Cinnamon Rolls

Normally when I try out a recipe, I get all sorts of inventive and end up not knowing measurements of what all I put into the ingredients, which severely limits my ability to "share" recipes. All I know is that it looks right so I know I'm doing it right. This time, I decided to try a new cinnamon roll recipe. I made it exactly as the recipe called. They were okay but nothing special. In fact, I found them dry and overdone. As we finished eating them, I wrote down exactly what I thought needed changed. This morning I decided to give them another try. 4 hours later, I discovered they were sheer perfection. Cory said they were "Awesomesauce". Now, typically when I have an awesomesauce recipe, I hoard the secret and never share... but since it wasn't really mine to begin with, I reluctantly decided to share with those who care to actually check out my blog. See, Incentive to come back to visit ;) So, keep in min even with these measurements, I still did a few things different that were just too hard to keep track of (like the cinnamon in the filling I actually did just under 2 tbl, and I may have used a touch more butter when I spread it onto the rolled out dough, and whenever I add vanilla to a recipe, I measure out what it calls for and then add an "oops" amount in addition, and for the icing, I actually make 1.5 times the amount because as is it gets spread pretty thin and doubled is just too much) So now you know some more of my tricks). Next time I'll have to actually take a picture as well before the whole pan gets gobbled up! Enjoy :)

CLONE OF A CINNABON

Ingredients:

2 ½ tsp dry active yeast + ¼ tsp dry active yeast

1 cup warm milk

½ cup white sugar (a hair above the ½ cup mark)

1/3 cup margarine, melted

1 tsp salt

2 eggs, room temperature

4 ½ cup flour

½ tsp cinnamon

1 ¼ cup brown sugar, packed

2 tbl ground cinnamon

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg

6 tbl butter, softened

4oz Neufchatel or cream cheese

¼ cup butter, softened

1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in warm milk and let sit till just starting to bubble (appx 5-10 minutes). Mix in sugar, margarine, salt and eggs. Add flour and mix well till dough starts to pull away from mixing bowl (dough should still be fairly moist). Let rise in covered bowl till doubled in size (60-90 minutes but if it's being stubborn, give it some extra time. Trust me, it's worth it to have the nice fluffy dough!).

After dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a slightly floured surface, cover, and let rest for 10-15 minutes. While dough is resting, in a small bowl combine brown sugar and cinnamon.

Roll dough into a rectangle, roughly 16x21 inches. Spread dough with 6 tbl softened butter and sprinkle evenly with cinnamon/sugar mixture. Roll up dough tightly and cut into 12 rolls (appx 3 inches in length). Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 45-60 minutes (again, make sure you let them double. if they're having trouble try placing them in a warm spot (but not under direct heat or both your cover/plastic wrap as well as the rolls will start baking)). Meanwhile preheat oven to 400 degrees F. When finished, remove from oven and flip the pan over so butter can redistribute into rolls.

Bake Rolls in preheated oven until they just begin to turn lightly golden, appx 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together room temp. cream cheese, ¼ cup butter, confectioner’s sugar, vanilla, and salt. Spread frosting onto warm rolls before serving.