Easter cinnabunnies with a cream-cheese glaze – Junior Chef

Sarah Phillips is a sweet 16-year-old from Trinityhouse Randpark Ridge. Currently in Grade 11, she recently spent a week in the F&HE offices, catching a glimpse of the behind the- scenes action to help her focus her future career in the culinary industry. She inspired our Easter baking with these delicious homemade cinnabunnies…

“I began to notice the food industry about two years ago when my passion for food was ignited by shows like MasterChef. I am interested in learning more about the business side of things, like food retail.”

While Sarah enjoys school subjects English and Biology, she’d love to be able to combine her interests and is thinking about taking a B.Sc in consumer science and retail management at TUKS, or something similar in Cape Town – SA’s foodie capital. “I would want the course to contain a large element of learning how to cook, but also accounting and how to run your own restaurant,” she says, expertly folding the dough to form her cinnabunny ears.

At the moment, she’s taking inspiration from local foodie, Sarah Graham, and regular visits to her favourite restaurant, Thai Café in Paulshof. “At home, I love cooking Thai food. It’s my absolute favourite to cook and eat pad Thai, or anything with noodles! But, I do love baking as well,” she adds with a smile.

With her sister, Amy, currently completing second year at university and her mom, Sally, working shifts at Olivedale Hospital as a midwife, Sarah often gets to cook dinner for the family: “I love cooking recipes out of F&HE – it’s my weekly go-to guide!”

By Hasmita Amtha

Print Recipe

Easter cinnabunnies with a cream-cheese glaze

Serves: 8

Cooking Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• Cinnamon buns

• 470g cake flour + extra, to dust
• 6,25ml (1¼ tsp) baking powder
• 2,5ml (½ tsp) bicarbonate of soda
• pinch salt
• 250ml (1 cup) buttermilk
• 170ml full-cream milk
• 120g treacle sugar
• 10ml (2 tsp) ground cinnamon
• pinch ground cloves
• 130g butter, melted

• Cream cheese glaze

• 250g cream cheese
• 70g icing sugar
• 5ml (1 tsp) vanilla essence
• 45ml (3 tbsp) full-cream milk
• flaked almonds, to serve

Instructions

1

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl.

2

Add the buttermilk and milk to the dry ingredients and, using your hands, bring the dough together. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead with the palms of your hands until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.

3

Cut a third of the dough off and set aside. Roll the large piece of dough into a large rectangle of about 1cm thickness. Roll the smaller piece of dough to a thickness of 0,5cm.

4

Combine the treacle sugar, cinnamon and cloves in a small bowl. Sprinkle the sugar mixture in an even layer over the rolled-out dough, then drizzle with the melted butter.

5

Roll the large piece of dough up tightly and trim the ends off. Cut the roll into 8 pieces and lay on a lined baking tray.

6

Cut the smaller piece of dough into 8cm x 2cm rectangles. Fold each strip over horizontally and press together.

7

Attach these 2 ‘ears’ to the top of each cinnamon roll, pinching the dough together to firmly attach the ears. Bake the rolls until puffed and golden, 30 minutes. While the rolls bake, combine the ingredients for the glaze in a small bowl.

8

Remove the rolls from the oven and cool on a wire rack, 10 minutes. Glaze the rolls with the cream-cheese glaze and add 2 flaked almonds as teeth. Serve while still warm.