Bake 52 Week 29: Cinnamon Rolls

This week Valerie picked cinnamon rolls.  I was really tempted to do the sticky buns instead because to me those are much tastier.  But I thought that wouldn't be right - it's not a variation of what Valerie picked.  Its a whole different recipe!  Plus (and this is the main reason) Jonathan loves cinnamon rolls.  I couldn't resist trying to make him some and seeing if he likes them better than Wal-marts cinnamon rolls in a can - his favorite!

I used the make ahead option for the dough.  Any time I can stick the dough in the frig overnight to raise I'm all over that!  The dough was very simple.  I used the sour milk option for buttermilk, because I couldn't find any at the grocery store.  I finally ordered some powdered milk from Amazon but it hasn't come yet.  I'm not sure if its supposed to do this but by the time I was ready to add it to the other wet ingredients all the milk solids had clumped and settled to the bottom.  It looked really gross but I just dumped it in.  :-)

The ingredients, all prepped (butter melted & cooled, soured milk warmed) and ready to go.

The first step was to mix the wet ingredients in a large measuring cup.

Then you measure out the dry ingredients and mix them in your stand mixer.

The last step is to add the wet to the dry and mix at low speed to incorporate. 

Then I up'd the speed to medium to knead the dough.  The book said it would take about 10 minutes but after 5 it looked good to me - pulled away from the side of the bowl but still sticking to the bottom and was smooth and elastic.

Then I stuck it in a bowl, covered it with Press & Seal (I love that stuff!) and shoved it in the frig.

Sunday morning first thing I pulled the dough out of the frig.  It had risen nicely.

I let it sit for 30 minutes to warm up before I started working with it.  While I waited I put together the filling.  As traditional it had brown sugar and cinnamon but it also included spicy cloves - yum!

The recipe directed me to pat the dough into a 12 x 18" rectangle.  This was the hardest (well, certainly longest) step of the whole process.  It took me close to a half hour to get it right. I really struggled to get the corners square.  Even after all that effort I still think I left them too rounded. 

It too me a bit to figure out how to straighten the sides.  As I pressed the dough to get it thinnner and bigger it naturally formed an oval.  I finally figured out that if I pushed the sides up and in I started to get more of a straight side.  The dough was also pretty elastic.  I'd stop and measure to see how I was doing and one side would be basically right but the other side needed to stretch.  So I'd work on it a bit more trying to just expand the one length but when I'd measure again the other side would have shrunk!  Like I said - a long, iterative process. 

Once I had the size right I brushed the butter on the dough and then patted the filling on. 

The recipe only said to leave an edge at the top of the dough.  Since it didn't mention it I was worried that if I didn't get the filling close to the side edges I'd end up with a couple of cinnamon rolls with no filling.  Well I didn't need to worry.

As I rolled up the dough I lost filling out the end, so I would have been better to leave more of an edge. 

The second hardest step (for me anyway) was getting the dough to seal.  I must have pinched that dough 5 or 6 different times or ways.  I even tried wetting the edge of the dough.  I worked the dough so much messing with the seal and patting the ends in that when I was done and measured it I was already at 18"!

Using my tape measure I started cutting off rolls about 1.5" wide.  That wasn't very successful. 

You can see above that every roll was a different height.  I decided I needed a different approach.  I measured the remaining roll and figured out what was half.  Then confirming that it looked like half I cut partway into the dough.  Then I did the same thing with the rest of the rolls, cutting each section in half. 

It worked pretty well and gave me much more uniform rolls. 

I sat my rolls in the sun, covered with plastic warp and about an hour later...

they were ready to go in the oven.  After I took the picture before they went to rise I read that I was supposed to put the cut side down.  I had put all my rolls cut side up.  I figured other than the two ends both sides were cut so it didn't really matter.  But I flipped the two end rolls to be safe. 

While the rolls baked I made the glaze.  After having the sour milk turn into something pretty gross when I used that for the dough I took the option to use regular milk in the glaze.  In addition to that the glaze consisted of cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla.

After 25 minutes of baking the rolls looked perfect so I pulled them out and let them rest for 5 minutes

After five minutes I turned them out on a wire rack and then separated and turned them all over.  Then I spooned the glaze over each of them.

All ready to eat!

I thought the roll itself was really good.  I loved the sweet bread taste.  The cloves added a wonderful spicy taste to the cinnamon and sugar.  The glaze was very, very sweet but the recipe gave just the right amount of glaze for each roll so it just added a nice layer of sweetness to the roll.  Jonathan's review, "These are really good!"  I rarely get a "really" so I was pleased.  For me I think they are the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had.  Good enough that they changed my mind about cinnamon rolls.

Dig in! 

For the recipe check out Valerie's blog.  Thanks for hosting Val!