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cinnamon brioche rolls



some time ago, chika at she who eats blogged about some granola from la brea bakery, which led to a short discussion about the cinnamon rolls from said bakery. veronica, the chef and owner of cup and saucer (see previous posts of purchased pretty pastries), told me it was basically a brioche dough recipe, so i set about not trying to recreate it (impossibility), but to make a semi-approximation of it that would satisfy my craving, without having to fly to los angeles.

i've been attempting brioche for awhile, with varying results. the recipe that intrigues me the most is from gordon ramsay's "just desserts", but i have yet to recreate it successfully. for this particular item, i used a recipe from either ben o'donoghue or curtis stone, but it isn't in their cookbook, dagnabbit. it's somewhere in the stacks, i'll find it one day. anyway, i used one of the aussie boys' recipe for brioche, rolled it out, sprinkled brown sugar and vietnamese cinnamon over it, did all you do to make cinnamon rolls, and wa-hey, here you go.

the la brea bakery cinnamon roll is larger, with much thinner layers (i'm sure the actual recipe is in nancy silverton's pastry book), but the flavour was close, and the texture quite pleasing. less flaky due to my lack of finesse in the layering department, but tender and buttery, but not so much to overpower the spices.

8 comments:

Hey you professional cinnamon roll maker,

Those look lovely - you did a great job, santos! I think I said I was meaning to make cinnamon rolls (not La Brea clones but Cinnabon-ish ones), and I didn't forget it... but here you've got it, those briochy ones also sound damn good, too.
I want to check Nancy Silverton's pastry book for something else, although from what I have learned from another of her book on sourdough bread, her recipes might be a little too fancy and complicated for me... I don't know.

By the way, their granola finally made it to one of my neighborhood supermarkets! :D

hey chika

i have that la brea bakery bread book, and i agree, everything looks too complicated and too fancypants for me too. having said that, though, her pastries are pretty amazing. the book might be worth checking out.

we still don't have the granola here :-( but we get some of that sourdough every once in a blue moon....

Hi there...I've spent most of the afternoon browsing through your blog instead of working which says much about my character :)

I enjoy your writing, your..what would they be, not necessarily travelogues, maybe eatalogues?? anyway. I live on Guam in the 70's (survived Supertyphoon Pamela which was an extreme hoot) and have always fantasized about returning. Amazing to learn how it's changed, by viewing at it through your eyes. I was a kid in my early 20's straight out of the rural US and my adventures on Guam both spoiled and enlightened me, something that has lasted to this day. I loved it there.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the Chicken Adobo recipe. I'm going to make it tonight! The keleguen recipe you posted a while back will be next. I can still make lumpia, but had forgotten about adobo and keleguen. I'll be looking for a red rice recipe next, lol.

Thanks so much for the trip down nostalgic lane.

Shelley
Denver, CO

hi shelley

hafa adai! thanks for stopping by. did the adobo turn out okay? i have a red rice recipe ready to go. i try to space out my guamish recipes as i don't know that many, so i don't want to run out of them.

guam has changed a lot, but as you can see, we still have those @#$%ing supertyphoons....

mmmm! i thought i smelled cinnamon rolls!

monkey

hi monkey! the top one's for you.

i am overcome with emotion! i think i can best express my feelings in a haiku:

ah! cinnamon roll
golden brown and so fragrant
everyone dig in!

monkey
www.himonkey.net

my first monkey haiku--i'm honoured! thanks monkey! great start to the weekend.