The Legendary Cinnamon Rolls

Since I need to make a baked item for a fundraiser, today's kitchen fiasco is cinnabons.  I'm using a recipe I found online, pretty much following it word for word.  I cited it below where I give you the actual recipe.  No pictures still, because my camera card won't get here until Monday, but that's why I'm saving the Polish sweet bread for another day.

But anyway.  Cinnamon rolls.  They're pretty easy.  I'll give you the recipe below, but here's what you do.  Set a pan on the stove and start to melt 2/3 cup butter.  I cut off two sticks at the 1/3 cup mark because I'll use the remainders throughout the recipe, so it won't go to waste.  So you're melting the butter, on low by the way, and then you dump in the milk, because you want to heat all of that to where it's warm to the touch, but you CAN still touch it, or around 100 degrees.

While that's doing its thing, measure a teaspoon of sugar and the two packets of yeast into a small bowl.  Heat your water to 110 or so.  I heat mine in the microwave, and thus I always overheat.  Not to worry!  Add more water and stir with the thermometer, to bring the temp back down to 110, then use a ladle or something to scoop out extra water until you're back to one cup.  Wo.  Now add it to the yeast bowl.  Use the thermometer to stir the mix, and set it aside.

In a large bowl (such as your mixer bowl), crack two eggs and beat them somewhat.  Mixer attachment won't reach?  No worries, grab a fork and reach right in there to do it by hand.  Now dump in the sugar, salt, and... um.  Oh yeah, the milk and butter mixture.  Kind of mix that together, then slop in the water/yeast/sugar bowl.  Use a spatula to scrape that bowl if you need to, lest you accidentally leave half your yeast clumped up in the small bowl.

Great, now kind of stir again if you want... I do but I don't guess it matters much.  Dump in roughly half the flour, around 3-4 cups, and mix until fully blended, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.  Continue adding flour until the dough makes into a ball around the dough hook of your mixer, but it's still fairly sticky.  Now the trick is getting it OUT of the bowl.  Good luck with that.  Let me know if you figure out how to do it.

No, not really.  Flour a work surface real quick, with maybe 1/2 cup of flour.  Half-crazy cat lady covers her work surface with wax paper first, because there is no removing half a dozen cats' worth of fur from this kitchen, but if you're pet-free, you can probably just wash a countertop and have at it.  Now stick your hands into it, because you want them to be floured.  Using floured fingers as a scraper, scrape the dough off the mixer blade and bowl.  Now you can turn it out of the bowl onto your floured surface to knead.  You're going to add flour as you knead, but it's still going to be sticky kind of like biscuit dough, so don't try to make it not-sticky.  The recipe says to knead 5-10 minutes; I just knead until my wrist dislocates.  Then I holler some unladylike terms while swearing never to make this recipe again.  Don't worry; that feeling will pass.Once it's kneaded sufficiently, set it aside, and use one of those 2tbsp ends of butter (from cutting off 1/3 cup and melting back in the dough-making steps) to butter a plastic or glass bowl.  I don't know why it matters, but the recipe is specific.  I usually use a plastic storage container that used to have 15lb of popping corn in it.  It's sort of bowl-like, I figure.  Reach on into the bowl with clean hands and smear that butter around.  Then grab the dough ball off your counter and smear the butter around it, too.  The recipe doesn't tell you that part, but trust me, it's much better this way.

Drop the dough ball into the buttered bowl with a satisfying thump, and set it aside to rise.  Now, if you ever spent much time with anybody's grandma, you know to put a couple of dish towels over the bowl to help keep the dough warm.  Yeast likes warmth.  It's not a fan of cold winter days.  Half-crazy cat lady's dish towels are more fur than towel no matter what we do to clean them, so I lay a layer of wax paper over the top of my bowl first.  You could also use plastic wrap or foil, I'm sure, but I have wax paper.  And to add to the warmth, I also put the incandescent light on over the stove, heat my oven to 170, and put a pot of hot water next to my rising bowl.  It's something of a production, even in the desert southwest, to keep yeast growing in a 65-degree house in the dead of winter.

But, once you've got your bowl covered and happy, then comes the easy part.  Go play Farmville for an hour or two.

No, seriously.

But don't send me your Farmville junk.  I'm strictly a Frontierville kind of girl.

