I wanted to know if there are any tips to reduce the amount of time it takes me to make cinnamon rolls? I'm a new 17 year old home-baker, and I'm sure its not productive to spend this long making cinnamon buns.
Like could I mix the dough and then put it in the fridge to rise overnight? Or can i leave it out in a warm place to rise overnight?
I didn't do any prep the day before besides taking the eggs and butter out so it's room temperature, because I was out with family the whole day. I also decorate them to sell them, and I use a range of different things from biscoff to sprinkles.
This is how I baked that many yesterday:
Step 1: Start at 9am
I made 3 batches of 18 in seperate bowls then put them to proof in a warm room. The first batch proofed for an hour. And the rest I lost count on how long they proofed for since I spent so much time doing the rest
Step 2: I divided the batch into two so I can roll it out as I dont have much space. Then I rolled out the first half, added butter and filling then cut them into 9
Step 3: i put those to proof for 15 minutes
Step 4: I took them out and popped them in the oven then decorated and boxed four when they were done so I could give it to my mum to deliver. I took some pictures of them before giving them to her, but they were kinda blurry.
I was cleaning up a bit, but then I had to do the same with another four to deliver to another person.
I took pictures of those too. Those pics came out better, but not perfect.
Step 5: I rolled the rest of the batch put the filling on and then placed them in the oven. This time I used a mat which had a guideline to roll it into circles. The mat also helped me roll it into a log quicker!
Step 6: I baked them then put the icing on them and popped them into a box. I waited to fill the entire box before I decorated them (the box ended up holding 16)
Step 7: I got quicker at rolling the dough, so I repeated the process of splitting the batch into half, rolling the first half, putting the filling on shaping them and then baking them without a second proof (as they look better that way)
I baked them in two trays, one which holds 9 and one that holds 6/7.
I put six in a box and had to create a new icing (vanilla glaze) as this customer doesn't like cream cheese.
Then I took pictures of these, and thes pictures came out good too, but again not perfect.
Step 8: MENTAL BREAKDOWN
I started at 9 am and it was around 7pm. I was so tired, because I was running on 5 hours sleep and I'm used to 7-8 hours especially during the holiday. And I was stressing out thinking I wouldn't be able to do it all today. I had one batch left.
Step 9: Get back up 💪🏽
I did the last batch and this one was a bit too sticky because I added an extra egg yolk (my mum said I should add it instead of throwing it away because it wouldn't make a difference, it did 😭) so I had to add more flour and knead the dough before I could split the batch in half and put them into logs.
I was able to move faster than I did before, but as soon as I had to decorate and box them, I started to slow down a bit.
Step 10: clean up
I had to clean up in between all my batches, even washing up stuff that I was going to use again for the same thing 🤦🏾♀️. But cleaning up this time was very jarring. I just decided to keep the sink empty and put the dirty dishes into a big bowl so i can deal with that at the end. I washed and dried the stuff that I would need.
Step 11: I finished decorating everything and boxing them up. Now I had to take pictures of the box that held 16 to post on my instagram.
Step 12: clean up everything (with help from my mum who came back from work… she said she left me making cinnamon buns and came back to me making cinnamon buns)
Step 13: decorate and box the very last box.
Step 14: beg my little brother to wash up for me, in exchange for logging him into my account (since he has a screen timeout that locks him out after a certain time)
Step 16: check that I have cleaned up EVERYTHING properly, so my mum doesn't lecture me.
Step 17: pass out in my bed at 1:30 am
I was so tired from doing this. I was wondering if I anybody had any tips on reducing this time?
TLDR; any advice to reduce the time spent making cinnamon rolls?
by N4yaa
15 Comments
If you are looking for assistance with a specific result or bake, you may need to provide a recipe in order to receive advice. This community may not be able to help you without details from your recipe (ingredients, techniques, baking times and temps).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Baking) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No advice but they look great!!
The buns look absolutely scrumptious. Sadly I have no advice. The ratio of time between cooking and eating always baffles me. Cook and clean for hours, finish that entire thing within a few minutes, it’s a scam I say, a life long scam. 🫠🥲
Dayum! These are next level, in the summer as well?
The only thing I hate about this is that I’m not eating them! Look superb!
There’s not much you can do about the fact that proofing takes some time. If you know how many cinnamon rolls you’re likely going to make the next day, you could consider dividing the dough and proofing overnight while you sleep to make it feel less like half of your baking is waiting for proofing. Instead of starting at 9am, start proofing the night before.
Likewise, make sure customers tell you their preferences ahead of time (in terms of icings and toppings), so that you’re not scrambling to make a whole new icing at the last minute. Ideally you should have knowledge of everything you’re going to make before you start for the day. You may need to start telling customers no same day orders, they need to call the day before if they want to pick something up freshly made the next day.
Have your icings and toppings prepared *before* you start for the day if possible and refrigerate. It will get to room temperature when you start decorating, but focus on the baking first.
That way, instead of making icings and other things while baking in the oven is happening, you can focus on cleaning your work station while the rolls are cooking in the oven. That way all you have to worry about is the baking pan. If you haven’t already, make sure you have more than one of the same size baking pan so you can rotate baking trays more fluidly between cleaning and decorating.
