cinnamon buns, hurrah.
Buns, not bums.
My childhood food memories are amazing… well, the clarity in which I remember them at least. I remember me and my sister making “lemonade,” when we had to go to work with my Mum during the school holidays. While my Mum did something on the computer (sometimes she let us help stamp envelopes) we supposedly “behaved” ourselves in the staff room. Our “behaving” included stirring spoonfuls of sugar from the coffee station into glasses of water and sculling them back. We then proceeded to bounce of the walls while watching Sesame Street. Yeah, you bet we behaved.
I remember eating sultanas and sunflower seeds from small wooden bowls, sitting on a green plaid picnic blanket spread on the floor to (hopefully) save the carpet. Scary thing is, when I was back in New Zealand at the end of last year, my parents used the very same picnic blanket under Misty’s high chair. Creepy.
Weekend lunches usually included a trip to the bakery to collect a loaf of bread for sandwiches (margerine and luncheon for me, shudder) plus either a Boston Bun or Chelsea Buns.
The Boston variety – with either pink or white icing, sometimes the excitement over what it would be would be so intense.
The Chelsea buns.
For some reason I dreaded the days we would get the Chelsea Buns… I’m not sure what it was about these buns that I despised. Raisins, cinnamon, sweet doughy fluffy white buns? Most kids would love these sugary buns of glory… not me though. Actually, I think it was the cinnamon I didn’t like which is bizzare as I love the stuff now.
Misty has inherited my love of all things raisins though… he picks each one up individually, inspecting it thoroughly before finally, placing it carefully in his mouth. Then he repeats the process maybe 50 times. He also kindly shares them with Boosty. And hides them between the couch cushions and in my kitchen utensil drawers. Good boy.
I’m resisting the urge to go grocery shopping… I’m trying to whittle down my supplies, empty jars and packets, clean out scraps. Things I ALWAYS have on hand include oats, apples, and raisins. I had a weeny bit of coconut flour and cinnamon sculking around in corners of boxes, and so another ‘no baking required,’ recipe has been born. My blurry version (?) of a childhood memory.
Cinnamon ‘Buns’
(RAW, vegan, nut, gluten and cane sugar free)
Makes 8 Buns
- 1t ground cinnamon
- 2 apples, peeled, cored and grated
- 6T oats (certified gluten free)
- 4T coconut flour
- 1/2t sea salt
- 1t vanilla extract
- Raisin Jam (recipe below) or jam of your choice
- Coconut butter for drizzling
- Pulse everything in a food processor until a soft sort of ‘dough’ forms.
- Roll into 8 balls, smoosh down a bit, and make an indent for the jam. (Like you are making Thumb Print Cookies or similar).
- Dollop in some raisin ‘jam’ and drizzle with coconut butter.
Raisin Jam
This is not sweet… feel free to add a hint of honey or agave if you want a sugar hit. I find the raisins enough sweetness for me.
- 4T orange juice (any juice will do)
- 1/2C raisins
- 1/4t vanilla extract
- Pinch of sea salt
- Pulse all ingredients together until the mix forms a sort of ‘jam.’ Leaving it slightly chunky is nice for texture.
22 Responses to “cinnamon buns, hurrah.”
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Vegan. Stay at home Mum of Misty. Yoga teacher in training. Passionate about REAL food - creating it, eating it, sharing it. I can never stick to a recipe.
Mmmm…so delicious! They look really lovely – anything involving cinnamon and coconut butter cannot be wrong in my book, lol! I particularly love this recipe because I have everything on hand, for once!
YAY! Honestly, I will be making those soon. I have too! <3 I love reading your blog (for many reasons) one of them being that most of the time, unless there is soy involved, I can eat all your creations! It's wonderful! 
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, life and and vegan culinary wizadry! <3 xyx
These are so quick and easy too (and delicious.. I ate all of them, except one that Misty decided to finger paint with
) Thank you for your lovely comment as usual, beautiful Yolie, you always make me smile with your sunshine 
NOM NOM these looks so heavenly. What are these buns sitting on? It looks like the furry wildabeast back that belongs to chewbacca! Must be a blanket..or perhaps someones head? Either way the buns look delicious!
Ha, close… it’s a little foot stool… I need to re-cover it actually, hmmm maybe needs a freshen up from leopard – possibly a tiger next? Grrrrowl. I have a fixation with furry animal print fabric – Misty has fuzzy giraffe print cushions
I used to hate raisins as a kid, but I’m definitely a fan now. Be careful letting Misty share raisins with Bootsy… grapes and raisins can be toxic to dogs and not always in huge amounts. http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/raisins.asp I don’t mean to scare you, just to help! We had a dog growing up that could eat anything (hair scrunchies and a pair of my bikini bottoms included) without much issue, but we’ve had chocolate scares with both my current dogs so I’m pretty nervous about all of that.
Oh thanks for the heads up! Didn’t know that about grapes – I know that macadamia nuts can be really nasty for them too… funny considering they can eat rotten meat etc, but a little nut/chocolate/dried fruit can do so much damage!
wow, these look amazing! all of my favorite ingredients, and I love the idea of eating them with a spoon.
I need to pick up some raisins asap and make these.
Thanks Dorry! I’m a huge fan of raisins… and YOUR blog
Welcome!
Fantastic stuff Lou. My mum used to bring me into the office to “help” as well… I also got to stamp envelopes lol. She worked in a hospital so I spent a lot of my time in a small musty room reading these amazing medical books. It would have been so much more fun with a sister tho : ( Hey sis! check out this disease! eeewwwwwww…
kiwi bakery treats. Love it. I have pretty much the same memories, except for me it was a pineapple-and-cheese sandwich (bleaugh!) and a custard square. Oooh those little treatles do look divine. Clever girl!
Got my nascent Lou-spray-n-wipe brewing. So impatient to see how it turns out : P
(R)
Pineapple + cheese used to be my favourite toasted sandwich combo! ew I can’t stand custard squares though…. so wobbly.
Yay for chemical free sprays, excited to see what you think of it
You’re so inventive! I love it. You can have all my raisins, though
Oh! Don’t you like raisins?!? Sultanas? Some people think they look like dead flies
i used to get to help at my mom’s office when i was a kid. i’d answer the phone and my mom had to tell me to make my voice lower so it didn’t sound like they were hiring child labor!
do you think it’d be stickier and finger food-ish if i used dates to sub for one of the apples?
It will probably be stickier with dates, but I would say it would work fine…. mmmm will be slightly caramelly from the dates – YUM. Let me know if you try it
Is is really safe to eat uncooked coconut flour? I’d never heard of that before but these look so good!
Yeah, for sure! It’s just like eating coconut flakes or similar; it’s simply ground into a very fine meal. It’s magical stuff, brings such a lovely light fluffy texture to both cooked/uncooked dishes – try it!
Any sub for the oat flour? Would almond flour work?
Yeah, for sure almond flour should work… you could just use all coconut flour if you like
i just realised is their no baking involved……….we just mix and eat ??