Cinnamon Rolls Coffee Cake

I've been craving something sugary and cinnamon-y and bread-y lately.  It isn't exactly healthy, but I refuse to live my life with no treats.  Living and eating healthier is great, but I do believe there is room for treats within the determined rules.  The rules for me are no dairy, no eggs, no meat (except seafood), and no gluten.  There are some other minor rules that I'm willing to be flexible on, such as no black beans, avocados, apples, bananas, etc.  Those all give me temporary ill effects, lasting about 24 hours, so I can make the choice to eat those and not be completely derailed.

Today I found a vegan, gluten-free recipe for cinnamon rolls, and I actually had all the ingredients.  As a warning, these were both a failure and a success.  I made some mistakes along the way, and the recipe didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, but it did make something very yummy that I would gladly modify slightly and serve up if I was hosting a brunch or tea.

Recipe - via The Gluten Free Vegan

Ingredients

• 2 cups warm unsweetened plain almond milk
• 2½ teaspoons yeast
• ¼ cup egg substitute (I used the equivalent of 2 flax eggs)
• ⅔ cup melted vegan margarine
• 4½ cups all-purpose gluten-free flour mix
• 1½ teaspoons Xanthan gum
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2½ teaspoons cinnamon
• ⅓ cup softened vegan margarine

Instructions

1. Combine the warm milk with yeast in the work bowl of your mixer. Allow to sit for a few minutes to allow the yeast to begin to activate.
2. Add the egg substitute, melted margarine, gluten-free flour, xanthan gum, salt and granulated sugar in the work bowl of your mixer. Mix on high for 3 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed.
3. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside until doubled in size.
4. Meanwhile, combine brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
5. Grease a 9×13 baking pan generously.
6. Spread plastic wrap on your counter and flour with gluten-free flour.
7. Pour out dough onto floured plastic wrap. The dough will be very sticky and you might think it’s going to be impossible to roll out.
8. Sprinkle dough with flour and flour the rolling pin well.
9. Gently roll out dough to a rectangle that measures 16″ x 21″. You won’t have to push hard at all, but instead you’re mostly using the rolling pin to smooth out the dough to the proper size and thickness.
10. Spread softened margarine gently over the dough. I ended up using my hands to soften the margarine even further.
11. Sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture and spread out to the edges of the dough.
12. Roll up the dough length wise, using the plastic wrap to lift and fold the dough over. If you’ve ever made sushi and are familiar with using a rolling mat you’ll use the same principles in rolling the cinnamon buns with the plastic wrap. Make sure the first roll is as tight as possible
13. Cut into 12 equal portions. Place into the prepared pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled.
14. Preheat the oven to 400°F and bake for 20-25 minutes.
15. Let cool then ice with “cream cheese” frosting.

I only had half a cup of unsweetened almond milk in the house, so I used that and topped it up with unsweetened coconut milk.

I used quick-rise yeast.

I had PaneRiso to use as an egg replacer.

Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Gluten Free Baking Flour.

Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum

Raw Turbinado Sugar

Dark Brown Sugar

Here are all the dough ingredients, except the melted butter, because I forgot about that until after I had mixed up the dough.  That was one of the mistakes I made during this endeavour.

Yeast and I have a tumultuous relationship.   Here is the dough after I remembered to add the melted butter, then covered it tightly with plastic wrap.

 It didn't seem to be rising, so I put the bowl over a stockpot that had a couple inches of water in it and turned the heat on low.

It was working!

Meanwhile I mixed the brown sugar and cinnamon, then checked on the dough again.

Woot!  That's a nice doubling.  But the awful thing was that it was TOO hot!  Ggrrr...  That was another mistake.  The bottom of the dough was on the verge of actually cooking.  I hastily removed the dough from the bowl and started working with it to help it cool down a bit.

The recipe warns that the dough will be goopy.  This was goopier than goopy, and I really couldn't work with it.  The rolling pin was useless and I mostly mushed the dough out until it resembled a rectangle.  I added a lot of flour under and on top because it was just SO goopy.  It helped a little, but I think next I make this recipe I will add more flour to the dough when I initially mix it up.

My niece helped me by taking a few pictures while my hands and sprinkling the sugar/cinnamon mixture all over the rectangle of dough.

I used the suggested method to roll the dough up, which was similar to rolling sushi.  This method worked very well, but the dough had no form to it and just went *sploosh* when I pulled the plastic wrap away.

Here is me trying to 'cut' and pick up something with the texture of mud.

(Holy Moly!  Are my hands really that thin and vein-y and tendon-y?  They look like old-lady hands. *frown*)

That obviously wasn't going to work, so I just started plopping blobs of it into the greased pan.  We were all giggling and coming up with new names for what this was going to be.

"Cinnamon Blobs"
"Cinnamon Globs"
"Cinnamon Cake"
"Cinnamon Coffee Cake"

You get the idea.

Here it is all in the pan and tightly covered with plastic wrap to allow it to rise again.

I'm not sure if it exactly doubled, but it did rise, so I put it in the oven at 400 for 21 minutes.

It was a little squishy in the middle, so I put it back in for 8 minutes.

The three dimples in the middle are where I stuck a knife in to check for squishy-ness.


I cut it like a cake and dished it up and it was AMAZING!  I do have a few ideas for what could make it better, though.

I will put dollops of vegan margarine on top before baking, along with more of the sugar/cinnamon mixture.

I will see what I can do to make the dough a little stiffer so it holds shape and these become actual rolls.

I will do more research into a cream cheese frosting recipe that does not contain Tofutti, because the thought of that stuff just grosses me out.

Overall, this recipe was definitely a WIN if you are gluten free and really miss cinnamon rolls or coffee cake.  I'm a very inexperienced baker, so you may have even better success than I did.

This will never compete with Cinnabon, but it should be good enough to kick the craving.