***(Update: Click here for printable recipe!)***
It was Thanksgiving morning, and hubby and I got off to a slooow start.
We celebrated a full-fledged Thanksgiving-with-all-the-trimmings- dinner a few days earlier (on Sunday) with the boys and guests. By mid-week, we hadn’t even though about what we were going to have for Thursday. We had a turkey on Sunday, turkey leftovers during the week, and were looking forward to another turkey at my mother’s house on Friday. Thursday needed to be different.
What we did know, was that we wanted to sleep in and make homemade cinnamon rolls to go with our morning coffee.
By the time we rolled out of bed, we decided that we would try Ree Drummond’s (The Pioneer Woman) cinnamon rolls recipe. It has been probably 30 years since I have made homemade cinnamon rolls (you know, when I was five years old. ahem) and since that recipe no longer exists, we thought we would use this one as the base and tweak just a couple of minor things. Like, making the dough the night before.
Did I mention we were off to a slow start? The cinnamon rolls weren’t ready until late afternoon – but they were SO worth it!
Here’s how it’s done!
The dough – makes about 30-ish rolls
First – dissolve 1 cup of sugar with 1 quart of whole milk and 1 cup of canola oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Take the saucepan off the heat and allow the temperature to drop to 110 – 115 degrees. If using active dry yeast, sprinkle and dissolve 4 1/2 tsp active dry yeast over it it. Let sit for 15 minutes or so.
(I use INSTANT yeast which I whisk into the 8 cups of flour instead in the next step below)
Now put 8 cups of flour (if using instant yeast, whisk 4 1/2 tsp instant yeast into the flour now), make a well and pour the warm liquid into the center and mix all. The dough will be sticky! Throw a kitchen towel over it and let the dough rise for 1 hour.
Then mix in 1 more cup of flour/1 tsp each of baking powder (heap) and baking soda (scant), and 1 tbsp of salt and combine with the rest of the dough.
It should look like this. Throw the kitchen towel over it again and let it rise for at least another hour until doubled, preferably overnight, to let it continue to rise.
The filling – Combine 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 3 tbsp ground cinnamon and pour into a mixing bowl with 3 sticks of softened butter.
Cream the butter
then pour in the cinnamon sugar mixture and mix together
until it looks like a paste:
Time to assemble!
Go get your covered dough.
It should look like this:
Cut the dough in half and place it on your floured surface.
Flatten it out a little before you start to roll it.
Roll it out into a large, thin rectangle. (24 x 18 rectangle)
Start spreading the cinnamon sugar mixture all over the dough
until you get an even layer that looks like this:
Starting from the furthest edge from you, roll the dough tightly down towards you.
That’s right, keep going!
This is what it will look like once it’s all rolled up. Yes, it looks small, but it’s going to have another chance to rise again.
At this point, some people use a knife to cut into individual pieces. I say DON’T DO IT! Personally, I feel that using a knife smushes your dough, and that’s not a happy thing. If you have some thread laying around (we did not, but we had dental floss! No comments about that please, sometimes you just gotta improvise), bring it just under the rolled dough like so
and bring the 2 ends up, criss-cross them all the way through
and now you have a perfectly cut piece! Continue cutting about 1 1/4″ pieces and place in greased baking pans or trays.
Now throw that kitchen towel over them again and let them rise for 1 hour.
then pop them into a 375 degree oven for about 23-25 minutes or until the dough gets golden brown.
Your kitchen should smell yummy at this point!
Don’t eat them yet! You’re almost done – just need the icing!
The icing – Place in a bowl: 2 pounds of powdered sugar, 1/4 cup melted butter, 1/4 cup of brewed coffee, 4 tsp of maple extract, a couple of dashes of salt, 1/2 to 1 cup whole milk (to get it to the consistency you want).
You gotta trust me on the coffee and maple extract – I was really hesitant to use these and wanted to wimp out and use vanilla. But we went with it and it turned out SUPER good!
Mix all together until it’s silky smooth
then drizzle that goodness onto your hot rolls
and if you become impatient like me, forget the spoon and just start to pour in on!
These were so good! The bread was moist and sweet and the filling had just the right amount of sweetness to it – not too much so the icing was a good compliment to it.
We liked the adjustments we made to the ingredients and cooking method versus the original recipe, but since the foundation of it is from Ree Drummond, we thought we’d name them after her.
We hope you enjoy these “ree”-ally good cinnamon rolls and share with your friends and family!
