I was feeling under the weather last week, and thus cancelled any fun activities I had otherwise planned to do. However, this did not keep me away from the kitchen. I cracked open my Marjorie Johnson Blue Ribbon Baking cookbook and decided on cinnamon rolls, a comfort food that conjures up many childhood memories.
Marjorie’s recipe produces 24 rolls, but in an attempt to not get fat, I halved the following recipe:
Cinnamon Roll Dough
1 cup water 105-115 �F
2 packages active dry yeast plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup dry milk
1 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
4 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
After proofing the yeast for 5 minutes with a teaspoon of sugar, I added dry milk, butter, honey, sugar, salt, eggs, and half of the flour. I let my mixer run with all of that and adequately blend it for about three minutes, before adding the rest of the flour. At this point I switched from using the paddle attachment to using the hook, so that it would exercise and knead the dough. After that workout, I lovingly placed this ball of soft, sweet dough in a greased (olive oil) bowl, covered it with a towel and put it in a warm place (on top of my oven, over the pilot light).
When it had nearly doubled in size (that’s what dough does after all), I rolled it out into a rectangle (Marjorie says 9X12 and 1/4 inch thick), and slathered room temperature butter on only half of the dough before sprinkling that half with the cinnamon-sugar mixture I created while my sweet dough was doubling in size.
Because I floured the counter top (duh), It was easy to roll the dough up. Easy, yet ugly looking as my rolls had more of an old, rotting, melting flesh look to it.
But once I cut the rolls, and placed them face side up in a 9 inch round pan, they were still ugly, but more convincing as cinnamon rolls. I again let them rest from all of that sugar sprinkling and rolling, placed a towel over them, sang a sweet lullaby and cooed to them while they rose and expanded a little more on top of the oven.
When I lifted the towel and noted how much the rolls rose, I knew it was time for them to play in the oven. Mere minutes later (12-15) they were a golden brown on top, and sweet and savory inside. They went from completely ugly and grotesque to fantastically awesome and comforting.
