The Tastiest Cinnamon Bun in the Universe
Most of the time cinnamon buns suffer from one of a handful of critical flaws: overly sweet, not sweet enough, too much cinnamon, not enough cinnamon, too much frosting (related to the first flaw), too little frosting (related to the second flaw), too dry (I’ve never had one that was too moist). I would say that “too dry” and “too sweet” are the most common flaws I have come across.
A few weeks ago I made a trip out to Dogfish Head’s production facility in Milton, DE. I arrived an hour before my tour and went into town for a midday snack. I came across The Vintage Cafe and, with nothing other than generally positive reviews from Yelp, I went in. Immediately I saw huge, tasty looking muffins and cinnamon buns. I bought one of each. The muffin was delicious and highly noteworthy, but it’s the cinnamon bun that needs to be written about.
This was the closest thing I have ever had to a perfect cinnamon bun. In fact, I would argue that this WAS a perfect cinnamon bun. There was just enough cinnamon to give a strong-but-not-overpowering cinnamon flavor. The bun itself was nicely moist, not at all dried out, and had a wonderful consistency—slightly chewy but not hard to chew. Then there was the frosting. At first sight it didn’t look like much, but it added just the right amount of sweetness to the bun. This cinnamon bun was so good I bought another one for my drive back to DC (this was actually Brooke’s idea).
If the Three Bears had been eating cinnamon buns instead of porridge, this would have been Wee Bear’s bun: just right. This cinnamon bun was so good that I would drive the two-and-a-half hours back to Milton just for another. Sure, I could get a tour at Dogfish again, but my point is that I would be perfectly happy with the five hours of driving just for this cinnamon bun and no tour. Maybe I should ask them for the recipe so that I don’t need to drive those five hours…