I suspect that many of us have gotten
away from making our own Cinnamon Rolls as we think they are just too much work and
take too much time. However, we need to realize that a yeast dough is
really
not any more difficult to make than a cake batter. The differences are that
we are using yeast and that the dough does need to rise, although during
this time we can be off doing something else. I love how these Cinnamon Rolls have a soft and tender crumb and that is because the dough contains
butter, eggs, and milk. Keep in mind that this rich yeast dough will take
about 1 1/2 hours for the first rise. Then, all you need to do is
roll the dough into a
square, sprinkle it with a sweet filling made of brown sugar, ground
cinnamon, flour, and butter, roll the dough into a cylinder, and cut into eight
individual cinnamon rolls. Next, the rolls are placed in a greased baking pan and covered with a sheet of lightly
greased plastic wrap. While you can let the rolls rise and then bake them off the same day, I
often like to place the unbaked rolls in the refrigerator overnight. This is perfect when you want to serve
freshly baked Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast. The unbaked rolls rise slowly
in the refrigerator overnight, so all you need to do the next morning is take the rolls out
of the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature while you heat up
the oven. Then just bake them and you have hot Cinnamon Rolls that
everyone will enjoy. You can eat these just as they are or, where I come
from, we like to slice them in half, place them under the broiler until nicely
browned, and then slather each half with butter.
A few notes on ingredients. You can use either active dry yeast or SAF
Instant (Gold) yeast in this recipe. Both types give excellent results. I
like to add some dried milk powder to the dough as it enhances the color of the
crust, adds flavor, and helps to keep the bread moist. However, you can
leave it out. For the salt, I like
to use kosher salt.
