Cinnamon Rolls

One of my very favorite things to make homemade or from scratch are cinnamon rolls. They are super easy to actually make, they just take a lot of time and patience. You really cannot rush them, not if you want them to be nice, fluffy, and delicious. They are also a lot of fun to make. As I said previously, I have really been on a cinnamon and spice kick, the holiday season really does that to me.

Let's get started on these! The first step is to measure out your yeast and water and mix them together. You want your water to be warm though, about 110 degrees, I just heat it in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Make sure it isn't too hot though, all microwaves heat differently. This is extremely important. If your water is too hot it will scorch the yeast and kill it. If the water is too cold the yeast wont activate. Also toss in a bit of sugar about one to two tablespoons in with the water and yeast. This is so the yeast has something to feed off of while it is developing, it develops more with the sugar in it.

It will be pretty watery and like liquid at the beginning stages, leave it alone to develop for about three minutes. While it is developing, mix together the milk, egg, sugar, and melted butter with a dough hook attachment. Mix until just combined. Measure out the flour and mix the salt with the flour, then add in half the amount of flour, give it a quick mix, and then check the water/yeast mixture.

Once it is fluffy and frothy and thicker than when you left it, you know it is ready. Once the yeast is ready add it to the dough, and add in the rest of the flour. It is important to make sure the salt was sifter with the flour and that the salt doesn't directly come in contact with the yeast by itself. Salt burns yeast, almost like when you have fresh cut and run it under water, that is the same sensation yeast gets from salt.

Once the dough is smooth and fully mixed, brush oil on the inside of the bowl you plan on letting it rest in, as well as brush the dough with oil, this ensures it is easy to get out, as well as making sure no "skins" form on the dough. Skin is when the dough dries up. Next, you want to put the dough in a warm spot to rest until it has more than doubled in size. I usually cover it with a towel, and then I place it in my microwave, not on. Make sure you do not turn it on! I just put it in there because it is above the oven and it is in a nice contained warm spot.

My dough took 2 hours to get to the point of where I wanted it. You just have to be patient, and try your hardest not to do anything to disrupt it in the process of rising.

This is the same bowl, as you can see, before it didn't even come up to the half way point in the bowl.

And now, it is almost to the very top of the bowl,

 And you cannot see the bottom of the bowl, it is now ready to be rolled out.

It is important to have a large clean surface to work on, as well as making sure you flour that area very generously to make sure the dough doesn't stick.

Next, turn the bowl with your dough in it upside down, on the clean floured surface. The dough should fall right out.

 Now roll out your dough as evenly as you possibly can, in a rectangular shape.

The dough is pretty easy to work with you could actually use your hand to roll it out if you wanted, if you use a rolling pin, flour the rolling in, and dust the surface of the dough with flour to ensure the dough wont stick.

I like to use the pan that I will be baking them as a guide to see how far to roll out the dough. I want the dough about 15 inches wide by 9. My pan is a 9 by 13, so I just want it a bit longer than the pan.

Also you want to spray your pan well with non-stick spray, because before we bake these, they need to rest and rise more after we shape the rolls.

Next with about 2/3 softened butter, you can give or take some, you literally want to rub the dough with it. Yes, I am aware that didn't sound right.... but rub that dough away with that butter! 

After it is generously coated in butter, it is time to make the cinnamon sugar mixture that makes these pop.

In a bowl, I used the same one the dough was in before, make the cinnamon sugar. This is about a cup of brown sugar, a 1/4th cup of regular granulated white sugar, and 2 tablespoons of cinnamon. Mix it together well.

Now, generously coat the dough with cinnamon sugar all over the dough, except, Leave one edge of the dough clean.

The clean edge of the dough is going to be the end of the dough, where we line it with a bit of water to close the roll shut.As you can see this is plenty of cinnamon sugar, so don't double the recipe, like i alsost did. Thank goodness I didn't because I still had more cinnamon sugar left. I had almost doubled it because I love extra cinnamon sugar, but I had decided to follow the recipe exactly.

Literally roll the dough, it is just the same if you've made a jelly roll cake before. I placed the rolling pin next to the roll so yall could see how large this is.

We should be able to get 14-16 rolls out of this depending on how large you cut your rolls.

