Print this Article

While good in the­ory my attempt at whole wheat cin­na­mon rolls just didn’t “pan out” as expected.  After my dis­mal attempt to make a health­ier treat for my hus­band I have researched sub­sti­tut­ing whole wheat flour for the white all pur­pose flour in the orig­i­nal recipe.  So the fact that I learned lots of new infor­ma­tion makes the exer­cise very use­ful and I feel less unhappy about ditch­ing two dozen of these not-so-tasty morsels.

Unfor­tu­nately, they look a whole lot bet­ter than they tasted! The whole wheat flour made them VERY dense and heavy. They also didn’t rise very much while proof­ing. So here are the tips I learned about sub­sti­tut­ing whole wheat flour into a recipe.

1. Use half white all pur­pose and half whole wheat.
2. Sift the whole wheat flour at least once but twice if you have time as this will incor­po­rate a lot more air into the recipe.  Also spoon the flour into the mea­sur­ing cup instead of scooping.
3. You may need to add a lit­tle more water to the recipe with whole wheat espe­cially freshly ground since it can have quite dif­fer­ent absorp­tive properties.
4. One site sug­gested using 7/8 of a cup of whole wheat for every 1 cup  of white all purpose.

Ok, well those are some very good point­ers and I will be mak­ing them again today using white all pur­pose.  One of the guys my hubby works with says my cin­na­mon rolls are the best he’s ever eaten… Bet he doesn’t feel that way when he tries one of the four whole wheat ones hubby took in today!  (He was being sup­port­ive of my bak­ing and fear­ful that I might get dis­cour­aged and he risks liv­ing in a treat free house!!)

Here’s the recipe using the white all pur­pose, but you should be able to sub­sti­tute safely now that we know a lit­tle more about using whole wheat… besides some things are just not meant to be healthy… Cin­na­mon rolls are a treat to be eaten in mod­er­a­tion, not an essen­tial part of our daily diet.

Yield: 12 Large Rolls

Dough
1 pint Water, warm
2.5 pounds All-purpose flour
6 ounces Gran­u­lated sugar
1/2 ounce Active dry yeast
3/4 ounces Dry milk pow­der
1/2 tea­spoon Salt
5 ounces Whole but­ter, softened

Fill­ing
3 ounces Whole but­ter, soft­ened
1/2 tea­spoon Cin­na­mon, ground (I used way more cin­na­mon than this)
3 ounces Brown sugar
2 ounces Raisins (ewwww… I leave these out)

11 fluid ounces Pow­dered Sugar Glaze

Method:

1.    Com­bine all the dough ingre­di­ents in a large mixer bowl fit­ted with a dough hook. Knead the dough until it is smooth, approx­i­mately 6 to 8 minutes.

2.    Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and fer­ment until doubled.

3.    Punch down the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured sur­face. Shape into a rec­tan­gle, approx­i­mately 18 inches × 30 inches (45 cen­time­ters × 75 centimeters).

4.    To make the fill­ing, spread the soft­ened but­ter over the sur­face of the dough. Com­bine the cin­na­mon, brown sugar and raisins and sprin­kle this mix­ture over the but­ter, cov­er­ing the dough evenly.

5.    Start­ing with the longer side, roll the dough into a spi­ral. Cut into 12-pieces, each approx­i­mately 1–1/2 inches (3.7 cen­time­ters) thick. Place the rolls close together, cut side up, on a paper-lined sheet pan and allow them to rise until doubled.

6.    Bake at 300°F (150°C) oven until golden brown and done, approx­i­mately 30 minutes.

7.    Cool slightly, then top with Pow­dered Sugar Glaze.

Pow­dered Sugar Glaze

1 pound Pow­dered sugar, sifted
2 tea­spoons Vanilla extract
2 tea­spoons Lemon juice
1 fluid ounce Water, warm

Com­bine all the ingre­di­ents in a small bowl. Stir to blend thor­oughly and dis­solve any lumps. Cover and store at room temperature.

(Source: On Bak­ing — Labensky)