Not enough rise in cinnamon rolls

[Livingston]

Novice baker. For some years now I've been baking my mother's cinnamon roll recipe as gifts for family. I'll crank out 12-14 dozen 2 dozen at a time.

To learn, I take the opportunity to work on the recipe and technique each year and this year was no exception. This year's batches didn't get the rise I was looking for. I'd like to get some help understand this a bit more.

This is my attempt at converting the recipe to baker's measures (although it's still in cups).

Dry 9.77 C (68%), Wet 3.68 C (26%), Yeast .19 C (1%), and Fat .75 C (5%). The dry is flour, sugar, and salt. The wet is milk, water and eggs. The yeast is regular rise. The fat is oil (although I changed after the first batch or two to butter).

My first question is whether the ratio looks right for getting somewhat airy cinnamon rolls?

I made two changes this year after the first batch or two. I use two rises: the first for an hour right after the dough is kneaded and the second is after the rolls are formed in the pan. I usually let the second rise happen in a refrigerator in the garage over night but I found the refrig was very cold (an old refer and a very cold spell of weather). I decided to experiment by having the second rise done in a slightly warmed oven (just like the first rise).

Is there a difference in how the rise will be if you overnight in a cool place vs. a 1 hour rise in a warm one?

The other thing I changed (in an attempt to get a better rise) was to replace the oil with the same amount of butter. I creamed the butter and sugar together before adding the other ingredients. Will there be much of a difference in rise when using oil vs. butter as the fat?

I appreciate any insights. Remember, I'm as interested in understanding baking as I am in improving the cinnamon rolls.

Thanks

Liv

 

[Livingston]

BTW, I realized after posting that the measures are not in baker's percentages (the flour isn't 100%). I've got some work yet to do to make the conversion accurate.

Liv

 

[Wyogal]

I thought rise came from the sugar and flour, not the oil/butter. I only add butter after the flour/water/sugar has been mixed and I can see that the yeast has started to "do its thing." I've never heard of creaming the butter and sugar together first, for bread making.

 

[Livingston]

Thanks for the post, and, as you can tell, I'm pretty much a novice looking to learn. I'm just trying different techniques/ratios with one recipe.

So, did I just learn that creaming (which appears to be called for when making some cakes or cookies) is specifically for those outcomes? What I read was that the creaming created spaces for the leavening to work. Is it possible that the technique isn't recommended for breads (and cinnamon rolls) because yeast is used instead of soda or powder? In reading a bit more on creaming it also says to not let the creamed mixture warm up (which, for the CRs, will happen during the rise). I guess I've just learned that the technique will produce no effect for the CRs.

The original recipe (which was shown to make CRs and for things like hamburger buns) called for veg oil but there was a note that a substitute of half shortening and half butter could be used). I just added the creaming idea.

Will there be a difference in the rise between using oil vs. shortening/butter?

Liv

 

[Wyogal]

As I said, yeast does not rely on oil/butter for rising. You are mixing two different techniques, one for cakes, one for breads. Why not just stick to a bread technique? I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish by using a cake technique for bread. They are different, for different reasons.
This is what I do:
Some flour, some sugar, some warm water and yeast in the bowl. When that starts to bubble and "work," I add warm milk (or just more water), a little bit of butter melted in the milk, and a little salt. Mix with a whisk, adding flour. Add more flour until kneading consistency, then knead it. I can tell by the feel when I have enough flour. It's smooth, elastic, and not sticky. Let it rise in an oiled bowl (the one I mixed it in, large, cleaned), covered with plastic wrap. I leave it on a warm counter, until doubled in bulk, maybe a couple of hours. Then I punch it down, roll it out, put the cinnamon, brown sugar, pats of butter on it, roll it up, cut it and place it into a prepared pan (brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, maybe some cream if I got it). Let it rise in a warm place for a bit, maybe 30 minutes, bake.

 

[Livingston]

Thanks Kathy,

The reason I’m mixing bread and cake techniques is, as I said in the OP, because I'm a novice and am here to learn. I get that creaming butter/sugar isn’t a bread technique. I’ll not make that mistake again.

Thanks for the brief description of your technique. I tend to rely more on a mixer for the bulk of the kneading and I proof the yeast in water before adding it, and warmed milk, to the oil, sugar, eggs, salt, and flavoring (vanilla).

What happened with this year’s batches of CR was poor rise and I’m here to understand better why.

I'll admit I have a slightly scientific theme for my questions. My "feel" for the rolls is watching the way the dough reacts to the dough hook and during a brief knead I do by hand when I take it out of the mixer. The recipe I use calls for a soft and slightly sticky dough.

