Crying Onions

People say that money can’t buy love, but nobody ever says that cinnamon rolls can’t. And I think you might agree with me that bartering these cinnamon rolls in exchange for love might in fact be a pretty even trade. See, cinnamon rolls are happiness in food form. Most people have fond childhood memories involving the wafting smell of sweet cinnamon waking them up in the morning, whether it was a surprise snow day, a random weekend, or Christmas morning. So eating a cinnamon roll is not just about enjoying the big, delicious, warm, rich, soft, buttery, oozy, sweet, cinnamon-filled treat that practically melts away in your mouth, it’s about reliving the best parts of childhood for a moment or two.

A while back, I found this recipe from the Pioneer Woman (one of my many food blog addictions). The amount of butter in the recipe soared past sinful without so much as a passing glance, galloped easily past gluttonous, and went straight to Oh-Dear-God-In-Heaven-This-Must-Be-A-Mistake. We’re talking 8 sticks of butter just for the filling.

But they looked so incredibly delicious that I just had to make them. As it turns out, I ended up cutting the butter in half, but it wasn’t for health reasons (would anyone ever consider cinnamon buns to be healthy?), it was just because after a certain amount, the butter started to pour off the sides of the dough, all over the counter, and threatened to overflow onto the floor, so I decided to stop. The only other major change comes from the fact that I am a firm believer that cinnamon rolls are best when topped with warm cream cheese icing, so I substituted it for the PW’s coffee-maple icing.

I admit, the recipe is long, rather time consuming, and a bit messy. But the outcome of all the work? In a word: happiness. What starts off as luscious ecstasy in the first bite slowly transforms into pure giddy joy as you remember how perfect it was being a little kid. You eat the rest and let the sugar high take hold. It’s odd, but you can’t resist smiling. And that’s when you know it was absolutely, 100% worth the effort.

Makes 7 pans of rolls (about 7-8 rolls per pan) UPDATE: I’m experimenting with freezing some of the rolls because if you decide to make them for just yourself, 7 pans is a lot to eat at once. I’ll let you know the results asap.

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

What you need:

Dough

• 1 qt whole milk
• 1 c vegetable oil
• 1 c sugar
• 2 packets (or just shy of 5 tsp) active dry yeast
• 9 c all purpose flour, divided
• 1 heaping tsp baking powder
• 1 scant tsp baking soda
• 1 heaping tsp salt

Filling

• 2 c butter, melted, divided Note: if you want to go all out, use 3-4 c butter, but just soften it instead of melting to avoid a huge mess
• 2 c sugar, divided
• LOTS of cinnamon, divided

Icing

• 16 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 sticks (1 c) butter, softened
• 3.5 c powdered sugar
• Splash of milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

What to do:

Making the Dough

1. In a big pot, bring milk, oil, and sugar almost to a boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and let cool roughly 1 hour until warm but not hot
2. Stir in yeast, let sit for a couple minutes, then stir in 8 cups of the flour until combined. Let sit for about an hour and a half to rise. It will get big and puffy if all goes well.
3. Add in the remaining cup of flour, as well as the baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and stir to combine.
4. Place half the dough on a well-floured surface (it will be very sticky), and roll it out into a long rectangle, about 2-3 times as long as it is high (probably about 1 foot tall and 2.5 feet wide).

Filling, Rolling, and Baking

1. Pour half of the butter (or spread, if using softened butter), onto the rolled out dough. Sprinkle with 1 cup of the sugar, and then sprinkle very heavily with cinnamon. Don’t worry about going overboard, the whole surface should be dark brown and delicious.
2. Starting from the back, roll the dough towards you, making sure to keep the roll tight as you go. Be careful because some of the filling might want to spill off the front edge. This is ok, it can just make a mess.
3. Once the whole roll is done, pinch the edge to seal it, and cut it into 1 inch rounds, using a sharp knife or by wrapping dental floss around the roll in a loop, and then pulling it tight to cut.
4. Place the rolls (cut sides going up-and-down) into buttered foil round cake pans. Repeat the rolling out, filling, and cutting process with the other half of the dough. At this point, you can stick them in the fridge overnight, or continue on to baking them
5. Let the rolls rise for 30 minutes (or if you’re taking them out of the fridge, about an hour and a half), and then bake them in an oven at 400 for about 15 minutes until the tops just start to brown

Icing

1. While the rolls are baking, whisk all the icing ingredients together until smooth.
2. When the rolls come out of the oven, immediately top with a generous amount of icing.

Posted September 2nd, 2009 at 6:03 pm. Categories: breakfast, desserts. Leave a comment or trackback from your own site.