One of my friends loves cinnamon rolls and she's coming to visit tomorrow, so I tried a new recipe for her that I'm really excited about because it reminds me of the same flavor and texture of what you'd find at Cinnabon, a popular American company found in malls and airports. Thank you to Mel's Kitchen Cafe for the recipe, which I followed completely.Rolls:
- ½ cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 ½ ounce package instant vanilla pudding
- ½ cup butter, melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 6+ cups flour
Filling:
- 1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 4 teaspoons cinnamon
Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- ½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons milk
In a small bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. In large bowl, take pudding mix and prepare according to package directions. Add butter, eggs and salt to the pudding mixture. Mix well. Then combine the yeast mixture with pudding mixture. Blend. Gradually add flour; knead until smooth. Do not over flour the dough! It should be very soft but not sticky. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled. Then roll out on floured board to 34 X 21 inches in size. Take 1 cup soft butter and spread over surface. In bowl, mix 2 cups brown sugar and 4 teaspoons cinnamon. Sprinkle over the top. Roll up very tightly. With knife put a notch every 1 1/2 inches. Cut with thread or serrated knife. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Cover and let rise until double again. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (176 degrees Celsius) for 15-20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden (don’t over bake). Frost warm rolls with cream cheese frosting (combine butter and cream cheese and mix well, then add vanilla and sugar and mix again, then add milk for desired consistency). Makes about 24 very large rolls.
Here I am, getting started with rolling out the dough after it doubled in size. I had to move my mixer to make room for a large enough surface space. Take a look at my spices lined up along the wall to see how long the area actually is.
This should be another exciting science experiment with flour, sugar, butter, etc. I can't wait to see how this turns out! I've cooked at least a half dozen other cinnamon roll recipes in the past and am anxious to find out if this will be my favorite.
The surface is floured up and the rolling pin is near, and I turn the bowl over, and everything comes out perfectly without sticking. That's a good sign. I must have gotten the right consistency, since the recipe said the dough should be soft and not sticky. I was a bit worried that I would over flour it, since I ended up with more than 7 cups of flour, but it didn't seem to be a problem.
This dough rolled out beautifully to the size I needed without sticking to the counter top, my hands, or the rolling pin. I'm already loving this recipe.
This recipe calls for an entire box of butter, by the time you're all done, so if you're on a diet, you might want to think again before making this. I sliced the butter up in pieces after taking it out of the refrigerator to soften it more quickly since I had forgotten to set it out earlier. The mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar will go on next.
Spread the butter all over the rolled out dough.
Next, sprinkle on the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture.
This part was fun. Truthfully, the entire recipe was fun! I carefully rolled up the dough tightly, and was getting more and more eager to get to the finished product.
If you're wondering what the little tiny brown chunks are, they are clumps of brown sugar. It's so humid in Taiwan, that my brown sugar easily sticks together, even with it triple bagged. I extracted the biggest sugary chunks, but didn't worry about the rest.
This is already my favorite cinnamon roll recipe, I can already tell without even sampling it.
Ready for cutting.
I just eyeballed the cuts, about every one and a half inches. I ended up with 22 normal sized ones, then two mini ones that were from each of the ends.
In the past, I've used dental floss or thread to cut the dough, but my serrated knife worked just fine.
Gorgeous. Beautiful. Lovely. Now I need to let them double in size and watch that yeast go into action.
Two dozen fantastic looking uncooked cinnamon rolls, ready for some plastic wrap, covered loosely.
At this point, my son was asking me when they were going to be done. It was less than an hour that it took for them to rise.
Now we're talking! Ready for my little "easy bake oven." Above is the before baking shot.
And here is the after shot. I still have one more batch to bake, so in the meantime, I'll prepare the cream cheese frosting.
These are going to be so GOOD!
Don't you just love my aqua colored mixer? I do!
Instead of the smear technique that I used this time, which I wasn't too crazy about, I'll use a drizzling method the next time I make these, just because I am a big fan of making food as pretty as possible, especially desserts.
They were incredibly tender, sweet, buttery and moist, and reminded me of Cinnabon. It's official. These are my new favorites, but I'm always willing to try new recipes. Thank you, Melanie, from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, for inspiring me once more. You've got to check out her blog if you haven't already. Enjoy!
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