The most delicious and gooey cinnamon rolls with goodness of milk, and cinnamon. They are perfect to bring in the holiday season. I love sweet bread and I am sure you will enjoy making these too.
Try more sweet bakes this holiday season like chocolate babka, cinnamon cake, no-knead light bread or a challah.
Christmas time means my TL is filled with posts and pictures of cinnamon rolls. Though I have not eaten a lot of these beauties but when I came across this super popular cinnamon rolls by Ree Drummond of Pioneer Woman, I knew I had to make them this year.
Fortunately these were baked in my home just on Christmas day and served traditionally on Christmas morning for breakfast.
The few changes I made were – I halved the recipe, then again divided the dough into 2 balls before rolling it out and reduced the sugar in frosting. I think I should have ideally reduced the recipe to 1/4th rather as for a family of four 1/4th dough will easily give 10-12 regular rolls.
I made the mistake of fitting all the 23 rolls in one rectangular pan. Though this didn’t take away from the taste but I think they would have looked better. :)
I am planning on freezing the remaining dough roll.
They were delicious and worth all the fattening butter and sugar that goes into it. They taste equally good upon re-heating next day. Remember to re-heat just enough to melt the frosting and no more.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Have a beautiful year ahead and stay true to your resolution. :)
Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
For Dough:
- 2 cup milk
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup sugar granulated
- 1 tbsp instant yeast
- 4 cup of all purpose flour + 1/2 cup APF additonal
- ½ tsp baking powder heaped
- ½ tsp baking soda scant
- ½ tbsp salt
For Filling:
- 1 cup unsalted butter melted
- ¾ cup sugar powdered
- ½ cup cinnamon powder
Vanilla Frosting:
- 2½ cup sugar powdered
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter melted
- a pinch salt
Instructions
- Start by bringing all the ingredients to room temperature if they were refrigerated. It's best to keep the refrigerated ingredients on the counter 30 minutes prior to baking.
prepare the dough
- In a medium pan, heat milk, oil and sugar over medium flame till just below boil. Or you can scald to 150 °F. Set aside and allow it to cool until lukewarm.
- Sprinkle the yeast and allow it to sit and froth for about 5 minutes. To this mixture, then add 4 cups of flour and stir until just combined using a wooden spoon. Cover it with a kitchen towel or cling film and allow it rise in a warm place for an hour.
- If you do not have ground cinnamon like me, then grind it yourself. In all probability it wouldn't grind very fine. If it happens with you too, then combine the already roughly ground cinnamon with powdered sugar and grind again. This time you will get fine powder.
- After an hour, add remaining ½ cup flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir mixture thoroughly. I used my hands to bring all the ingredients together. You can even refrigerate the dough at this point for upto 3 days.
shape the rolls
- Prepare a working counter by sprinkling generously with flour. Divide the dough into two.
- Take one dough and using your hands, shape it into roughly a rectangle. Then with a rolling pin, roll the dough thin, maintaining the rectangular shape. Ideally the longer sides should be facing you.
- Drizzle melted butter over the rolled dough. I used a spatula to evenly spread it.
- Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll the dough from the longer side toward you as tight as possible for firmer shaped rolls. You may need to use both your hands and proceed slowly. Pinch the seams to seal it. Turn over the roll so that the seam is facing down. You will be left with a long roll. Repeat the same for remaining dough ball.
- At this stage I refrigerated the rolled doughs overnight as I wanted the sliced rolls to be more shapely.
bake the rolls
- Preheat the oven to 375 °F (190 °C). Grease a rectangular baking dish of 11X9X4 inch.
- Slice the log in ½ inch rolls, one log will give you about 2 dozens of mini rolls. Lay the sliced rolls in the greased pan. Be careful and do not over crowd the pan. I made a mistake here and fit all the rolls (from one log) in one pan. Next time I will not do so.
- Cover the prepared pan with rolls with kitchen towel and set aside for 30 minutes in a warm place for second rise.
- Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown. Don't allow them to become over brown or they will dry up.
the vanilla frosting
- While the rolls are baking, in a medium bowl combine all the ingredients of the frosting. Whisk well till smooth. Taste and adjust as per your need. The consistency needs to be thick but still pourable. So if the frosting is too thick, add milk by tablespoon just enough to reach the desired consistency.
- As soon as the rolls are out of the oven, generously pour frosting over the warm rolls after they come. Be sure to pour around the edges and top. As they sit, the rolls will absorb flavor from the frosting and get better with time.
Notes
- The success of these rolls lies in using dough scraper and not ripping the dough for anything.
- Cinnamon rolls will stay fresh for 24 hours in an airtight container at room temperature. Don’t place in the fridge.
- Cinnamon rolls freezes well for up to 2 months. To thaw, leave on counter or overnight in the fridge.
- It’s ok to leave the dough for rising at room temperature, however I highly recommend letting it rise in refrigerator overnight, it becomes far easier to work with.
- I love the cinnamony taste of the rolls. You can keep it simple or adapt the recipe with more filling options.
- Measure the ingredients correctly. Use standard cups and spoon measures to measure them.
- All the ingredients must be at room temperature.
- Use best quality ingredients to make this cake.
- After adding the flour, do not overmix the batter.
- This recipe can be halved, doubled, or tripled. Make sure to use the baking pan accordingly. The baking time will also differ.
why do u do this to me? Tempting as always :)
Hahaha. Thanks Ekta, I tempt because that’s what I blog for ;)