, life, and bull shit stuff. We have different nationalities, and we always make fun of the stereotypes that we have about one culture to another. Ahh...I just love hanging out with them (you know who you are ;) ). 

If there's anything that I miss about my home country when living abroad, it will be about my family, nature, and food. Well...I can't do much with the first two, but I always try my best to prepare food that I miss so much or recreate something that reminds me of home.

So okay, matcha is not something common back home, but I love the flavour, and I try to create something new out of it. If only matcha is not expensive here (then again, what is cheap here? oh yeah...dairy products..), I would go crazy inventing more matcha based food. Anyway, this is one of them. If you like to have stronger matcha taste, just put extra matcha powder. 

Matcha cinnamon rolls

[click for printable version]

Ingredients:

Dough:
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons sugar

6 tablespoons butter

180 ml buttermilk, room temperature

4 cups flour, or more

1 tablespoon matcha powder

1 package instant dry yeast, approximately 2 1/4 teaspoons

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Filling:

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar

100 gm milk chocolate bar, cut into pieces

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Icing:

100 gm white chocolate

200 gm cream cheese

3 teaspoons matcha powder

Directions:

1. In the stand mixer with the dough attachment, whisk the eggs, sugar, butter, and buttermilk. Add 2 cups flour, matcha powder, yeast and salt, whisk until combined. Add more flour on low speed for about 10 minutes until the dough forms a ball. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 30 seconds using hands. 
2. Lightly oil a large bowl, and transfer the mixture into the bowl. Cover and let it rise for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
3.  In a small bowl, combine the cinnamon and brown sugar together, set aside.
4. Butter a large baking pan. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Shape the dough into a rectangle. Roll into an 18 x 12-inch rectangle. Brush the dough with the melted butter, and sprinkle the cinnamon and brown sugar mixture. Rearrange the milk chocolate onto the dough, and roll the dough into a tight cylinder. 
5. Cut the dough into 12 rolls. Rearrange them in the baking pan. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator overnight.
6. Fill a shallow pan with hot water and set it at the bottom of the oven. Take out the rolls from the fridge and place it on the rack above the hot water. Turn on the oven to 160 C and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
7. Melt the white chocolate in a microwave and combine it with the cream cheese and matcha powder. Pour the icing onto the freshly baked rolls. Serve immediately

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Recipe: Cinnamon rolls with chocolate chunks and cream cheese glaze

I always looked forward when my sister came back home from boarding school when I was young. She always brought back sweet treats for us - Dunkin Donuts, Auntie Anne's pretzels, and cinnamon rolls from Cinnabon, which we rarely eat and pretty hard to find back then. I always enjoyed eating them, and always asked my sisters to buy for me whenever they came back home, or went out for shopping at big cities.

Over the years, I got fed up eating those sweet treats. They are good, but too sweet for my liking. Plus, I find that they are not 'purse-friendly' for a frugal and cheapskate student like me.

Beside from the fact it is more economical preparing my own food, I can also control the amount of sugar and adjust the taste based to my liking. It is more enjoyable that way, at least I will be more satisfied with what I prepared no matter how shitty the food turns out to be.

I've been wanting to eat cinnamon rolls, so I woke up early this morning and prepared this easy cinnamon rolls recipe. It took me about 1 hour (more or less) to prepare them, and they are insanely good to eat when they are still warm. We ate them with milk coffee, and I wish I could prepare them almost every day haha.

As requested by many, and I don't have anything to do at the moment due to my laziness and cold weather, here is the recipe for these delicious cinnamon rolls (the Germans call them Zimtschnecken - cinnamon snails haha so cute :3). I was hoping to bring them tomorrow for my office mates, but I might have to cancel the plan as we kept eating them *sorry guys*

Cinnamon rolls with chocolate chunks and cream cheese glaze (adapted from Gimme some oven)
[click for printable version]
note: I love my baked goods to be less sweet, do add more sugar based on your liking.

Ingredients
Dough:
1 cup full cream milk
1/4 cup butter

1 envelope instant yeast (approx. 2 1/4 tsp)
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon castor sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg

Cinnamon-sugar filling with chocolate chunks:
4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, softened

50 gm dark Valrhona chocolate, chopped into pieces

Cream cheese glaze:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons icing sugar (or more)
2 tablespoons milk

Method

To make the dough & filling:
1. Combine milk and butter in a porcelain bowl and heat on High in the microwave for 1 minute. Remove, stir and repeat the step until the butter melts. Keep aside until the milk becomes warm to the touch.

2. Combine the warm milk and yeast in a large bowl, and stir. Add 3 cups flour, sugar and salt and mix using hand mixer with dough attachment and knead until the ingredients are fully combined. Add egg and knead for few minutes using low speed, if the dough sticks to the side add more flour a tablespoon at a time until it doesn't become sticky. Knead for another 5 minutes using low-medium speed.

3. Cover the bowl with damp cloth (or plastic wrap) and let rest for 10 minutes at warm place.

4. Meanwhile, make filling by whisking dark brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
5. When the dough is ready, put generous amount of flour on work surface and pun the dough on it. Flatten the dough using a rolling pin into a large rectangle (about  14' x 9'). Cut out the sides to make perfect rectangle. Spread the softened butter on top of the dough using hands or pastry brush. Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar filling all over the dough and sprinkle chocolate chunks on top of it.
5. Roll up the dough as tightly as possible, and cut into 11-12 pieces using knife. Put them on a greased 13' x 9' rectangular with about 1/2 to 1 inch apart.

6. Cover with damp cloth, and let them rise for 25 minutes at warm place.

7. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius until the rolls are golden brown. Take out from the oven and let them cool for about 5 minutes and sprinkle with cream cheese glaze, serve warm.

To make the cream cheese glaze:

1.  Combine everything in a small bowl and mix using handheld mixer. Add more sugar if desired, sprinkle on top of warm rolls.

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