Your time is as precious as physical resources— in fact, you could say it’s more precious. So next time, respectfully, listen to your gut before getting your mom’s opinion. Sometimes a dough is salvageable, sometimes it’s not— you’re going to know in the moment if trying to salvage it will waste time. Listen to that gut feeling. Stop trying to fix the too messed up dough, just throw it out (or put it away in the fridge for a completely different baking project another day). You know how you make a mistake worse? Wasting time on it by making 50 follow up mistakes. Just start over if it’s that bad.
Importantly: If you’re going to start the dough the night before, make sure you’re finished mixing and the dough has been put away to proof before your bed time. Make that bed time sacred and get to sleep on time. I cannot emphasize enough how important getting enough hours of sleep is.
Schedule meal breaks and little 15 minutes breaks during the day. It won’t make the baking take less time, but when you honor your body you’re less likely to have a mental breakdown like that. All the other advice should help reduce your 15 hours to hopefully a manageable 7 to 9 hours of baking and decorating and cleaning.
Edit: Btw, these look absolutely scrumptious and beautiful 😍 😋
I make cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast every year. I make the dough the night before and stop after I put the unbaked rolls in a baking dish, before the final proof. I then cover them and stick them in the fridge. The next morning I pull them out of the fridge and let them rise for an hour or so, bake as normal and make the frosting. They come out exactly like they do when I bake them immediately, I’ve never noticed any difference whatsoever. I do this for pretty much all breads or baked goods that I want fresh baked very early in the morning. A lot of doughs even taste better after having the slow rise in the fridge, especially sourdough and pizza crust. I’m sure you could also make the frosting ahead of time and just re-whip it in the mixer too. These look heavenly! You have talent, good luck on your adventures 🙂
After I ate all of these delightful buns, I’d need 15 hours a day at the gym!!
I’m drooling looking at these!
You’ve already gotten some good advice about prep, like proofing overnight in the fridge and pre-chopping your toppings. You mentioned bribing your little brother with sneaky screen time; any chance you could “pay” him to be a sous chef? Like, he could frost while you roll or something? I think the best way to cut down on time spent is more hands!
I would find a commercial cooking subreddit to ask in addition to this one. Mostly these are home bakers, so if you’re looking to bulk batch regularly, you should find a professional to study. (I am coming from a professional dessert background (although most of my experience is not in dough so YMMV).)
The number one thing you can do is big prep ahead of time. Things like your dry ingredients can be weighed out and put in Tupperware days in advance. (Think Alton Brown’s pancake mix) Dry spices like your cinnamon sugar, crushed dry toppings, etc can be weighed and prepped in advance as well. Basically, you can spend one day every few weeks prepping things for all your bake days. Just get a ton of big Tupperware, a scale, and make an assembly line with one ingredient at a time.
Frosting can be made in huge batches, frozen, and defrosted and re-whipped on the days that you are making it.
Get a chest freezer. Fill that thing with half-gallons of finished frosting, bulk purchases of ingredients, etc. I’m not sure of the full process, but a professional bakery I know makes cinnamon rolls and freezes them raw to defrost/second proof and bake later. If you ever had a light day, might be worth doing a couple sheets to save for a heavy day.
Be clever with your flavors. For example, I see you have caramel sauce. So you can do a salted caramel roll, a turtle candy roll, a German chocolate cake roll, a caramel apple roll, a sticky toffee pudding roll… And all of those things are basically your caramel sauce plus a couple of simple additions. Always be thinking about how to get the most amount of overlap between recipes but with the maximum amount of “difference”, if that makes sense. Especially for complicated elements that you are making yourself, like a caramel sauce. And you can double batch it, freeze it for next week, and so on, so you are not boring your customers with an entire week of only caramel.
On a sales-related note:
You should not be making custom things for any small orders. Either they buy an entire frosting batches’ worth of rolls and/or you do an upcharge. If you have to spend 30 minutes making something special for an order and then rewashing your mixer, board, etc, don’t forget to charge for the full 30 minutes of your time.
Try to have all of your deliveries go out at once and make a reasonable route so your mom can save time and gas. Get a freezer bag to put everything in.
Once you start getting loyal customers, you can have them come to you. A cottage baker I know has an online pre-order form and makes everyone pick up their orders between 2:00 and 4:00 on Sunday. That way, in case there are some people who don’t make the pickup window, you can even resell the order to a waitlist.
Don’t forget about basic food safety – wear food-safe gloves if you are handling finished rolls and toppings (although I find them useful for handling butter, frosting, other sticky stuff), tie your hair back and wear a wide headband, make nuts toppings last and watch out in case of allergies.
i would def cold proof the dough overnight, will make your life a lot easier! 🙂
If your goal is to make money or have fun or anything sane, don”t do the unique icing.
You should proof over night. Thats really not a super large amount of cinnamon rolls. Should take maybe 4 hours, less or more depending on your counter/ oven space.
Oh my heavens 🤤
They look great – and delicious! 😋