I actually had two days off in a row and after being particularly lazy the first day, I decided I wanted cinnamon rolls. I misread a recipe (or two or three) and so I had a choice of winging it or starting over. Being lazy, I decided to try to make this work and somehow, I managed to do it.

Cinnamon rolls are a particular favorite of mine. They remind me of childhood and cinnamon sugar toast. It turns out, that while cinnamon rolls are time consuming, they are not really that hard to make. I also managed to get Arthas for his morning walk while the yeast was working, and finished some school work while the dough rose. I’ll consider that multi-tasking.

*Recipe:

• Dough
  • 1 stick of butter
  • 3/4 cup of milk, plus 1/2 cup
  • 2 tsp. yeast
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 tsp. sugar
  • 3-3 1/2 cup flour
• Filling
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

In a small sauce pan, heat butter and 3/4 cup milk until butter is almost totally melted. Remove from heat and pour into a large mixing bowl. Add 1/2 cup cold milk to cool mixture to about 110 – 115 degrees F. (It may take a minute or two of mixing, but adding the cold milk in speeds this up quite a bit.) Add the yeast and sugar and mix. Let sit for at least ten minutes for the yeast to activate. (This is where I took Arthas for a walk, so it was closer to twenty five minutes before I went back to the mixture and it was perfectly fine.)

Stir mixture then begin adding in flour, about 1 cup at a time. Stir in salt after first four addition. Stop adding flour when you have a soft dough, but one that you can knead. Knead for about two minutes on a lightly floured surface. Return dough to bowl, cover, and place in draft free place to rise. It should double in size and take about 45 minutes to an hour.

Butter a baking dish (I used 8×11) then roll dough out to a large rectangle. Dough should be thin, but not translucent. Mix remaining sugar and cinnamon. Melt butter and brush butter onto surface of dough. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over dough. Starting from one side (long side) roll dough tightly to form long tube. Cut into apx. 12 pieces of even size. Place pieces in baking dish and brush any leftover melted butter on top. Set aside to rise for about ten minutes.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F

Bake rolls for 25-30 minutes.

• Glaze:
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • juice of 1./2 orange, plus zest

Mix sugar and juice together until it forms a pourable glaze. Mix in zest for more flavor.

*Adapted from Minimalist Baker’s vegan cinnamon roll recipe. No, I didn’t even try to make them vegan, although I did use soy milk since that is what we have on hand.