Mothers Day Breakfast

Mothers day doesn't mean a day off from kitchen duties in my house. I'm not complaining because I actually enjoy being in the kitchen. I just don't like all the dirty dishes that follow. With that said, I wanted at least a little relaxation this mothers day morning so I did most of the work the night before.

I have been wanting to try these cinnamon rolls ever since I found them on Orangette's blog. I followed the recipe as close as I could...my only change was replacing the rapid rise yeast with a tad bit more of dry active yeast. Here's the recipe as I used it, with slight changes to the dough preparation due to the different type of yeast.

Cinnamon Rolls
(adapted from Orangette's Bon Appetit column)

Dough:
1 C whole milk, warmed
3 Tbs butter, melted
1/2 C sugar, divided
2 1/2 tsp dry active yeast
1 egg, slightly beaten
3 1/2 C all purpose flour (I ended up using an extra 1/4 C)
1 tsp table salt

Filling:
3/4 C light brown sugar
2 Tbs ground cinnamon
1/2 C butter, softened to room temperature)

Icing:
1/4 C of butter (1/2 stick)
4 oz of cream cheese (1/2 package)
1 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract


Directions:
Mix warm milk with yeast and 1 tsp sugar and let sit for about 10 minutes while you measure the other ingredients. Then stir in melted butter, eggs, and sugar. On low speed, gradually mix in the flour. Start with 3 1/2 C and add additional flour one tablespoon at a time if the dough is too sticky. Last, add salt and then knead for about 8 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic and it starts to pull away from the bowl.

Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size. Punch down and then let rise again, about 20 minutes. Roll dough onto floured surface into a rectangle about 15" by 11". Spread butter and then sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mixture, leaving a border of about 1/2". Tightly roll and then slice into 18 even sized pieces. Note: I ended up with 16 rolls. Place onto two greased (glass) pans and let them rise for another 45+ minutes. In my case, I let it rise overnight in the refrigerator, covered, and then took it out in the morning to finish rising.

Bake at 375 deg for about 20 minutes until the tops brown. Remove from the baking dishes and let cool upside down on baking racks for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, make icing by creaming the butter and then adding the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla in that order. Turn rolls back over and spread icing on top while they are still warm.

Update: these freeze great! Just pop one into the microwave for about 45 seconds and it's just as soft as when it came out of the oven.

Update (5/17): just tried making a chocolate version by replacing ground cinnamon with unsweetened cocoa powder. For once I didn't prefer the chocolate option but it's wasn't bad...it just didn't have the punch of flavor that the cinnamon did.