Ask Me, Pro Baker.

OK.
So yesterday, I decided I would bake something. I was looking through some recipe's, trying to decide which option looked delicious enough for me to handle. I came across Cinnamon Buns!

Buns:
120g butter
4 cups self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup soft brown sugar
1 1/2 cups of mixed dried fruit
1 tsp cinnamon
Glaze:
2 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp white sugar
2 tsp gelatine

I have always loved these so I was super excited to make them. I figured, how bad could it be. They are basically rolls of bread filled with goodness. However, I was stupid enough not to look at the instructions beforehand, so when I started to prep, I realized that I was in a little over my head. I also realized that the 5 stars above the recipe didn't mean that it was really good (which I'm sure, if you did bake it right, it would be) but that it was in fact very hard and for super bakers, which, let's clear up now, I am not.

So I put all my ingredients on the counter and read the first instruction:

 "In a food processor, chop 60g of the butter with the flour and salt."

So this instruction set me up bad from the beginning. What do they mean? Do I put the butter in a bowl with the flour and salt and then chop it? Or since it's in a food processor, do I let that do the work. Wtf. I went with the chop it in a bowl with the flour and salt, which was hard and probably not the option they meant. Just to inform you now, they did not tell me to melt it in any way and it was rock hard. In addition to the dry ingredients sticking to it, it was like Mission Impossible 21.

"Mix to a firm dough with the milk."

 So I was mixing and mixing and it looked pretty OK until I looked over the ingredients and realized, like an idiot, that I had put regular flour in the mix. Go ahead. Look up at the list. Yeah. So I ran to my laptop and looked up what the ratio was with flour and baking powder in self-raising flour and I put what I thought was a good amount in my dough. Let us wait and see my friend...

"On a floured surface, roll dough out into a rectangle of about 1cm thickness."

If any of you have ever rolled out dough, you will know that its final shape is nothing like a rectangle. Maybe more of a mutant oval with tumors. So I had to go out of my way to cut and shape and make it seem like a rectangle. In the end, it was a vague rectangle shape but the thickness was not 1cm all around. I thought YOLO, and moved the heck on.

 "Cream the remaining 60g of butter with the brown sugar and spread this onto the dough. Sprinkle with the mixed dried fruit and cinnamon."

Learning from my previous butter mishap, I softened it slightly and it worked like a charm. Spreading it onto the dough was not so easy. It sounds like the sweetest step in the whole recipe but no. It kept lumping up and sticking to one part of the dough so if I happened to put some mixture onto one section, there was no getting it off without killing my dough. Let us just say that some buns will be more flavorful than others. Moving on.

"Roll lengthwise, so you have a long sausage. Cut into 14 or 15 slices and place on a greased or paper lined sponge-roll tin. Bake for 30 minuets at 180 degrees Celsius." 

Now, I wasn't quite sure what a "sponge-roll" tin was so I used an average baking tray and figured it would work pretty well. The picture supplied looked exactly like a baking tray. Maybe "sponge-roll" tins have special powers or something.
While it was baking, I made the glaze.

"Put all the glaze ingredients in a small saucepan and heat until dissolved. Brush over the cooked buns while still hot. Cool in the tin and pull apart when cool enough to handle."

I wasn't quite sure what type of gelatine they meant, so I used a lime flavored one because it was the only kind in my pantry...
When I took the buns out of the oven, I realized that I had become a mother. A mother to 15 mutant cinnamon buns. Seriously! They were ridiculously large. I guess I put to much baking powder in...

Anyway. That is my sad saga of baking. You now all know that I am truly gifted in the kitchen and if you ever want any tips, don't be shy to ask. :)
(They actually still tasted pretty good even though I was eating my monster babies.)
It Could Be Better