I love cinnamon rolls. If you have me pick my favorite breakfast ever, it will always be cinnamon rolls. Prior to working on this book I had no plans to ever learn how to make cinnamon rolls. It's something that is rolled and baked. It seemed pretty complicated.
It's not though. If you can make the pinwheels I posted about a little while ago you can master this. The trickiest thing about these cinnamon rolls is getting them out of the pie plate. But that's easy enough to master.
When my Grandmother wrote this recipe she intended it to be made with a bread machine. A bread machine is not necessary though. Bread machine's are amazing. We bought one when we started working on this book because so many of the bread recipes called for a bread machine, but I've never had one before then. If you have the money to spare and are looking for a good kitchen gadget, worth it.
Anyway. The first step in this recipe is to dump everything in the bread machine and to have it make your dough. Having only had one bread machine I don't know if other bread machines work differently, but mine is fairly specific on the order of dumping. I need to put the wet ingredients followed by the dry ingredients and then make a little nest for my yeast in the top. The recipe doesn't specify but I prefer to use softened butter. Once you have all your ingredients in, set the machine for the dough cycle and let 'er go.
If you don't have a bread machine, mix all the dough ingredients together, use a dough hook if you have one, then let it proof (covered), for an hour and a half or so. The dough should have doubled in size.
After you have finished the incredibly complicated step of: letting dough form. You're on to the steps that yield to actual cinnamon rolls!
This recipe calls for using pie plates, I have no idea if there are other option, but I think it looks super cute so I don't really want to fight it. Preheat your oven and melt a stick of butter. When you have your butter melted pour a bit of it in the bottom of two pie plate, make sure and butter the sides of the pie plate too. I always forget that step. Don't be me, remember to grease the entire pie plate or your rolls will be sad. Save the remaining butter.
Get your dough out of wherever it is proofing and flour a surface pretty heavily. If your dough feels too sticky through some flour on it as well. Then roll it out. Roll it into something resembling a rectangle, but you don't have to be too serious about it. I roll mine out pretty thinly so that I can get more rolls in my roll, but it's really your preference. When you have it rolled out spread the remaining butter on top of the dough. Don't be shy about it. This is what makes it good. If you used too much butter in your pie plates it's fine, melt some more butter. You'll feel weird, but it's fine, it'll be good. Use a brush to read it out and make sure and get all the edges. Once you're done with that get some brown sugar and generally sprinkle it in the butter in the pie pan. My Grandmother's recipe says to sprinkle it on top of the buttered dough as well. She's wrong you should be more aggressive than a sprinkle. Spread it on fairly thickly and use the brush to rub it in. Then get some cinnamon and spread it out on top of the brown sugar. Again, be generous here too. Your tastebuds won't regret it (though your cardiologist might).
After that you get to practice your pinwheel steps! Roll the dough up pretty tightly.
Cut the ends off and discard them, the ends are always not a good as you want them to be. Then cut the rolls into about 1 inch pieces. The trick is to get a really good knife here so that you can cut the rolls without compressing them too much. I am sometimes better at this than other times, but do your best.
As you cut them put them in your buttered pie dishes. Don't put too many in the pie dish, they're just going to rise and take up space so giving them a bit of breathing room is good.
Once you've filled your pie plates up cover them with a cloth and let them rise for about 2 hours. They should rise to take over the pie dish in that time period. I know "take over the pie dish" is a really useful piece of information, but they should double in size. I took a picture, below, of what mine look like after two hours. They basically just fill up the dish. If they haven't then let them rise some more.
As you near the end of the rise preheat your oven to 350 and when they're ready bake the roll for 20 minute or until they're brown on top.
If you're going to serve them immediately (and why wouldn't you?) go ahead and make the glaze as they near the end of the baking time. Make the glaze by mixing, it's super complicated, three ingredients. 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 Tbsp. sour cream (sub in greek yogurt if you want) and 1 - 2 Tbsp. milk. Start by adding just 1 Tbsp. of milk and add the rest if your mixture is too thick to drizzle.
When the rolls are done baking is the hardest part of this process. Take them out and immediately turn them over on a wax sheet of paper or a spilt. It really helps here if you have another set of hands. If you've greased your pan well then they should slide out. If you're like me and forget to grease the sides it might be a bit more complicated. Go ahead and separate them from each other and cool for a bit. (they will not be peak beauty here, but they will be yummy).
To serve, turn them back over, drizzle the glaze on top and add some warm butter and dig in!
GRANDMA’S CINNAMON ROLLS YIELDS: 12 - 18 ROLLS | PREP TIME: 3 HOURS | COOK TIME: 20 MINUTES Ingredients
Dough:
1 ¼ cup water 3 Tbsp. butter 3 cups flour 2 Tbsp. dry milk 3 Tbsp. sugar 1 tsp. salt 2 tsp. dry yeast Brown sugar as needed
1/2 cup butter
Glaze ½ cup powdered sugar 1 Tbsp. sour cream (sub Greek Yogurt if you want) 1-2 Tbsp. milk
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine ingredients in bread maker and put through the entire dough cycle. If you don't have a bread machine then mix the ingredients with a dough hook and proof, covered, for 1 1/2 hours (or until the dough has doubled in size).
After the dough has finished proofing, roll it out onto a heavily floured surface in a rectangle shape. Melt ½ cup of butter and pour enough of the melted butter into two pie plates to cover the bottom and sides. Spread the rest of the melted butter onto the dough.
Generously sprinkle brown sugar in each pie plate and over the dough. Sprinkle cinnamon over the dough. Roll up the dough lengthwise to make a long rope. Cut into 1-inch slices and place in pie plates. Cover and let rise for about 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Bake in 350 degree oven until golden brown on top, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and immediately invert pie plates on a sheet of wax paper (or a silpat).
While baking, make the glaze. In a small bowl, combine the three glaze ingredients, adding only enough milk for drizzling consistency.
Cool, glaze, and serve with warm butter. Freezes very well.