Simple no-yeast cinnamon buns with raisins and a maple syrup glaze. Quick to make, ready to eat in 35 minutes! A fun bake for the whole family to enjoy.
My daughter Kipper is an avid reader. One of her all-time favourite books is The Goldilocks Variations
, by Allan and Jessica Ahlberg. It starts off with a retelling of the traditional Goldilocks story and gets sillier and sillier. In the first story we learn that “Bears love buns” – especially warm, sweet, cinnamon buns with dried fruit. Then come the Bliim – strange alien beings who have their own words for the items familiar from the story. And “Bliim love boozls.”
And so it is that in our house, buns with cinnamon and/or raisins have become known as boozls. And who doesn’t love a warm, sweet, raisin-y, cinnamon bun? Mmmmm. Boozls.
Home made cinnamon buns
I’d been playing with the idea of making some for a while, when I came across a quick, no-yeast cinnamon buns recipe at The Blissful Table blog. It didn’t have raisins, but that was easy enough to fix. Once I’d translated the recipe from American, and made a few more tweaks (because I can never leave a recipe alone), we were all set.
A floral distraction
However, we then decided to go and admire the snowdrops at Anglesey Abbey. It was a glorious sunny afternoon, we had a lovely walk through the winter garden, and then found that the watermill was milling, much to Kipper’s delight. We bought a big bag of freshly stoneground wholemeal flour – so fresh it was still warm from the friction of the mill stones! We brought it home, ready for cinnamon-bun-making.
Hence, these are wholemeal cinnamon buns. DH thought the wholemeal flour added a delicious nutty flavour that chimed well with the cinnamon and raisins. I tend to agree. It also gives the illusion of ‘healthiness’! If you don’t fancy them wholemeal then by all means use regular white flour. I can’t imagine you’ll go too far wrong.
Maple syrup glaze
The maple syrup glaze is there because I just love the flavour of maple syrup, and I thought it would be delicious with raisiny cinnamon buns. If you don’t like maple syrup just leave it out and add a drop more milk to the glaze instead.
One final note – I made these in my Kenwood stand mixer, but I think they would be pretty easy to do by hand, kneading in the extra flour until the dough is smooth. It’s not like working a yeast dough, which can be hard going. If you do make them by hand, please leave me a note in the comments and let me know how easy (or otherwise) it was. Thanks!
Makes 12 buns.
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📖 Recipe
Cinnamon buns with raisins & maple syrup glaze
Ingredients
- 350 g wholemeal flour + an extra 100-150g (approx. 3 cups + 1 extra cup)
- 2 tablespoon golden caster sugar
- 1¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 250 ml natural yogurt (1 cup + 1 tbsp)
- 85 g butter, melted (6 tbsp)
- 2 tablespoon very soft butter
- 3 tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 75 g raisins (generous ⅓ cup)
For the glaze
- 75 g icing sugar (¾ cup)
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F). Butter a 20cm (8 inch) round baking tin and set aside.
- Mix the flour, caster sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Stir in the yogurt and melted butter and combine to give a very sticky dough. I did this in the stand mixer using the dough hook. Add the extra flour a little at a time until the dough is smooth and comes away from the sides of the bowl cleanly. You may not need all the flour.
- Lightly flour a work surface and roll out the dough to give a rectangle 1cm (about ½ inch) thick. Spread the soft butter all over, then sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins. Roll up from the long edge to give a giant roly-poly.
- Cut into 12 slices, each 2-3cm (1-1½ inches) thick.
- Arrange the slices in the greased tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes until golden brown.
- Meanwhile, make the glaze by combining the icing sugar, milk, and maple syrup.
- Cool the cinnamon buns in the tin for a few minutes, then transfer to a plate and drizzle with the glaze. Eat warm with a cup of tea.
Nutrition
If you love the flavour of cinnamon, why not try some cinnamon and vanilla cookies, or this gorgeous cinnamon babka?
One last thing…
Because I am obsessed with kitchen gadgets I have this amazing rolling pin
which makes perfect even rolling a doddle. It easily flattened the dough into a sheet of even thickness, so filling and rolling up was dead easy. If you make a lot of pastry, biscuits, or other roll-out-able things, I highly recommend it.
Oh yes, Kipper insisted that, “Mummy, I’m afraid it needs a cherry to be a proper boozl.” This one was hers.
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