One of the great perks of my job as a content editor for Serious Eats, which I’ve come to appreciate lately, is that I get paid to read food articles and recipes for a living. Imagine that! Granted, I don’t find all the content fascinating. I mean I love pizza, but there are just so many features on the best pies in NYC I can take. And, no, I don’t plan on traipsing across the country sampling regional pizzas anytime soon (certainly not pizzas topped with some weird processed cheese in the Midwest).

There are, however, plenty of features to peak my interest. For example, Kenji’s recipe for vegan Korean-style wings (a.k.a. cauliflower) inspired me to whip up my own sweet and tangy version for dinner one night. Half of a small cauliflower (organic from the farmer’s market I might add) cut up yielded a hefty “entree” size portion, which I zhooshed up with furikake (seasoned seaweed sprinkles) and toasted sesame seeds. They were so damn delicious I gobbled up the entire batch served with steamed white rice. Hey, I was eating more than my daily allotment of vegetables so who cares they were battered and fried?

What has really gotten my creative juices flowing, no surprise, is the mother lode of baking and pastry features, particularly those by pastry whiz extraordinaire Stella Parks (a.k.a. Bravetart). I’ve tried a few of her recipes before, like the one for bagels, so I was acquainted with her work long before I began editing for Serious Eats. I have since become very familiar with Stella’s recipes, especially her copycat version of the popular Biscoff or Belgian Speculoos Cookie (you know that stuff they use for Trader Joe’s addictive cookie butter), which I had the pleasure of updating for the website.

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By “updating” I don’t mean I made any material changes to her recipe. No, I merely merged the main recipe with a companion feature Stella wrote about the process of recreating the iconic cookie, which according to her involved a whole lot of trial and error to uncover the precise ingredients necessary to produce the right flavor and texture. Two of the “mystery” ingredients were Belgian brown sugar and Ceylon cinnamon. Now before you ask, “do they really make THAT much of a difference?” (which was my neighbor Amy’s response when I told her about the Biscoff recipe), let me just tell you, YES THEY DO. This is not a case of excessive pastry geekdom. There is a very valid reason for Stella’s argument for specificity.

Unlike American brown sugar, which is comprised of sucrose and molasses, Belgian brown sugar is comprised of sucrose and caramel. Used in Biscoff, the Belgian brown candi sugar gives the cookie its distinctive toasty, caramel flavor and crisp structure, something American brown sugar fails to do.

Before you run out in search of Belgian brown sugar or hit up Amazon (which I did because I’m lazy), I should warn you it’s pricey. The more cost-effective alternative is to follow Stella’s recipe for toasting sugar. It’ll take several hours in a low oven, but if you’ve got the time it might be worth it. I attempted to do it while multi-tasking (i.e. working and on a Zoom call) and accidentally took my sugar a tad too far, resulting in melted caramelized puddles around the edges of the sheet pan. I tried blitzing it in a food processor but couldn’t quite manage to get the sugar back to the right consistency needed for the cookies so my trial batch didn’t look very pretty. Nevertheless, Amy deemed them delectable.

As for the other mystery must-have ingredient, Ceylon cinnamon, botanically speaking, is the only “true cinnamon.” All other varieties of cinnamon on the market, such as Saigon (which you’ll find at Costco) are made from cassia bark and have more of a bite or sharper spice. Ceylon cinnamon is lighter in color, warmer, more aromatic, with floral notes that are absent from the cassia variety. Hence, it’s also more expensive, but I would argue well worth it. It’s not really that much more expensive if you buy it in bulk, which of course I did. I noticed the difference as soon as I opened the bag. The spice did not hit my nostrils the same way (what I’ll now call) common cinnamon did. Instead of “heat,” I got more sweetness and complexity, which would better complement other warm spices.

The combination of Belgian brown sugar, Ceylon cinnamon, butter, nutmeg, and cardamom was indeed magical. My only deviation from Stella’s recipe was substituting a teeny amount of Chinese 5-spice for anise (I wasn’t going to the store for 1/16 teaspoon of anise). Round 2 of copycat Biscoff was declared a winner by all who partook in the taste testing.

