When my family used to live in Vancouver, my father and brother adored Cinnabon. I also loved the warm, sweet delicious smells that came from the Cinnabon store whenever walking past it in the mall. The intimidating size - big as my two fists put together - and the sheer amount of frosting on each bun always overwhelmed me, and I never actually ate one. I was just content to sniff and inhale the warm, spicy-sweet smells of cinnamon and bread while the others would devour the giant buns.
In Hong Kong, there is no Cinnabon, and as far as I know, no real place to get cinnamon rolls. After my so-so success with the bread rolls, I suddenly had a craving for cinnamon rolls. I spent an obscene amount of time looking at cinnamon roll recipes online. I even begged for one from an old high school classmate, Nadia, who got her aunt's "super-secret" recipe. In the end, I used a combination of Nadia's aunt's recipe and one by Molly Wizenberg (aka Orangette) in Bon Appétit magazine.
Also, this time I used instant yeast instead of active dry yeast, which I'd been using for my previous bread experiments. The taste is much better, less pungenty-yeasty, and more delicate and bread-fragrant.
The buns were accompanied by a cream cheese frosting, which was slightly tangier and more sour than sugar frosting, but I think it gave a richer, deeper flavour.
One point: I wouldn't recommend following the instruction in Molly Wizenberg's recipe to invert the rolls after baking onto a rack. I tried it, and the insides collapsed, and bits of cinnamon sugar fell out of my rolls. So just keep it in the pan until cool. No need for a cooling rack.
Here are some bits that fell out when I inverted the pan. They were still delicious!
