It never fails.
Every winter I get this overwhelming craving for cinnamon rolls.

It probably stems mostly from my family’s tradition of getting Cinnabon cinnamon rolls every Thanksgiving and Christmas eve. Growing up, fancy store bought cinnamon rolls were a luxury that could only be afforded for super special occasions, and originally, we only had them on Christmas eve. After a while my mom decided that Thanksgiving was a good day for Cinnamon rolls, because we ate “dinner” anywhere between 2pm and 4pm, right in the middle of the day. A nice, big, delicious cinnamon roll could tide us over until our feast was ready to be devoured… even if it did take a few glasses of milk to wash that turkey down.

But as with many things, our family has changed. Theres that whole matter of my cinnamon allergy (which I ignore each and every time I smell fresh cinnamon rolls, by the way. I’d gladly trade a swollen tongue for just one delicious cinnamon roll.) We don’t all live under the same roof, my older sister and I are not the only “kids”. My younger sisters have grown up wholly different than we did, my parents matured and are more secure financially, so there is no need to set aside special days for treats that could not be afforded during the rest of the year, and special treats like Cinnabon cinnamon rolls for Thanksgiving and Christmas seem pointless to them, because they can have them whenever they’d like.

…And they don’t even LIKE cinnamon rolls.
I know. Its sad, isn’t it?

Needless to say, it just doesn’t seem right in my heart (or stomach, for that matter) to eat a Cinnabon cinnamon roll outside of Thanksgiving day or Christmas eve… But there is nothing wrong with making my OWN cinnamon rolls during the rest of the winter.

Just the other morning, early on Saturday, I found myself unable to sleep.

Its been cold and blustery up here lately, Fall seems to be turning to winter a lot faster than I remember in previous years… Or maybe I’m just getting older faster. I decided it was a great morning to wake up and make some tasty little cinnamon rolls for my husband, who was sleeping still.

Perhaps the smell of baking cinnamon and yeast dough would ‘rouse him gently, or perhaps he wouldn’t notice. Either way, I decided to make some cinnamon rolls.

The plan was simple.
Make the dough. Let it rise once, roll it out, section it off, roll those out, fill, roll up, slice, rise and bake. After they were out of the oven, I would glaze them, photograph them, feed them to my husband, and go about my day.

…but it didn’t happen quite like that.

I got through the baking part just fine. Out of the oven came amazingly delicious almond and cinnamon scented puffs of dough, oozing with buttery brown sugar filling. I placed them on a plate and iced them with an almond and vanilla flavoured thin buttery icing.

I couldn’t resist. I ate one.
Then a second one.

I didn’t feel so bad about eating two, because they were really small. I decided to feed a few to my husband while they were still warm… I’d save about half of them and just photograph those ones. It would be ok.

So I woke up my husband, and told him I made cinnamon rolls. At first he didn’t believe me, but then he smelled them. He grabbed a few and with a few “ooh’s” and “aah’s”… oh, who am I kidding.

He wolfed those puppies down.
They were gone in a flash. A few remained, but after I put the plate back in the kitchen I felt a little sleepy, so I laid down for little while and when I returned… they were gone. Only the residue of glaze remained on the plate.

…and there were tongue marks where my husband had apparently decided to try and finish that off, too.

So this morning I went for round two. Instead of almond I went with orange flavouring, but to be honest, I really enjoyed the almond better. My husband on the other hand… He says he likes the orange ones better.

So I guess its up to you which flavour you make them!
Just make them!

Teeny tiny orange (or almond) cinnamon rolls-

1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
1/2 cup lukewarm milk (scalded then cooled)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

Filling-
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon orange extract (or almond extract)

Dissolve yeast in warm water in large bowl. Stir in milk, sugar, butter, salt, egg and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

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Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover; let rise in warm place until double, about 1 1/2 hours. (dough is ready if an indentation remains when touched).

Punch down dough. Separate dough into quarters and roll each section out into flat rectangles about as thick as a flour tortilla.

In a small bowl, mix together the ingredients for the filling. Spread about a quarter of the mixture on the flat sheet of dough and roll the dough up jellyroll style. Slice each finished roll into small sections, each section being a finished miniature cinnamon roll (slices depend on your preference and conditions. You can make larger cinnamon rolls or smaller ones, almost as thin as cookies. Its up to you.) Place each finished cinnamon roll slice on end (one of the cut ends down on the baking sheet) and continue with each of the quarters of dough. Allow rolls to rise for about 35-40 minutes, then bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes (small rolls, like mine) or 20-30 minutes for standard or jumbo sized rolls.

I made tiny cinnamon rolls that were about 1″x 1 1/2″ and ended up with about 30 of them.

For the glaze, mix together a tablespoon of melted butter, a tablespoon of milk or cream, a tablespoon of orange extract (or almond extract) and 2-4 cups powdered sugar, depending on how thick you want your glaze to be. You can also add a drop of food colouring to the mix, like I did for my orange rolls. (You may need to add more or less liquid to thin out your icing, depending on how much powdered sugar you use. Since I only used 2 cups, I only needed three tablespoons of liquid-melted butter, cream and flavouring. If you start out with more powdered sugar, you will surely need more liquid, however you will end up with more icing than is needed for this recipe of cinnamon rolls. Use your own judgement and common sense.)

Glaze the rolls as soon as they’re out of the oven to seal in the softness. Let them cool for a few minutes then devour!

See.. the robot even tried to sneak one!

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:22 am and is filed under November 2007, The Adventures of Rodney Robot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.