Homemade DIY - Fresh Cinnamon Buns

Homemade Cinnamon Buns!  Let me say that again: Homemade Cinnamon Buns!  I made these on a whim one afternoon after drinking several porters, and ended up giving a few away to friends.  Now they keep asking about them and when I'll "bake up some more?"

The recipe is fairly simple, and all you need is the following:

• Bakers Yeast (1 packet or 1/3 tsp)
• 3 tbs butter or margarine
• water (1 cup)
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• a bit more butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and confectioner's sugar

First step is to get out your mixing bowl.  Add in 1 cup of warm water and 1 packet (or a 1/3 tsp) of yeast.  Let it sit at room temp for about 5-10 minutes, but be sure to first give it a good stir to mix in the yeast.

Take a few seconds to pre-melt your butter (3tbs), and let it cool.  I usually zap it for about 20 seconds in the microwave.

Add the butter (cooled), 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 tbs brown sugar into the bowl and give it a good stir to mix everything in.  Add in some cinnamon too.

Start, cup by cup, adding the flour into your mixture, until you have all 2.5 cups mixed in.  At this point you'll need to use a spoon to mix it thoroughly, since the sticky dough will just clump inside the wires of a whisk.

Cover the dough with a damp cotton cloth or cheese cloth, and let it sit for about 30 minutes.

The dough will look like this when you dump it out onto a floured flat surface.

Start kneading the dough, folding it in upon itself.

Shape the dough into a oval mound.

Cut the dough into strips, with a mild attempt to keep them even.  In the end, it won't matter much, especially if you're going to eat them one by one, rather than displaying a tray full of cinnamon buns.

Grab your rolling pin and get to work!  Roll out each strip to make an elongated wide stretch of dough.

Coat the bottom with a thin layer of melted butter, so the sugar and cinnamon will stick.

Start with the cinnamon, sprinkling liberal amounts onto the melted butter.

Add in some brown sugar and confectioner sugar, if you're feeling adventuraous.  You could also add raisins here too.

Take one end of the dough strip, and begin rolling it gently to the other end, careful not to disrupt or shift all the toppings you just added.

If you used wide strips of dough (as pictured here), you'll end up with a very tall cinnamon bun.  You'll need to fatten it up, so gently push down with your fingers to expand and shorted the cinnamon bun.

Drizzle more melted butter (or oil) on the top, and cover it with more cinnamon  and sugar (I used brown sugar).  Most of this will melt into and off the cinnamon bun while cooking, so it's okay to go overboard.

Place the buns in a greased pan and preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.  You'll cook them for 20 minutes, or until they double in size.  (Yes, those are homemade pretzels next the the cinnamon buns).

Now for the topping.  The simplest is to add melted butter, which is still hot from the range/microwave, directly into a bowl of confectioner's sugar.  Here I added a few chocolate chips into the butter for good measure.  Wait to actually melt the butter, though, since you'll want the topping to be hot when you pour it in the buns.

Below is the bowl of confectioner's sugar and a little cinnamon.  It's about a cup of sugar.

Just before the buns are out of the oven, you can melt your butter.  Add the melted butter into your bowl of sugar and furiously whisk away.  Because of the chocolate chips, you'll notice my topping is brown.  Without, the sauce will look yellow.

Pull out the cinnamon buns and plate them on something that won't leak (like a plate).

Pour your topping sauce into the still hot buns.

When everything cools, you'll want to remove the buns from the sticky plate, but otherwise, you're all done!

Now's the best time to eat one!

How to Make Beer Soft Pretzels - Homemade DIY Baking

Soft Pretzels and Beer!  A perfect pairing, going back to Bavaria and probably long before.  But the supermarket 'frozen' pretzels from the store taste terrible.  To go with a nice homebrew you need fresh, homemade pretzels: and that's exactly what I'm going to show you how to make.

First, the ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 2 tbs butter
• 1.5 cups flour (all purpose white)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs sugar
• yeast (1 packet or a 1/4 tbs)
• 5 tsp baking soda
• 4 more cups water

Here are the ingredients, all placed out on the counter.

Step 1: Add the yeast to a cup of warm water, and stir.  Let it sit while you gather and prepare the other ingredients.

Place your butter (2tbs) in a bowl and microwave it.  Let it melt.

Add the butter, 1 cup flour, salt, and sugar into a bowl and mix.  Slowly add the last .5 cups of flour (that's point-5, not 5) and keep mixing until you have a nice dough.

Cover and let sit for 20 minutes or longer.

You'll notice the dough has nearly doubled in size.  Flour a flat surface and dump out the dough.

Knead and fold in the dough, giving it a nice consistency.  See the photos below:

After about 5 minutes, flatten the dough and roll it out a little.

Divide the dough into strips.  Each strip will eventually become a pretzel  so as you can see here, I'll have 5 pretzels.  If you like soft pretzels thicker (or thinner pretzels), you can adjust accordingly.

Roll and twist with your hands, making the dough into long strands.  Some people braid the dough, for a fancy soft pretzel.  As you're about to see, I'm not that fancy, and can hardly shape the dough into a pretzel shape (that it still tastes the same, and looks a little more rustic).

Shape the dough into pretzels.  The official description of how to do this is to hold the ends, twist together, and then make two loops.  

Once you have the "shapes" or soft pretzels ready, you'll need to get the soda bath going.  Add 5 tsp of baking soda to 4 cups of water.  Bring the 4 cups of water to a small boil.  Take care not to use an aluminum pot, as the baking soda can react and cause a large spillover.

Using a spatula or bent spoon, dip each pretzel into the bath of water for about 20 seconds.

Lift out and place on a greased or oiled baking tray.

Do this with each pretzel.  The baking soda is what gives the soft pretzel it
s brown coloring and the crusty flavor.

Once on the pan/tray, add salt.

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.  Put the tray in the oven and set a timer for 15 minutes (adjust this as needed, depending on the thickness of your pretzels.  You'll see them browning over time.

Enjoy with hot sauce or a cold beer!