French Toast Cinnamon Buns

These French toast cinnamon buns are a delicious mashup of some of my favorite baked treats: French toast, cinnamon rolls, and milk bread. They are as fantastic as they sound and absolutely worth the effort and time to make them. Among the new recipes I’ve been testing out, this ranks at the top!

This recipe is adapted slightly from Sift by Nicola Lamb, which is both a terrific primer on baking and a collection of baking classics along with some creative new ones. If you’re any kind of baking enthusiast, I’d strongly recommend this book just for its extensive technical explanations on baking ingredients and techniques alone. I like how the recipes are organized – An Afternoon, A Day, A Weekend – to give you an idea of the time commitment for each recipe. I also like the recipe matrix that gives suggestions on how to mix and match base recipes to create a variety of different treats. That’s one of my favorite things about baking: once you have a handful of trusted base recipes, the creative possibilities are endless and easier than you think.

I’ve made milk bread many times before, but I’ve never thought about using them to make a version of cinnamon rolls, nor did I imagine taking them a further decadent step by dipping them in a custard and baking them, French toast style. The result is the fluffiest, softest buns, perfectly rich and toothsome, redolent of brown sugar and spices. The original recipe also includes a butterscotch icing to drizzle over the buns – it’s wasn’t necessary for me, but know you can always gild the lily even further with these buns.

Although these buns look like they are inspired by cinnamon rolls, they do take a bit of planning to make. The dough is simple to put together, but the recipe recommends an overnight proofing so you’ll plan out your baking accordingly. There is a shorter proofing option offered, but I left the dough overnight in the refrigerator just to be safe.

After proofing, you roll out the dough and spread it with a filling made of butter mixed with brown sugar, cinnamon, and cardamon, and then do a single letter fold.

After rolling out the dough again, followed by a second layer of filling and another letter fold, the dough is ready to be cut into strips for individual buns. I found the dough easy to work with, and didn’t require any additional chilling with all the rolling and folding.

The trickiest part of the recipe is slicing the dough into strips and then cutting each strip further into three lengths to be braided. Although the strips seem very thin to begin with, it does work, so just get out your sharpest knife and slice carefully.

After you’ve sliced the strip into three lengths, you braid them and then roll them up into a bun, then place them in a muffin tin to be baked.

Once you’ve baked the buns, you then dip them in a egg mixture combined with vanilla and rum, just like for French toast. Try to soak the buns completely before returning to the pan for a second bake.

The final results are well worth the effort: visually stunning, tender, and intensely flavorful. Again, you can drizzle a glaze or frosting over them cinnamon-roll style, but I think these are wonderful plain as well, and you can really see the intricate braiding of the dough. These buns are a project well worth the time and will make your breakfast (or snack time) delightful.