Easy Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Alert! This blog will definitely make a lot more sense if you can check out the video on my facebook page! It was too big to add to the blog this week!

I love the smell of any kind of bread baking in the house, but cinnamon rolls have always been a favorite. Through the years, I've had all sorts of rolls, but the simplest are sometimes the best. I will also say that no matter the recipe, these kinds of things take practice! Anything with yeast in the recipe used to just scare me away. I'll be honest, there are some days I go to bake and nothing comes out right! 

These cinnamon rolls start with a dough that is pretty simple to make. It's straight out of the big red cookbook that most people have around their homes. It differs from the white bread that I make in that it has eggs, milk and butter. My bread recipe does not! We used to make cinnamon rolls from the pizza dough in the restaurant growing up and they were certainly good, but adding in the egg adds a richness to the dough and helps with the flakiness. 

Remember to get your milk very warm, but not too warm or too cold. This is usually where I stumble. I like my rolls to get super puffy and if the yeast doesn't activate just right, the rolls are dense. My kids don't seem to mind that though, as long as they're glazed!

Once the dough has risen, I add in the filling. This is not really in the dough recipe and is more like my mom used to do! I use a lot of brown sugar, melted butter and cinnamon and if you like, you could add in pecans or any other nut that you like. I learned how to roll up the dough properly from the cookbook. Rolling it into a big tube and then cutting keeps the filling in much better. We never used to roll up the dough quite like this and it's much easier to get evenly portioned rolls this way!

A second rise is a must for the rolls to fill out. You can watch them during the second rise and pop them in the oven when they start to touch or just rise over the edge of the pan. I bake them at 350 until the tops are golden brown. The recipe calls for 30-35 minutes, but I tend to pull them out a little sooner and underbake them. 

Once out of the oven, let them sit for a couple minutes, then flip them over onto a pan with parchment paper. You can leave them as is, with the filling creating a caramel that drips over the edge, or you can take it next level with the vanilla glaze. I will often transfer the rolls on the parchment paper back into a clean pan that has a lid, then dump the glaze so I can seal it back up. It keeps the rolls fresher longer!

Here are your ingredients:

Dough: 

3.5-4 cups bread flour

1/3 cup sugar (or honey)

1 teaspoon salt

2 packages of quick rise yeast

1 cup very warm milk

1/4 cup butter softened

1 large egg

Filling:

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

2+ tablespoons of cinnamon (to taste)

Glaze:

1/3 cup butter (melted in a saucepan on the stove)

2 cups powdered sugar (stirred and melted into the butter)

1.5 teaspoons of Mexican vanilla

hot water to thin as necessary

*Pour glaze over hot cinnamon rolls that have been turned upside down on the parchment paper! It will harden as it cools! Get in those nooks and crannies!