When the dough's risen enough, reach in there and punch it down.  Now remember that you buttered it thoroughly, shake your hand, say ew, and go wash the butter off.  While the dough sits and rests, toss a couple sticks of butter in a pan on low, to melt, and prepare your rolling area.  The recipe says to roll out 15x20" rectangle.  I'm here to tell you, don't.  For the love of all that is holy, don't do it.

You actually want your rectangle to be about 12" wide by however long it happens to come out.  The longer it is, the more cinnamon rolls you'll get out of the batch.  This way they come out somewhere between a full-size and the mini size.  Your waistline will thank you.  It'll thank you grudgingly, because you still ate one at all, but it will.  Mine usually roll out to about 12" by maybe 4 feet.

Now is when you can mix up your filling if you haven't already.  Again, the recipe says to use about a cup and a half of sugar... it lies.  You'll use about three cups.  But don't spaz out -- we're making more rolls, and smaller rolls, than the recipe calls for.  Also, don't listen to the cinnamon measure, either.  Three tablespoons, hah!  I add upwards of a half-cup.  And when you stir to combine the sugar and cinnamon, put on a dust mask, or a bandana, or at least pull your shirt up over your nose and mouth.  Only one of us needs to learn that one the hard way, after all.

So now we're ready, yeah?  Grab the pot of melted butter and pour half (eyeball it) around onto your dough.  Use more if you need... you can always throw another stick into the pot and melt it, too, and we use it two or three more times in the process so it won't go to waste.  Now pour the sugar mix onto the melted butter.

Here's where, if you have latex gloves, you should put them on.  I favor Microflex's Evolution One, as seen on Castle and NCIS, because they're totally awesome, but you can use whatever works for you.  Why gloves, you ask?  Because you're about to push the sugar mixture around with your bare hands.  You will never be un-cinnamoned again, if you do it bare.  But if you must, you must... it'll be worth the sacrifice.  Smear that now-moist sugary, cinnamony, buttery goodness around your dough.  You can kind of leave a margin on one side for rolling, but it won't stay that way anyhow.

Once that's done, wash hands and pause to rub melted butter around your pans.  I use two 9x13 and one 8x8 when I roll them out by my directions.  I also cut them into about 1" thickness, maybe a little more, so I get a lot of shorter buns out of the recipe than I think the original creator had in mind.  I also don't measure the sugar that I sprinkle into the pans.  Whatever falls out of the spoon is what goes into the pan.  Okay, roll that puppy up and start slicing with a good sharp bread knife.  I like serrated, but use whatever works for you, to slice fresh bread.  Feel free to grab the sugar that falls out of the buns, and put it on top of the cut edges after you slap them into the pans.  You won't regret that, either.

And now the easy part, again!  Cover them up, set a timer for 45 minutes, maybe an hour if it's a chilly day, and go put your feet up.  Or hop on your treadmill in preparation, whatever suits.  When the timer goes off, fire up the oven.  While that's heating, grab a pastry brush and smear yet more melted butter over the tops of your now-risen cinnamon buns.  Now open the oven and realize you forgot to adjust the shelves.  No worries, a couple oven mitts, some more unladylike words, and you'll be good to go.  Been there, done that.

And now the best part.  Bask in the scent of baking cinnamon buns, and prepare yourself for the onslaught of amazement from people who think homemade yeast bread is tantamount to magic.

Or, slave away over your mixer making the frosting.  Either way.

Oh that's the other thing.  The glaze they tell you to add at the end?  Ehh... it's kind of better if you just douse the buns in butter (the moisture does help, but the sugar isn't really needed).  And then make yourself some cream cheese frosting.  I've tossed my own recipe onto this post, too.  Adjust it to suit your liking... some people like more or less cream cheese than others.  And that's really quite all there is to it.

Cinnamon Roll Recipe
original recipe at http://www.copykat.com/2009/02/06/cinnabons-buns-from-heaven/

Dough:
2 pkg. active dry yeast
1 C. warm water (105-115 degree)
2/3 C. plus 1 tsp. granulated sugar, divided
1 C. warmed milk
2/3 C. butter, melted
2 tsp salt
2 eggs, slightly beaten
7-8 C. all-purpose flour, or more if needed

Filling:
1 C. melted butter, divided (2 sticks)
1 3/4 C. granulated sugar, divided
3 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 C. chopped walnuts, optional
1 1/2 C. raisins, optional

Creamy glaze:
2/3 C. melted butter (1 stick plus 2 Tbsp.)
4 C. powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4-8 Tbsp. hot water

 In a small bowl mix together warm water, yeast and sugar and set aside. In a large bowl, mix milk, remaining 2/3 cup sugar, melted butter, salt and eggs; stir well and add yeast mixture. Add half the flour and beat until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour until dough is slightly stiff (dough will be sticky).

