P-Dub Wednesday – Cinnamon Rolls

There are a few things that instantly come to mind when you think of Ree’s recipes – one of them is butter and another is her cinnamon rolls. I had always put off making them because there was coffee in the frosting and I’m not a fan of coffee, but recently someone who had made them assured me that the end result tastes like maple more than anything so I decided to give it a go!

INGREDIENTS

Rolls:
1 quart whole milk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 packages active dry yeast
8 cups (plus 1 cup extra, separated) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) baking powder
1 teaspoon (scant) baking soda
1 tablespoon (heaping) salt
Plenty of melted butter
2 cups sugar
Generous sprinkling Of cinnamon

Maple Frosting:
1 lb powdered sugar
2 teaspoons maple flavoring
½ cups milk
¼ cups melted Butter
¼ cups brewed coffee
⅛ teaspoons salt



DIRECTIONS
Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan.





“Scald” the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point), then turn off the heat and leave the mixture to cool for 45 minutes to 1 hour.



When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in both packages of Active Dry Yeast. Let this sit for a minute.



Add 8 cups of all-purpose flour and stir the mixture together.





Cover and let it rise for at least an hour.





Add 1 more cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir the mixture together.



At this point, you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it – overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to overflow out of the pan, just punch it down.

When ready to prepare the rolls, sprinkle the rolling surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape.



It was at this point that I realized 2 things:

1. I had forgotten to add the salt to the dough and started praying that the recipe would still work out.

and

2. The jug that I was about to pour the melted butter from was not in fact removed from a clean dishwasher. It seemed to have a sprinkling of red powder through it and it was then that it dawned on me I was about to pour taco seasoning flavoured butter onto my cinnamon rolls.

I’ll just let you ponder for a moment what that would have tasted like.

Ready to move on? Great.

Drizzle 1/2 to 1 cup melted butter over the dough (I used 1/3 cup and it was plenty – if I had added any more it would have been flowing off the dough onto the counter top).

Now sprinkle 1 cup of sugar over the butter followed by a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. Or in reverse if you’re like me and don’t read the directions closely enough. Either way is fine.





Now, starting at the opposite end, begin rolling the dough in a neat line toward you. Keep the roll relatively tight as you go. Next, pinch the seam of the roll to seal it.



Spread 1 tablespoon of melted butter into 6-7 seven inch round foil cake or pie pans (I used the remainder of the half cup I melted previously for the dough but had only used 1/3 cup).



Then begin cutting the rolls approximately ¾ to 1 inch thick and laying them in the buttered pans.





You can then repeat this process with the other half of the dough, but I only made a half batch so I didn’t do this step

Let the rolls rise for 20 to 30 minutes and during that time preheat your oven to 375 degrees,



Bake until light golden brown, about 15 to 18 minutes.



While the rolls are baking, prepare the frosting – mix together all ingredients listed and stir well until smooth. It should be thick but pourable. Taste and adjust as needed.



Generously drizzle over the warm rolls.



Now, Ree says that she used to bake her cinnamon rolls at 400 degrees but now cooks them at 375, as specified in the recipe above. I actually found that mine were still doughy towards the center of the pan, even after cooking for the full 18 minutes at 375. I think next time I will use the old temperature of 400 degrees and see if that works any better. This might vary for your oven since everyone’s oven is different and some run hot or cold.

As for the frosting, both my husband and I agree that my initial preference was right – we would prefer to leave the coffee out and just substitute in an extra 1/4 cup of milk to make up for the lost liquid.

All in all, the parts that were cooked thoroughly were definitely delicious. If you’re a fan of cinnamon rolls, these are worth the effort!


♥