Here goes the way I'm making cinnamon rolls, from now, 'til time immemorial. The ingredients are heavily borrowed from this wildly good recipe that lots of you linked me to, but the method is much more slap-it-all-together.
- First off, set a stick of butter out on the counter to soften...hopefully a few hours ahead of time. (This is the part I forget)
- Then, gather your ingredients:
(for the dough)
1/2 C warmed milk (sorry, I forgot this on the first posting)
1 egg
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 1/4 c flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 c white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast
(for slathering on the dough)
1/4 c brown sugar
2 tablespoons soft butter
hearty amounts of cinnamon (adjust to your tastes)
(for the icing)
2 tablespoons soft butter
3-4 tablespoons cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
1/2 c confectioner's sugar
(before + after frosting)
Now, you just fling all of your dough ingredients into a bowl, mixing thoroughly. Pretty quickly, it should become smooth enough to knead with floured hands. This dough is so smooth...it's just beautiful to work with. When you can pat it into a ball, put it back into the floured mixing bowl and let it rest for a little while (maybe 15 minutes). If you're going to bake them immediately, pre-heat the oven to 400.
After it has rested, come back to your dough and roll it out into a rectangle on a floured surface. Take your allotted softened butter, and spread it across the surface with a spoon or spatula. Then sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and brown sugar. Roll up into a roll, and then slice. This is where you must decide whether or not to be insane. You can form this batch into two enormous rolls, or 4 smaller, more sane ones. I recommend the sane route. The huge ones are lovely and impressive to look at, but they have trouble cooking to the center thoroughly, and quite frankly, might send you into a coma.
Now, when you have your buns, you can either pop them into your preheated oven (using a greased pan) or, and this achieves slightly better results, put them in the refrigerator overnight and bake them the next morning. Either way, you want to bake them for around 15 minutes (or slightly more if you made the huge ones).
Then, whip together the few frosting ingredients, and spread over the warm rolls when they emerge from the oven.
Now you have cinnamon rolls to enjoy...and if you're only two people like we are, you will have some to enjoy tomorrow morning, too!