I've been working on understanding some ratios (e.g. wet/dry) in various doughs and batters. It's also given me an opportunity to play with baker's percentages. For this year’s CRs (ingredient, volume, weight, baker’s %:

Flour 9C (40.5oz) 100%
Sugar 3/4 C (6oz) 14.8%
Fat: 3 eggs and 3/4 C oil (10.9oz) 26.9%
Yeast 3 T (0.9oz) 2.2%
Salt 1 T (0.67oz) 1.7%
Wet: 2 1/4 C milk, 3/4 C water, 1 T vanilla (24.5oz) 60.5%

Do you see anything in the formula that could be affecting the rise problem?

Thanks

Liv

 

[Wyogal]

No, it's not the ingredients (they look fine), it's the method.

 

[vagriller]

Yeast, sugar (or honey or other sugar), and warm liquid are normally required for the yeast to do its thing. I don't mess around with the kneading or anything as my CR recipe calls for all the mixing to be done in a bread machine. If your recipe is better than this, I must have it!

Clone of a Cinnabon - All Recipes

 

[Livingston]

I haven't bitten the bullet yet on a bread machine but once I get this recipe to work consistently I'll post it.

So, if not ingredients, lets shift to method.

I scald the milk and let it cool to 110-120. In the mean time I proof the yeast in water with a pinch of sugar (4 min). I also start the mix of oil, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a mixer.

When the yeast has proven and the milk cooled I add them both to the other liquids and mix briefly.

I start the mixer on low and then start to add flour. The first 4 cups are added fairly quickly. I replace the mix paddle with the dough hook and set to low again. I then start adding more flour a cup at a time. At about 8 cups I let it knead for 12 minutes adding a small amount of flour if it isn't coming away from the bowl sides.

Here's where things can be inconsistent. If I have too much flour the dough will climb up the dough hook and I'm not sure if it's doing much kneading. (I'd heard to turn the speed up and let it slap against the side of the bowl but I haven't tried that yet.) If I have too little flour the dough will stick to the sides but will be getting a good knead action from the dough hook.

When done I transfer the dough to a floured board and knead briefly by hand to get to the consistency I want.

The dough is put into an oiled bowl, covered, and let to rise for an hour in an oven heated for 1 minute. I then make the rolls and put them into two pans (3x4) of 12 each. I cover with foil and used to put them overnight into the refrigerator. Since I got some bad rise (possibly because the refrig is in the garage and it was a very cold spell), I decided to change method to let the rolls rise again for an hour in an oven heated for 1 minute.

At this point the rolls have risen some but not as much as I'd like.

Liv

 

[Livingston]

One other thing I forgot to mention is pan size. A few years ago I invested in some good quality 9 x 13 x 2 1/4 baking pans. I'm putting 12 rolls in each. One thing I've been thinking about is to increase the total amount of dough and cut the rolls thicker.

Liv

 

[vagriller]

What temp is the water that you are proofing the yeast with? Normally the liquid for proofing the yeast is supposed to be 110. Also I let the dough rise a second time after I put them in a pan in a warm place. Usually on the stovetop works well for me.

Bite the bullet for a breadmaker? I see them on CL for free! That's where I got mine, and was about to give it away until I found this CR recipe!

 

[Livingston]

The water is between 110 and 115. The proof is always very good.

 

[philso]

if you carefully control the temperature for rising, you should getr about the same results every time if you are careful in measuring the yeast and the liquid you use for the yeast is not so hot that it kills it.

but if you change the temperature for the rising, you`ll have to forget about time and just eyeball it. overnight in the fridge doesn`t necessarily equal an hour in a warm oven.

i bake a lot of bread; less frequently during the hot summer months and at least several times a month during the winter. the temp. in my kitchen varies quite a lot, depending on the season and whether or not there`s other baking going on at the same time.

lots of factors can contribute to under-rising: too much salt, too old or too little yeast, too hot a liquid, too much sugar (though i don`t know why), over-proofing the first rise, and undoubtedly any number of other reasons.

in your case though, because you didn`t proof them at the same temp. that you usually have, i would say that all you had to do was wait another half hour or so and they probably would have been fine.



p.s. over\proofing the second time can cause the dough to collapse if it gets to the point where it`s too puffy to support the weight. in that case, even just moving it into the oven can cause it to partially collapse.

 

[justplainbill]

Some doughs are easier to handle when they are cold. For that reason you might consider doing a first or intermediate cold rise followed by forming and a final warm rise.

 

[vagriller]

Some doughs are easier to handle when they are cold. For that reason you might consider doing a first or intermediate cold rise followed by forming and a final warm rise.

Yes but it's not worth the ease in handling if it doesn't rise enough. At least it wouldn't be to me. If I wanted easy I'd just pop open a can of Grands and throw them in the oven!