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Since I was sitting on a 2-pound bag of Ceylon cinnamon, I figured I might as well put it to good use in another baked good–Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls. It was the weekend, so why the hell not! Besides the food processor had already been used for milk bread, why not just whip up another batch of dough while I was at it? The recipe I used for the cinnamon rolls was basically another variation of a tangzhong-based dough from King Arthur Baking. I tweaked it a little by adding an egg yolk for richness. For the filling, I whisked together some brown sugar, Ceylon cinnamon, a tablespoon of all-purpose flour, and a pinch of sea salt. I brushed the rolled-out dough liberally with melted brown butter I had leftover in my fridge then showered it with the cinnamon mixture.

I scored the log into 8 portions, then used kitchen twine to “cut” off the pieces. Dental floss would’ve been better, but I only had the minty kind on hand.

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I placed the rolls in a greased 9:x13″ pan, wrapped the pan in plastic film lightly misted in non-stick spray, popped it in the fridge for a nice slow rise overnight, pulled it out in the morning to finish rising, then baked them off. I made a simple glaze by whisking together melted butter, a little softened cream cheese (also leftover in my fridge), whole milk Greek yogurt, powdered sugar, vanilla, and sea salt.

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I can honestly say those were some of the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever baked–pillowy, warm cinnamon-swirled awesomeness…so amazing in fact, I gave my friend Maria a dozen as a thank you for offering up her lovely house in Petaluma so Violet and I could go on a well-deserved mini-break.

With fall upon us, I’m sure there will be no shortage of inspiration for more cinnamon-centric recipes. Stay tuned!

If you’re curious about Stella’s Biscoff copycat recipe, check it out here on the Serious Eats website.

Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls (adapted from King Arthur Baking)

Yield: 8 large rolls

Tangzhong:

• 1/2 c. whole milk
• 3 T. all-purpose flour

1. Whisk milk and flour together in a small saucepan until smooth.
2. Cook the mixture under medium heat, stirring constantly until it is very thick and pastelike (about 3 mins.)
3. Remove from the heat to cool slightly.

Dough:

• 2/3 c. whole milk, cold
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 1/2 c. bread flour
• 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour*
• 2 T. sugar
• 1 t. kosher salt
• 2 t. instant yeast
• 4 T. unsalted butter, softened

1. Whisk cold milk into the very warm tangzhong, then whisk in the egg yolk.
2. Place the flours, sugar, salt, and yeast (add it away from the salt) into the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk to combine the dry ingredients. Add the butter and liquids.
3. Fit the mixer with a dough hook and mix at low speed to bring the dough together. *Add a little more all-purpose flour a tablespoon at a time as needed, if the dough seems too wet, but don’t overdo it! Increase the speed to medium and continue mixing until the dough is smooth and elastic (about 10 mins.).
4. Gather the dough up into a smooth ball and place it inside a well-greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a dish towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm space until doubled in volume. Test the dough by gently poking the surface. It should leave an imprint that slowly pops back up. If the dough springs back up immediately it’s not ready.
5. Punch down the dough to deflate, then roll it out on a lightly greased surface to 10″x12,” about 1/2″ thick.

Filling:

• 2 T. unsalted butter, melted (or brown butter)
• 1/4 c. lightly packed brown sugar
• 1 T. all-purpose flour
• 1/8 t. kosher salt
• 1 1/2 T. Ceylon cinnamon

1. Brush the rolled-out dough with about 1 T. melted butter.
2. Whisk together the remaining ingredients with the rest of the melted butter to combine, then sprinkle evenly over the entire surface, except a 1/2″ strip on the long side.
3. Roll the dough tightly into a log towards the “naked” edge, then pinch along the edge to seal.
4. Mark and score the log into 8 equal portions.
5. Using a long piece of unflavored dental floss or kitchen twine, loop it under each marking, crisscross the ends, and pull in opposite directions to cut the dough.
6. Transfer the rolls onto either a lined and greased sheet pan or a 9″x13″ pan for the second rise. *At this point, you can also wrap the pan and refrigerate the dough overnight. Make sure rolls are spaced at least 2″ apart and the ends are securely tucked under.
7. Once the rolls have doubled in size (do the poke test again), bake them in a pre-heated 375 F degree oven (rack adjusted to upper third) for 14-18 mins. Internal temperature at the center should be between 190F-195F degrees.
8. Cool the rolls for about 10 mins. before icing.

Icing:

• 2 T. unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 1/8 t. kosher salt
• 1 3/4 c. powdered sugar
• 2 T. softened cream cheese
• 2 T. whole milk Greek yogurt

Whisk until smooth.