Cinnamon Roll Insanity!

Well I did it. I made cinnamon rolls from scratch. They were intended to be cupcakes, but came out more like cinnamon rolls, but who can complain about that? I took parts of other recipes and kind of made some stuff up along the way as well and came up with this amazing late night/early morning baking adventure!

Here's the ingredients.

Dough
2 cups 2% milk
1 tablespoon (.5 oz) active dry yeast
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
6 ½ cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 eggs
¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

Filler
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 ½ cups finely chopped pecans

Glaze
½ cup butter
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons room temperature milk
3 cups powdered sugar

And here's the recipe, modified from this one.

Heat the milk in a microwave safe bowl in the microwave for about one minute.

Add the yeast followed by the sugar, and stir to dissolve.

Now add two cups of flour and the salt and beat for a full two minutes.

Add the softened butter and eggs and beat until the mixture is well combined.

Add the rest of the flour, half a cup at a time, and beat thoroughly after each addition.

Remove the dough from the bowl and place it on a floured surface. Knead the dough for five minutes, until it has become soft and elastic.

Put the dough in a large bowl, cover it with a kitchen towel, and let it rise in a warm area for 40 minutes. It will double in size. Now as I don't have a bread machine, what I did that worked really well was boil a large pot of water and put it in the oven beneath the dough that needs to rise. This kept it at a perfect temperature and was super easy!

Now turn the dough onto the counter and roll it out 1/4” thick into a rectangular shape. Use a pastry brush to spread half of the butter over the surface.

Now make the filling: Combine the sugars, cinnamon, pecans, and syrup in a large bowl.

Spread this mixture over the dough, leaving a 1” border all around.

Carefully tuck the dough over the filling and roll into a long log, starting on one of the long ends.

Cut the log into 24 pieces and place each inside one of the cups of a muffin tin lined with paper liners. I just sprayed the muffin pan with baking spray because I didn't have muffin papers.

Cover the cupcakes with a towel and let them rise in a warm place for an additional 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Brush the remaining butter evenly on the tops of the cupcakes and bake for 20 minutes. The tops will be a light golden brown.

Make the glaze: In a small bowl, stir milk, butter, powdered sugar and maple syrup together until well blended. Drizzle this glaze over the cupcakes.

And enjoy!

They are pretty delicious, I must confess.

Another awesome achievement today, Jim and I found a house that we'll be renting at the end of July. It's wonderful, a three bedroom house really nearby the base, on a cul de sac, with a fenced back yard, deck, dog door, awesome kitchen, hardwood floors, and pretty much every single other thing that we ever wanted.

Hurray!