Gluten Free Apple Cinnamon Buns

In the winter I love to bake things that warm the house, create an atmosphere with the aroma and of course won't cause the waistline to increase like Jolly Ol' St. Nicks. Granted it is not winter in New Hampshire yet--she is working her cold way here! This past weekend I had all the kids home while my husband was out hunting and I thought--wow cinnamon buns would be so good right now. So I dug through the pantry to see what I could workout. I had some Red Mills bread mix--gluten free whole grain. I had ordered some a while ago to try out but did not like the denseness of the bread in loaf form. I figured I would give it a whirl as a baked pastry and was very happy with the results! You of course do not need to use a prepackaged bread mix--any of your favorite gluten free bread recipes will work!

Gluten Free Apple Cinnamon Buns
serves 12
1 batch of raw GF bread dough + 1 tsp cinnamon added to the dough & 2 tsp vanilla
2 apples washed and chopped
2 tsp vanilla
1 tbls Agave Nectar
1 tsp salt
Topping- 8 ounces Greek yogurt I used no fat vanilla.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees slightly grease a baking dish--I used butter as really it is a scant amount but does add a flavor to the finished product. Add diced apples, cinnamon,vanilla, agave nectar, salt and cinnamon to a bowl and mix. The salt really allows the apples to "sweat it out" and adds a unique twist to the bun when finished. Since this is a lower in fat (naturally) as well as low in sugar recipe--the salt balances out what your taste buds may otherwise feel is missing.Set apples aside. Fill a 1/4 measuring cup about 2/3 full with the bread dough and place in your baking pan--repeat to make sure you have 12 even sized raw lumps of dough.

Next wet a wooden spoon and press out a center for the apples to be placed in the buns. The wet spoon prevents the batter from adhering to the spoon and smooths the dough out perfectly.








After the bread "bowl" is created you want to fill it with the apple mix. After filling all 12 buns you want to cover this and set in a warm area and allow to rise till about double in size--this takes about 45 minutes. I just cover mine and set them on the stove top while the oven preheats. Of course since it takes so long to rise--feel free to toss some potatoes into the oven to bake for your meals later in the day!

You can see here how much the dough has risen--air pockets can be seen and the dough has a "puffy" look to it. Perfect! Go ahead now and place these in the oven and bake for 50 minutes or until they are golden brown on the tops and edges.




These were served with warm so the vanilla yogurt really just melted and filled all the crevices. The apples were caramel like in texture and really flavor filled!

Calories Per Bun- 170
Carbohydrates- 36
Fiber-6 grams
Fat-6 grams
Protein- 2 grams

Other Good Ideas:
--bake large batches for bake sales and to bring to holiday events
--double the batch and freeze half of them so you can pop them in the oven without waiting for all the work to be done.
--try pumpkin filling instead of apples

Just for kicks there are 309 calories in a traditional cinnamon bun with 13 grams of fat, 42 grams of carbs with 2 grams fiber, and 5 grams protein. So we just about halved the calories and added in some more fiber and less fat and carbohydrates.