DIY: Cinnamon Rolls

Hello everyone!

This weekend I tried my best to make-up for my last baking mishap and Pinterest fail by making some homemade cinnamon rolls for the first time! I spent a good majority of Sunday afternoon two weeks ago making what was supposed to be a delicious crumble cake and instead was a disgusting burnt piece of floury dough. This week I spent my time making cinnamon rolls and they came out delicious! I have never made anything homemade with yeast until today, so I was happy that they actually turned out! They were a lot of work due to the yeast and waiting for dough to rise, etc. But they were well worth it! My recipe makes about eighteen big cinnamon rolls or thirty six miniature rolls.
Here's what you need:

Randoms:
- 9x13" pan and 8x8" pan
- cooking spray or butter
- olive oil
- measuring cups
- knife
- two big bowls
- dough hook

Roll recipe:
- 4 1/4 cups of flour (and 1/2 cup on standby)
- 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 tsp of salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 packet of dry active yeast
- 1 cup of warm milk
- 1/3 cup of softened unsalted butter

Cinnamon Middle recipe:
- 1/2 cup of softened unsalted butter
- 5 Tbsp of cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups of packed brown sugar

Cream Cheese Frosting recipe:
6 Tbsp of softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup of cream cheese
1 1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp of vanilla
1/8 tsp of salt
2 Tbsp of milk

How to make it:
Step One: Mix warm milk and packet of active yeast together in a bowl until it dissolves

Step Two: Mix all the other ingredients for the rolls together in a mixing bowl and mix on medium speed. Slowly add in the warm milk and yeast combination. Mix until thoroughly blended.

Step Three: Use olive oil to grease one of the big mixing bowls. Place tin foil over the mixing bowl. Place in oven and place on 170 degrees. Once it heats up, turn the oven off. This will help your dough rise in a warm environment. It should almost double in size. This takes about an hour, maybe 45 mins. While this is happening, you can clean up your bowls to re-use and make the cinnamon middle.

Step Four: Lightly place flour on a large surface that you will use to roll out your dough. Roll dough onto the surface. It should be about 16 by 12" and about 1/4" thick
TIP: If your dough is sticky, add the extra 1/4 cup of flour at a time as needed to it to make it less sticky, up to 1/2 a cup

Step Five: Place the cinnamon middle on top of your dough, spreading it out evenly. Cut away any edges of the dough that aren't even. You can use these later to make some extra rolls if you want.

Step Six: Place in oven to rise again, preheating the oven to 170 and turning it off once it heats up. Let them sit with a damp hand towel over the top of them in the oven for 20 minutes.

Step Seven: Take rolls out of the oven, they should have grown noticeably. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake rolls for 18-20 minutes. *This may take longer depending on your oven

Step Eight: Make the frosting by adding all the ingredients together and using a beater to mix. It should have the consistency of canned frosting, it's not a glaze!

Step Nine: Let them cool for 5-10 minutes then lather the frosting on top of the rolls generously.

Step Ten: Enjoy! They're delicious!

I was superrrrr happy with how these turned out considering last time I wasted so much energy, time, and resources on a crappy Pinterest recipe and nothing worked out. I couldn't even save it sadly. Lesson learned, read the comments on people's baking posts! Let me know if you try them out, I'd love to hear your feedback :)

Until the next delicious recipe,
- Olivia :)