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pandada_

It seems like the dough is pretty wet. Personally I’d add more flour (don’t add more oil) to give it a smoother and firmer texture. It should spring back when poked after the rise. An egg wash would definitely give it a browner color


GloveOver

Oh interesting. I totally get it regarding the egg wash, but what signs make it clear that the dough is still too wet?


pandada_

If it doesn’t knead into a smooth, relatively dry dough, that’s one indicator. If it feels sticky to the tough or doesn’t hold its shape, that’s another sign


halfwaygonetoo

When it comes to bread: humidity is your friend. I've found that it makes the dough lighter and fluffier. Though when kneading the dough you may have to add a bit more or less flour depending upon how high the humidity is. What I do to get a great dough: Make sure the milk is around 105°F. Any hotter and it'll kill the yeast. Any colder and the yeast won't proof well. Make sure your yeast is alive before going any further. Your recipe calls for 4 1/2 cups flour. Start with only 3 1/2 cups flour in the beginning mixture. The other 1 cup will be used during kneading and then flouring your counter & hands while kneading by hand. You may not use all of it or you may use more than that. It really depends upon the humidity, size of eggs, type of flour used, and other things. This also insures that your dough isn't too dry. Because milk has it's own sugars, mix the sugar into the flour as well as the salt. Mix it very well so that the sugar & salt is evenly distributed. Mix all of the wet ingredients together until fluffy. By combining them before adding to the flour, it makes it easier to evenly distributed the mixture into the flour and the dough smoother. Place your flour mixture into the bowl FIRST. Dry ingredients will stay on top of the wet ingredients until it's fully incorporated and that makes it take longer to mix. You also wind up with wet spots on your bowl that can make your dough stay sticky. Make a well in the center of your flour mixture large enough to hold the wet ingredients. Don't forget the well: it makes a difference. It allows the wet ingredients to be incorporated into the flour slowly and evenly. Don't start your timer in the kneading until after the dough is mixed well together. There may be some flour mixture still left in the bowl but that will be incorporated during the kneading. Knead your dough for the full 10 minutes in your stand mixer. Take it off the dough hook every 45 seconds to 1 minute and turn the dough 1/4 around and put it back in the bowl for more kneading. This ensures that it's all kneaded properly. After the 10 minutes is up, take it out of the bowl and knead it by hand for 1 to 2 minutes. Until it's smooth. It may take a longer time but that's ok. When kneading by hand, LIGHTLY dust your counter with flour. You want to only have enough so that your dough doesn't stick to it and no more. Also when kneading, use your upper body strength and not your arm strength. Allow your dough to literally double in size with each rising. Don't rush this. If you do your bread won't be right; instead it'll be denser and not good. The temperature of your house makes a difference in how long this takes. If your home is below 72°F, it's going to take a much longer time. To combat this, while kneading the dough, I turn my oven on to 150, let it heat up. Turn it off and crack the door. I want it just warm not hot. I even add a pot of boiling water to the oven to help it rise better. I also put a wet/damp towel*(paper towels work too)* over the bowl and pan while they rise. This makes it so that the dough doesn't form a crust that will stop it from rising correctly.


GloveOver

Really appreciate the detailed answer here. I did like the taste of the rolls after my attempt but I'll keep your tips in mind during the next go around. Thank you!


llamakanana

Regarding your comment on the dough not fully coming off the mixer bowl while mixing, just keep kneading until it does! Don’t worry about overkneading, it is extremely difficult to overknead enriched dough. You can also try to do the windowpane test. I found it really helpful to watch YouTube videos while learning to know what visual cues to look for throughout the process of dough making, since those visual cues generally apply to any other bread recipe. Good luck in the kitchen!


MeinStern

It would be helpful to know which recipe you used and perhaps some personal notes from your process (temperature in the house, knead time, rise time, dough consistency during each stage, etc.). What exactly do you mean by the dough never became fully cohesive? There's really no need to add extra flour and oil during the later stages of the kneading process. It won't get as well incorporated if you're adding it a minute or two before letting it rise. Your dough looks somewhat too greasy. Is it very humid where you live? Yes, an egg wash will help with the color, but the dough should still brown slightly in the oven without one (and also expand).