Turn out onto a well-floured board; knead 5 -10 minutes. Place in well-buttered glass or plastic bowl, cover and let rise in warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

When doubled, punch down dough and let rest 5 minutes. Roll out on floured surface into a 15 x 20 inch rectangle.

To prepare filling: Spread dough with 1/2 cup melted butter. Mix together 1 1/2 cups sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over buttered dough. Sprinkle with walnuts and raisins, if desired.

Roll up jellyroll-fashion and pinch edge together to seal. Cut into 12 to 15 slices. Coat bottom of a 13-by-9-inch baking pan and a 8-inch square pan with remaining 1/2 cup melted butter, then sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Place cinnamon roll slices close together in pans. Let rise in warm place until dough is doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until rolls are nicely browned. Cool rolls slightly.

To prepare glaze: Meanwhile, in medium bowl, mix melted butter, powdered sugar and vanilla; add hot water 1 Tbsp. at a time until glaze reaches desired spreading consistency. Spread over slightly cooled rolls.

This recipe was adapted by using a recipe that was originally published in the Portland newspaper as their best shot at Cinnabons, I think you will find this pretty darn close. Thanks to Judy Hilman, pointed us in the right direction for this recipe.

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Frosting

4-8oz cream cheese
2lb. powdered sugar
up to half a cup of milk
1 capful or so of vanilla
a splash of amaretto, if you fancy that
1/2 to 1 cup shortening

Mama's recipe uses a whole cup of shortening, but I like to add it in sections, because sometimes it just doesn't need that much.

Put the sugar in the mixing bowl, and add the shortening and cream cheese, and flavorings.  Mix it together, slowly at first, and with your hands available to block any clouds of sugar that shoot out of the mixer.  Add the milk about an ounce at a time as you mix, until the frosting is thick enough so that when you pull the mixer blade out, it stands up into a little peak like a Hershey's kiss, but starts to sag slowly downward right away.  It shouldn't be so thin that the peak falls and is reabsorbed into a pool, nor so thick that you have to look closely to see if it's sagging.  It should be easy to spread over the buns at this consistency.

Attack of the Killer Christmas Sewing Pile

Hi, I'm the Crazy Cat Lady.  I'm married to Geek Man.  We have six cats, two herding dogs, an autistic teen, my teenage brother, and absolutely no sanity.  Though to be fair, not all the cats are ours; there are some fosters in the mix.  Someday they might find homes, but that's slow going in a bad economy such as we have here in the southwestern United States right now.  I'm a frustrated country girl trapped in suburbia, and my kitchen is my castle.  I cook, sew, can, dehydrate, and otherwise make a huge mess in there, all day every day.  Even though I'm always doing something, I'm also always thinking.  In between all the cooking and sewing, I write stories, I watch garbage on Netflix, and of course I trade sarcastic, snarky barbs with my dear friend who lives way, way too far away.  And now I can trade them with the whole rest of the internet, too!  Insert evil laugh here.  Anyway, I feel properly-introduced now, so let's get on with it, shall we?

You know you bake good stuff when you do the weekly grocery shopping, including restocking on a few pantry staples, and your parents come running to find out what's cooking.

I was low on supplies, so last night, I bought a 5lb sack of baking powder, a pound or three of cornstarch, a bucket of shortening, a bucket of lard, and a few pounds of butter.  By this time next week, those supplies, along with some stuff I already have, will become three dozen monster cinnamon rolls, four loaves of Polish sweet bread, a dirty soup pot (because matzo ball soup won't last long in this house), upwards of five dozen biscuits, and I don't even know how many brandy snaps, but they're almost nothing but sugar and brandy and they're going to be amazing.  The brandy snaps recipe can be had at The Pioneer Woman, and even though I've not tried them yet, I can personally vouch for the flat-out amazingness of all of her recipes that I have tried.  Go ahead, take a peek.  I'll wait here.  Trust me, you'll be glad you clicked.

