Nice buns

I bake a lot when stressed. Bread, cookies, occasionally entire cakes - it's like my zen thing. So on Friday when I came home from a truly wretched day at work to find the internet out and boyfriend feeling sick I decided it was time for something sweet. After emptying and scrubbing out the pantry (stupid pantry moths. I hate you) I looked at my remaining ingredients and decided on cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning. All told they were pretty simple. I was sort of winging it from a couple of different recipes due to my lack of internet, and this is what I ended up with:

Cinnamon Buns with Sugar Glaze

Dough:
1 egg, lightly beaten, at room temperature, plus enough warm water to equal 1 cup
2 tsp dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1.5 tsp salt
3.5 cups bread flour
3 TBSP oil (you can use any. I ran out of veg oil so I used olive)

Filling:
Melted butter
Cinnamon
Sugar

Glaze:
1/3 cup powdered sugar
2.5 TBSP milk
1/2 tsp vanilla (I used bourbon vanilla)

• Dissolve yeast into the water/egg mixture and let it stand for about five minutes until foamy
• In the meantime, mix together the dry ingredients in the bowl of your mixer.
  
• When the yeast mixture is foamy, pour it and the oil into the mixer where the dry ingredients are now hanging out, all mixed together) with a dough hook and knead until it forms a ball around the hook
• Cover dough with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled. I let it rise for about an hour and a half, but you'll know it's done when you poke it and it doesn't bounce back.
• When your dough is ready, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 12 by 6 (mine was about 15 by 8, but whatever). If you want, stick the dough in the fridge for about 15 minutes to make it firmer and thus easier to roll out.
• When you have your big rectangle, brush it all over with melted butter and sprinkle with liberal amounts of cinnamon and sugar. They'll sink into the butter as you go, so just use your best judgment as to how cinnamon-sugary you want your rolls. I was going to use brown sugar, but it was a giant brick, so I used white. It was fine. You could probably stick some chopped pecans in there too, but the pantry moths had gotten to mine. Assholes.
• When you've coated your rectangle, you're ready to roll it up. Do this lengthwise, rolling it like a jelly roll, or a ho ho, my favorite snack cake. I brushed each plain length as I was rolling with more melted butter, for added calories. Yum.
• Slice your roll up in one inch slices and put them into a generously greased muffin tin, or cake pan, or cookie sheet. Let them rise for another half hour or so. If you're making these at night like I was for the next morning, now is the point at which you can cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate them until they're ready to go the next morning.
  
• Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown, then glaze. The glaze amounts are approximate and to be used as a guide - all you need to do is put some powdered sugar into a bowl and add milk until it's a thickish liquid. Add vanilla a little a time and pour over buns.

• Eat. Try to restrain yourself, but know that I won't judge you if that's impossible, because I sure as hell didn't.