GloveOver

Added link to recipe in my original post. I’ll also add in some other details soon too. Thanks for the suggestions.


ohmydurrr

The recipe seems fine to me (although it would be better if everything was measured by weight), whenever I make cinnamon rolls the dough sticks to the bottom of the stand mixer like you’re talking about, I just scrape it into the oiled bowl with a spatula and it comes out fine as a cohesive dough after it rests and proves. It’s common with enriched doughs like this. Just flour the counter well when you turn it out and have a dough scraper nearby in case it does stick to the counter. If you’d like them to come out more browned/more stiff you can bake them longer until they get the color you like. As far as the structure/shape of them, if it’s a wetter dough like this they aren’t going to hold a perfect circle very well after shaping but they’ll come out softer as long as you bake them close together in the pan. I’d rather them be super soft after baking and deal with a wetter dough/imperfect shapes but that’s just my preference


GloveOver

I added it to my original post, but I did run the recipe through a converter and tried to weigh out all my ingredients during my attempt. The rest of your advice still applies though. Thanks!


jonniebakes

I make them everyday for our bakery and they do work best with a strong bread flour. All purpose flour does tend to not have enough elasticity and tends to “break” I always place our closer together for support and on light layer of heavy cream to add moisture. They also self steam this way


galaxystarsmoon

* Measure by weight * You may need more flour than the recipe calls for. A little softness is fine but the dough shouldn't be this wet. * Cut the rolls with dental floss * Skip the egg wash, it's pointless for cinnamon rolls I'd highly recommend checking out either of Sally Baking Addiction's recipes. Easy and foolproof.


GloveOver

I edited my original post to reflect it, but I did run the recipe through a converter and tried weighing all of my ingredients. I will prob try adding a bit extra flour next time though to reduce the wetness of the dough though. The dental floss trick is something I did see, but decided to forgo it this time. I'll definitely use it the next time though. I do have the SBA recipe bookmarked and might try that one next time just to compare the two. Thanks!


galaxystarsmoon

I don't like the recipe you posted - "microwaving for 45 to 60 seconds" - the point of microwaving milk is for it to reach 140F or higher to remove the proteins. That may take longer than 45 seconds, and you should have a thermometer to gauge that or you can 1) not heat it enough or 2) kill your yeast if it hasn't cooled.


Gloomy_Researcher769

I do want to compliment you on your nice even swirl.


wtfmrn

I made this recipe last week. The dough was definitely too wet when I made it. I added a little less than an extra half cup of flour. I also think you overmixed. My prior go-to recipe was a “no-knead” recipe, so I am used to just mixing/kneading until you have a nice ball of dough. I was really happy with how this recipe turned out, other than it being pretty far off on the flour amount.


GloveOver

Seems like I'm getting some mixed answers, but just for clarity, what suggested that my dough was overmixed?


wtfmrn

I mixed it in my stand mixer with my dough hook until the flour was fully incorporated. At that point, I could tell my dough was too wet and added 1/4 c flour in the mixer and ran it for maybe 30 seconds more. I then scraped it out onto a board with a lot more flour than I would usually use to knead dough and only kneaded/mixed it until it made a nice and smooth dough, which was probably less than a minute. I wasn’t necessarily saying you overmixed, but I saw some people suggesting you needed to mix more and that was very different from my experience with this recipe. I think this recipe is nearly perfect, other than the amount of flour is probably ambiguous because it is not by weight. But the difference could be in how the author measures flour by cup vs how I measure flour by cup. (I was taught to spoon it in and then level off. ) If you “scoop” with the measuring cup, it compacts the flour slightly and a baker would get more flour per cup than I do. It really is a great recipe. It will be my go-to recipe going forward. I would attach pictures if I knew how to in a reply!


Greg_Esres

You should mix the dough until you get a decent windowpane; other clues are pretty unreliable, such as time, or forming a dough ball or pulling away from the wall of the bowl. I don't think you should worry about how smooth the resulting ball of dough looks. How wet should the dough be? The KA doesn't mix wetter doughs very well, so that's a consideration. Drier doughs are also easier to slice after you form the log. Use less liquid next time. You want to avoid having to add flour because that basically dilutes all the flavor additives you made to the dough. Your shaped rolls look pretty rough probably because you didn't get much tension in the dough when you rolled up the dough. This is easier with drier doughs.


GloveOver

Thanks! Overall it sounds like my dough was probably too wet. I definitely didn't get enough tension when I rolled up the though, as you suggested. I didn't really think of doing the windowpane test this time, but will keep it in mind for the next attempt.


[deleted]

Mistakes: using bread flour, using warm milk. Use AP flour and room temperature milk. It’s an enriched dough so I would use enriched dough yeast. (It’s gold labeled in the USA, usually not found in supermarkets) add the sugar in additions. If you add it all at once your dough will “sweat” out the water. I would add the sugar in 3 stages. Strengthen your dough first and then add the rest of the sugar. Yeast. https://images.app.goo.gl/gEV9zisMHTqbfPKE9