If you live in New York, or are a bread aficionado, chances are you know all about Amy’s Bread. With three retail locations and a thriving wholesale business that fills the bread baskets of many of New York’s finest restaurants, Amy’s Bread has become a real
institution. But while Amy’s Bread is famous for its bread (Oh, that fennel-raisin semolina bread! Oh, those olive twists!), they also make some really wonderful sweets – old-fashioned layer cakes, over-sized cookies, bars and flaky pastries. Happily, Amy Scherber,
the Amy in Amy’s Bread, released a book featuring recipes for some of their most popular sweets a few years ago. The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread (Wiley, 2008), co-written with Toy Dupree, is one of those books that, as you flip through it, inspires you to jump in the
kitchen and make everything on the spot. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I did manage to make a batch of Amy’s incredible Cinnamon Raisin Twists. The twist shape is the signature of many of Amy’s bread and sweets. Tender, moist and cinnamon-y, these twists have
a sweet icing drizzled on top and are a match made in heaven for a cup of strong coffee. As you knead the dough, try to resist the urge to add a lot of flour, as this will just toughen the twists. Eat the twists the day they’re made to enjoy them at their best. But that shouldn’t be a problem.
“You never make me cinnamon rolls,” my husband announced recently. He was right, of course. Common sense told me that it probably wasn’t a great idea to make a batch of delicious, gooey, buttery, glazed cinnamon rolls for two adults to ingest over the course of a weekend. Seemed more like a thing to make when a
group was coming by for brunch, for example. But the guilt had already set in, and there was no turning back. Soon I was fervently kneading a batch of sweet dough and slathering it with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Though it does require attention, making the sweet yeast dough for these rolls is a therapeutic
process and the results are extremely satisfying. Baking the rolls fills the house with a heady scent, and the warm, freshly glazed cinnamon rolls are amazing, and naturally delicious—they don’t contain any of the bad additives that the ones from that popular cinnamon bun chain do.
Now, let me tell you about this recipe: Over my years as editor of Chocolatier magazine, I had many interns. Most of them were great, but a few were really exceptional. One of the exceptional ones was a woman named Nicole Rees. Nicole was beautiful (in a Katherine Hepburn way), smart, perky and was—and is—a truly
gifted recipe developer. She was a go-getter who relished a challenge. I remember her saying one day that she had woken up at 5 in the morning in order to make her husband waffles before work. I had enough trouble rolling myself out of bed at 7 in order to stagger into work by 9, so this got my attention. Anyhow, after her days at Chocolatier, Nicole went on to become a successful recipe developer working for various magazines and newspapers, and she recently released her own cookbook, Baking Unplugged (Wiley, 2009). It’s a wonderful book, full of foolproof, unfussy recipes that you’ll turn to again and again. Here is Nicole’s recipe for Cinnamon Rolls, straight out of Baking Unplugged. I changed the glaze (Nicole used a cream cheese spread for hers), but the rest is vintage Nicole, perfect in every way.
