Cinnamon Rolls

Recipe

It was a special weekend, so I made cinnamon rolls. I found a recipe on The Pioneer Woman's website which looked absolutely wonderful. I'm always on the lookout for something different from your everyday recipe and this fit the bill perfectly since the frosting was what made it look so delicious and wasn't vanilla-cream based.

I was so excited, I couldn't sleep. Okay, that's a lie. I was excited so when I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to a puking (drunk) roommate, I couldn't fall back asleep because I wanted to wear my new apron (from Sassy Apron) and bake! So I start out mixing the sugar, vegetable oil and milk and while that was cooling, I started my laundry, ate my breakfast and did the puzzles in the paper. How's that for time management?!

Now, it said to leave it for about 45 minutes, but mine cooled pretty quickly and I was able to add the yeast after 30 minutes. Next I added the flour and used my awesome dough hook. The dough seemed kind of wet so I added another quarter cup of flour and it did better. I figured it was because of the vegetable oil.

See what I mean? It's still sticking to the sides. It doesn't say anything about it not sticking to the sides in the recipe so I cover the bowl with a towel and set aside. After about an hour and a half, I checked the dough and, well I guess you could say it was rising quickly...

It actually got even bigger than that! So after 2 hours, I added the rest of the ingredients and forgot that I was splitting the recipe in half. I quickly noticed after I added the baking powder and baking soda so I used my teaspoon to take out some of the extra. I recently read the book "What French Women Know" and it had a chapter in the book about how American recipes are so exact and French recipes are so not exact. So I wasn't really worried about how they would turn out in case I accidentally took too much of the baking soda/ powder mix out.

I mixed the ingredients with my awesome dough hook again and rolled the dough out flat like so:

I feel like even splitting the dough gave me plenty! I brushed the dough with melted butter and added the sugar. I used a quarter cup of regular sugar and an eighth of a cup of the brown Splenda mix (1/8 cup = 1/4 cup regular brown sugar). I thought it would be better with cinnamon and brown sugar. I sprinkled the brown sugar mix and added the cinnamon and began to roll the dough. I rolled mine from left to right but the recipe rolled the dough top to bottom. In the end, I don't think it really matters. I think you might get more out of rolling it top to bottom and they won't be as wide as mine were but I liked how mine turned out.

After I rolled the dough, I cut them into 1 inch slices. I cut the ends off so I wouldn't have uneven pieces and I was able to fit 7 into a round pan. I forget the size of the pan but it was an average size, maybe 7 or 8 inches? I'm not really sure.

The ones on the right were just left overs and end pieces I rolled into a ball just for fun. I like to have a few "test pieces" to try the recipe and pick at so it worked out pretty well. Since these were end pieces anyway, they didn't have as much sugar and cinnamon in them. I knew they were already close together so I was interested in how they would expand in the oven. I let them sit for 30 minutes and put them in the oven at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes. When I took them out, they looked so yummy and full, I wanted to eat them right out of the pan! Take a look for yourself and tell me you wouldn't want to do that...

While they were cooling I started on the icing. Now, I'm not a big coffee drinker myself. So I took a walk over to Starbucks and picked up a small cup of brewed coffee. I figured it was easier than brewing a pot myself. And I wasn't even sure we had coffee in the house. Once the icing was finished, I put it in a container until I was ready to serve it. Since I wouldn't serve it until the next morning, I kept them covered until then. The next morning I heated them up and poured the icing on them. Ta-Da!

I love that the icing isn't the typical vanilla flavor but a maple/ coffee flavor and with the brown sugar mix they are just delicious. They embody everything that is breakfast. I will definitely be making these my go to cinnamon rolls in the future!