 

[Livingston]

Philso, et. al.

Thanks so much for the posts. Temperature is a good thing to focus on.

First, I must admit I am a bit loose when it comes to liquid temps including the proofing water and the milk. At one time I tested the temperature of the hot water from our tap and decided it was close enough. I went back after these posts and tested again. It's about 121-122F. I don't think that's been a big problem but I've made a note for next year's CR batches to get that to 110 for both the water and the milk.

The technique I used this year is the one I've used for a number of years with good (not great) success. That method lets the dough rise for an hour in a slightly warmed over (on for 1 minute then off). I then remove the dough with as little loss of volume as possible, cut into 3 batches and roll out for the CRs. I cut each roll into 8 rolls and place in the pans.

Usually at this point I cover the pans with aluminum foil and leave in the refrigerator over night. In the morning I let the pans warm up at room temp for at least 30 minutes and then bake.

What I noticed was that the rolls out of the refrigerator hadn't risen much. I'm beginning to think the main reason was the temp of the refrigerator. I use an old one in the garage. This year my CR making was during a cold snap and I noticed the refrigerator temp had fallen just below freezing. I had actually thought I might have gotten some bad yeast so replaced it.

In a way, I had the opposite problem Philso had. Instead of a warm kitchen I had a very cold refrigerator.

Regardless, I decided to change the technique of letting the rolls rise overnight and turned to a different technique. Right after forming the rolls and getting them into the pans, I covered the pans with alum. foil and let them rise in the oven using the same technique as for the unformed dough (i.e. 1 min on, then off).

I got a bit of a rise out of the rolls, but disappointing.

Now that I'll keep an eye on temp more I'm wondering whether I may be not rising the dough optimally.

The first rise is always impressive. I will way more than double the size of the dough; possible triple the size or even a bit more.

Since I'm assuming there's a finite limit to how much the yeast can do, would it be useful to cut that first rise time (say) in half expecting more rise after the rolls are in the pan?

Or, perhaps, I bypass the first rise altogether and instead let the dough rest 10-15 minutes and then form the rolls. I could then let them rise.

Any merit to this thinking?

Liv

P.S. You are all being very helpful. I really appreciate the time your taking to post. I'm learning.

 

[Livingston]

I did some research on yeast and temp and realized I'm dancing very close to the kill zones. From Wikipedia:

Yeasts will grow over a temperature range of 10 °C (50 °F) to 37 °C (99 °F), with an optimal temperature range of 30 °C (86 °F) to 37 °C (99 °F), depending on the type of species (S. cerevisiae works best at about 30 °C (86 °F). Above 37 °C (99 °F) yeast cells become stressed and will not divide properly. Most yeast cells die above 50 °C (122 °F). If the solution reaches 105 °C (221 °F) the yeast will disintegrate. There is little activity in the range of 0 °C (32 °F) - 10 °C (50 °F). The cells can survive freezing under certain conditions, with viability decreasing over time.

Looks like I should be proofing 10-15F lower. At the other end, the refrig was a degree or two below 32F because of the outside temp.

It's an easy change (and actually speeds up the amount of time I spend on rolls each year) if I don't overnight them. Is there a reason to prefer an overnight cool rise to a shorter warm rise?

Liv

 

[justplainbill]

Fermenting yeast generates some heat of it's own. We use an active dry yeast like Fleishmann's, raise dough at 65 - 70 F for upwards of two hours, punch down, place in a bowl covered with plastic film and store in a 38 F self defrosting refrigerator for 12 - 18 hours. It doubles in size while in the fridge. We punch down the cold dough, form, and allow to nearly double before baking. The balance of the rise occurs during the first 20 minutes of baking in a preheated 375 F oven.
Since water quality can affect yeast performance we limit our use of hot tap water to washing kitchenware.
Happy New Year

 

[vagriller]

I normally shoot for 110 degrees F.

 

[Livingston]

JustPlainBill

Very interesting post. That's pretty much the method I've used over the years that, this year, had rise problems. I'm beginning to conclude that my original problem was caused because the refrigerator was way too cold (just below freezing). The reason that hadn't happened before is because this is a pretty mild winter climate (usually in the upper 30s to mid-40s F). This year baking coincided with a cold snap in the teens. The refrigerator is in the garage.

The new technique I used (trying to get better results) was to do the first rise, form the rolls in the pan, do another rise (60 min), and then bake. Got some rise in the second and, of course, while baking, but still disappointing.

Is there something about a long cool rise (vs. shorter, warmer ones) worth understanding?

Also, from the posts on yeast and temp I've concluded that the temp I was using was OK although I'll drop it down a little in the future and measure to 110F.

Liv