But this month I’m staring down my fears by going toe-to-toe with the Last Call recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. I’m posting my experience making this recipe so that:
1) fellow non-bakers might decide to jump in, give it a try, and let us know how it turned out
2) great bakers will offer advice and provide suggestions for the rest of us!
Cinnamon Rolls
1 package active dry yeast¼ c. warm water
½ cup milk
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup shortening –I substituted butter…was this my first mistake?
1 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 egg
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/3 cup copped nuts, optional (my kids would move out if I used nuts)
½ cup sugar
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
Soften yeast in water. In a large mixing bowl, add sugar, shortening, and salt. Scald ½ cup milk (heat just until boiling) and pour over the sugar, shortening, and salt. These ingredients didn’t melt when I added the hot milk, hmmm….Stir to combine and cool until lukewarm. Add 1 cup of the flour and mix well. Stir in yeast and egg; beat well. Stir in remaining 2 cups flour, forming a soft dough. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
On lightly floured surface, knead dough until it’s satiny – about 8 minutes. Set your timer because 8 minutes is a long dang time! Without the timer I would have stopped at 5 mins., that's when I'd had enough. Place in a lightly greased (sprayed) bowl, turning once to grease the surface. Cover and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 1 ½ hours.
My house is 68 degrees and an optimal temperature for dough to rise is 80 – 85. So I turned my oven on its lowest setting, warmed it to the lowest temp. then turned it off. When the temperature dropped I set the bowl in there and let it sit for about 2 hours while I went to a meeting.
On a lightly floured surface, form dough into a ball, cover, and let rest again for 10 minutes. Roll out into a 20 x 10-inch rectangle - I ended up with sort of an oval, which ended up being a problem that I’ll explain later. Brush with 2 Tbsp. melted butter. Combine sugar, cinnamon and nuts and sprinkle over the buttered dough. Roll up starting on the long side. Keep the roll relatively tight and even –the ends didn’t roll up evenly because the dough was oval-shaped so I ended up with these weird minimally-rolled ends. (I cut them off, turned them into cinnamon twists, and cooked them separately). Using a serrated knife cut this log of rolled dough into 1-inch thick slices. Place 8-9 rolls into each buttered 8-inch pie pan. If you don’t have weird little end-rolls you should have 20 cinnamon rolls so you may need a 3rd pan. Cover and let them rise again until almost double in size (about 25 minutes). Mine never doubled in size. Maybe because I didn’t put them into a warm oven?
Bake at 375°F for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Next time I’ll line the pans with parchment. Even though I buttered them well, the cooked sugar still caked them to the pan. Took some prying to get them off.
Take a good look at the finished cinnamon rolls. Aren't they lovely? They stayed rolled up, the cinnamon sugar oozed a bit, the color is nice. . .
But if I was a better photographer you’d notice they’re maybe 1-inch thick. These suckers are dense - certainly not the light rolls I was hoping to get. They also taste really good . . I don't think the problem here is with the recipe.
If you know what went wrong, please share your helpful advice!
Happy Baking!
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