Cinnamon Rolls

For breakfast on Mother's day, I tried my hand at homemade cinnamon rolls.  I prepared them the night before, so I could just pop them in the oven on Sunday morning.  This ended up working out well.  However, when I was about to put them in the oven on Sunday I got a little worried because they looked severely lopped-sided and were starting to resemble something similar to "the blob" rather than cinnamon rolls.  Luckily when they came out of the oven they were not harmed!

Slightly obsessed with icing, I know.

Ingredients for Dough
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Ingredients for filling
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (plus a little extra)
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted


Ingredients for icing
4 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons buttermilk
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 425 (unless you are waiting until the morning to bake them).  Place the oven rack in the middle.  Grease a 9" round pan.  To make the dough, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.  Whisk the buttermilk and 2 tablespoons of melted butter in a separate small bowl.  Stir buttermilk mixture into flour with a wooden spoon for about 30 seconds.  Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough until smooth.  If the dough becomes sticky add more flour.  Roll the dough into a 9x12 rectangle on the surface.  Brush with melted butter (see picture).

For the filling, mix brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, salt and 1 tablespoon melted butter into a small bowl.  Stir until the mixture looks like wet sand. (add more butter if needed)  Sprinkle it over the dough (see below).

Tightly roll the dough into a log.  After I rolled mine, I had to cut off some dough on both ends because the cinnamon did not get distributed to those areas.  Cut the log into 8 or 9 pieces and place them in the 9" round pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Meanwhile, make the icing.  In a bowl combine the buttermilk and cream cheese.  Whisk until smooth - the mixture may look like cottage cheese at the beginning, but keeping whisking.  Slowly add the powdered sugar while whisking.

Please excuse my frumpy-looking cinnamon rolls. 

 

Place a piece of foil in a cookie sheet and spray it with cooking spray.  Place a cooling rack on top of that (see below). Carefully place each cinnamon roll on the cooling rack.

Spoon icing over the cinnamon rolls.

I love this icing recipe because it has just a hint of cream cheese AND because you can make as much of it as you want, unlike certain store bought cinnamon rolls that only give you the tiniest bit of icing!

This recipe is adapted from here.