As I said before, when you get to the end of the roll, brush the clean edges we left with a bit of water and stick it to the dough to close it shut.

It's good to cut the dough in half, then in half again, and out of each half get 3-4 cinnamon rolls, again depending on the size you want.

My rolls turned out to be a nice decent size, not too big or to small. Just slice the dough and place it cut side up in the pan you plan to bake them off in.

You aren't ready to bake yet! These need to be placed in another warm spot to rise for another hour and a half! I placed them back in my microwave, once again do not turn the microwave on.

 An hour and a half later, you can see the rolls have doubled in size and have risen more, and now they are ready to bake. Preheat your oven to 350 and bake these for about 18-30 minutes, this will vary depending on how your oven bakes. My oven tends to bake things quicker so 18 minutes was perfect for these.

Now, patiently await, and enjoy the wonderful smell of cinnamon warming your home.

To make the glaze, yes because all cinnamon rolls need a glaze, take softened butter and softened cream cheese and mix well. Once it is fully mixed add in the powdered sugar, it will be very thick. To thin this out, warm up some milk, and add warm milk to the sugar mixture a tablespoon at a time, until you get your desired consistency. it is important to make sure the milk is warm, so it turns it more into a thin glaze, versus cold milk which is used when making a thick butter cream like icing, which you could do if you wanted. I personally like more of a glaze than frosting or icing on my cinnamon rolls.

Once the cinnamon rolls are out of the oven, pour the glaze over them right away, straight out of the oven.

Glazing them right away while they are hot ensures that the glaze will fully stick to them in all of the nooks and crannies of the rolls.

Now, there is nothing more to do but to enjoy your gorgeous, delicious creation.

This recipe is by Laura Vitale and can be found here

Also if you want to watch the process on how to roll the cinnamon rolls check out her video on the site.

Written Recipe:

Makes 14 to 16 Rolls

Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 30 mins

Ingredients:1 Package of Dry Yeast
¾ cup of Whole Milk
¼ cup of Granulated Sugar
¼ cup of Water, warmed up to 115 degrees
¼ tsp of Vanilla Extract
1 Egg
1 tsp of Salt
¼ cup of Unsalted Butter, melted
4 cups of All Purpose Flour
¼ cup of Melted Butter, to brush over the top before baking

For the Filling,

1/3 cup of Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
¾ cup of Brown Sugar
¼ cup of Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp of Ground Cinnamon

For the Glaze,

¼ cup of Cream Cheese, at room temperature
1 Tbsp of Butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups of Powdered Sugar
½ tsp of Vanilla Extract
3 to 4 Tbsp of Warm Milk

Process,

1) In a small bowl, combine the warm water and 1 tsp of the granulated sugar, sprinkle the yeast over the top and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

2) In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the egg, milk, salt, sugar and melted butter. Add 2 cups of the flour and the water, vanilla and yeast mixture, mix until its all incorporated and slowly add about 2 more cups of flour. Turn the speed up to medium and let it mix for about 5 to 7 minutes or until you have a smooth dough.

3) Oil a large bowl with some vegetable oil and set aside. Take the dough out of the mixer and pull it together with your hands to form a ball. Place it in the oiled bowl and oil the top of the dough with a little vegetable oil. Cover with plastic wrap and place it in a warm spot to rise for about 2 hours.

4) In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, granulated sugar and cinnamon for the filling, set aside.

5) When doubled in size, punch the dough down and roll it out onto a floured surface into a 15x9” rectangle. Spread the soft butter over the top and sprinkle evenly over the sugar and cinnamon mixture.Staring from one of the long ends, tightly roll the dough into a jelly roll form. Cut into 14 to 16 slices (make sure they are even) and place them cut side down in a well buttered 9x13 baking pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let put them back into a warm spot to rise for another 1 ½ hours.

6) Meanwhile preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

7) Once risen, brush them with some melted butter and bake them for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

8) While the cinnamon rolls cool for a few minutes make the glaze. Mix all the ingredients of the glaze in a bowl except for the milk, once the cream cheese is all mixed, slowly add the milk until you get a runny glaze consistency. Immediately pour the glaze over the cinnamon rolls and enjoy!