#21 Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Buns

Finally, another new recipe! And a pretty good one. For the dough, I followed the recipe fairly closely. I used milk throughout, agave nectar, and a mixture of butter and oil. This produce a nice soft cinnamon bun.

For the filling and toppings, I was a little more creative making a mixture of different buns. If the buns look different, there is a good reason—they are different. The night I started these, I watch Todd Wilbur on CMT as he tried to reverse engineer Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls. So for some of these, I used his recipe for Cinnabon filling along with a few minor variations of my own. The rolls starting at the top right of the picture have Wilbur's recipe. Those at the lower left have Reinhart cinnamon sugar. Those in the middle row have one or the other of the filling but with additional butter spread on the dough.

I did make one change in Wilbur's recipe—I cut the amount of xantham gum in half as the amount in his recipe seemed excessive. I also used his topping recipe on some of the buns.

Overall, while I'm not that big a Cinnabon fan, I preferred the buns with Wilbur's filling and the extra butter. The topping was also an improvement. (I keep this in the refrigerator and add it to the buns at serving time.) Reinhart's recipe doesn't give a very sweet bun so a slight drizzle of fondant isn't enough for my sweet tooth. Overall a good recipe.