All right.  So lots of cooking in the near future.  But for now, I'm setting that aside because I've mislaid my good tartan skirt, and I've got to go downtown for the Christmas spectacular Friday night.  And it's gonna be COLD this Friday night!  We're expecting a low around 36 that night, and even though the event will be over by nine o'clock, it's still going to dip pretty low by then.  I have no pattern for the skirt... well, actually I do, somewhere.  It's Simplicity 3263.

What I don't have is the desire to search my embarassingly large pattern stash to find it, so I'm shooting in the dark instead.  It's sewing.  Can't be that hard.  I already know from my Civil War measurements that my waist-to-floor is around 39", so I can estimate skirt length from there.  Standing, it'd be around 34", but I'll be taking my electric wheelchair, so I can fudge it a little, to 30", save a buck or so on fabric, and still get the ankle-length look.  And if I ever decide I want to wear it standing, we'll just tack some wide lace under there.

Of course, my waist isn't the same height all around, so I either need to use 1860s-style sewing tactics to make sure the plaid is nice and even at the hem, or I need to decide I don't care that much.  Guess which I'm going to go with.  Yep.  It'll be a straight hem, that won't quite hang evenly on my person, and unless I put a hoop skirt with it, nobody will notice the wandering skirt length.  So I know how to measure and cut a couple skirt panels.  Plaid makes it even easier -- just pick a line and follow it.  And I know a waistband consists of a 5" width of fabric, with some interfacing ironed in, folded over like bias tape and sewn to the skirt.  Technically the pattern calls for the skirt to be gathered to he waistband, and open with a hook/eye and zipper, but I haven't got one on me, so we'll be making this waistband about 2" bigger than my hips, gather to that, and then I'll shove some elastic in to compensate for the lack of proper closure.  It'll be just freaking fine.

Then after that's done, we make the shawl.  Which is a fancy word for "hem up the remainder of fabric after hacking off two 31" panels and a 5" waistband, and fray up the edges to make it look good".  That pattern actually comes with a pattern piece to make the shawl.  Why, I have no idea.  I wish I could have sprung for a full two yards for the wrap, to make a good width that would double as a sort of cloak depending on how you wrap it, but I own a decent coat, and something about food and electricity seemed more important.  Next plaid flannel skirt, I'll budget for a nice-sized wrap.  Because, you know, a girl living in the southwestern U.S. has so many occasions to wear an ankle-length warm skirt, you know.

Oh and let's not forget the freakishly huge pile of Christmas gifts that still need to be sewn.  Seriously, the pile is huge.  I'd take a photo, but I'm waiting for Amazon to send me a new camera card to replace the one that finally broke, so pictures have to wait a few more days.  But the sewing pile, it towers about three feet on top of the table, and that's only about half of the fabric I'll be using, and it's not even gifts for everybody I have to give gifts to.  I don't even have ideas yet for half the family.  And I haven't even started my own Christmas dress.  Because Christmas is still six months away, you know.  That whole "December" thing on the calendar?  It lies.  That or my procrastination skills are just that awesome... I could go either way on that.  Any way you look at it, though, I have Christmas gifts to sew for six people.  They take about four hours each... one of them is going to take longer because it's based on a pattern I've never even drafted before, let alone used.  And cutting things out is always a challenge, since we have a half-dozen cats, so as soon as you push one off of your fabric, two more pop up on the other side.  It's like some demented whack-a-mole game.  I'm pretty sure I spend more time brushing cats and fur off the fabric, than I do cutting and sewing it.

I don't even want to think about it all.

Alas, Christmas refuses to wait for me, so tomorrow's to-do list is to cut out the fabric for all those gifts.  And maybe even think of gifts for the other billion people on my list.  I should really make those brandy snaps first, though... I'm sure I'll feel better about the cutting and sewing once they're made.  And eaten.

Especially since I just realized I sewed up the sides of my skirt and forgot to cut out and add pockets.  I require pockets in my clothes.  Even my ballgowns have pockets.  So I'll be ripping out about 8" of seam on either side, to add my favourite pocket pattern that I drafted off a random pajama pattern, and then fixed to within an inch of its life, so that it actually fits my hand.  But that can wait for morning, because right now it's time to sit down and pet a cat, or two... or six.