Cinnamon rolls with life changing buttercream frosting

So clearly its been a long time since I have blogged, but what can ya do? Ive had parties and speedo runs and events galore! Plus I went home for a week for the holidays.....amazing! It was during my trip home that I first made these delicious cinnamon rolls. While in Texas, I met up with someone who I have known for a very long time. While I have always considered him to be a very important person in my life, we hadn't talked in a while. When he found out that I baked alot, he mentioned that he had wanted to learn to make cinnamon rolls from scratch.....and I was happy to oblige! While catching up etc, he asked me how I got in to baking and why I enjoyed it and it took me a while to figure out the honest answer. For the most part, baking has always been an outlet for my stress. Whenever there is something going on in my life or in my head, when I bake, all of that melts (pun intended!!) away. Should I move or should I stay, should I say this or not, how do I feel about this, that, or the other? All of the stressful thoughts in my head kinda disappear while I'm watching my cream whip or my sugar turn into caramel. So that's part of it. But I think the part that I really enjoy the most is giving my sugary treat to someone and seeing the look on their face after they take a bite or seeing how excited someone can get when its time to eat (like my friend who was like a little kid on Christmas day when these guys came out of the oven!!!). It makes me happy to make other people happy and baking allows me the opportunity to give the people in my life something that can bring a smile to their face or erase a bit of a bad day.

So keeping both of those things in mind, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, when I was in a bad mood, I decided to re-create these rolls in my own kitchen....its super tricky to bake in an unfamiliar environment so doing it on my own turf was sooo much easier! I also strayed a bit from Paula Dean's recipe......I had some butter cream frosting in my freezer that was left over from a bridal shower that i had done some baking for.....so I put that on the cinnamon rolls instead of using the glaze that Paula suggested.....and it was the best decision of all time!! My roommates threatened anarchy if I didn't take the rolls to work to get them out of the house (new years resolutions and all) so I loaded up a tupperware and took them to work with me where they proceeded to sit in my office and tempt me all day long. Luckily, I have a ton of coworkers who are happy to help get rid of treats!! So here is the recipe and steps....Enjoy!

Ingredients

Dough: 1/4 ounce package yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup scalded milk....I used warm milk and it worked just fine!

1/3 cup butter or shortening

1 tsp. salt

1 egg

3 1/2 - 4 cups flour....WTF does that mean Paula? I explain below!

Filling: 1/2 cup melted butter, plus more for the pan

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

3/4 cup raisins, walnuts, or pecans (optional).....I detest raisins but I did use chopped walnuts!

Glaze: 4 tablespoons butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3-6 tablespoons of hot water

Directions
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside. In a large bowl mix milk, sugar, melted butter, salt and eggs. Add two cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add yeast mixture. Mix in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle.

**This recipe says 3 1/2 to 4 cups of flour so how do you know how much is enough? I started by adding a full 3 1/2 cups and then added more flour one tablespoon at a time. You will know that you need more flour because as you are mixing, the dough will appear to be stringy and sticky....so keep adding until it doesn't look stringy anymore. I added nearly 4 cups to mine and the dough appeared to be smooth....see pictures below.

Knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5-10 minutes. Place in well-greased bowl and let rise until doubled, usually 1 - 1 1/2 hours.

Size of dough before rising:

Size of dough once it had risen and doubled in size:

When doubled, punch down dough. Roll out on flour surface into a 15x9 inch rectangle.

Spread melted butter all over dough. Mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over buttered dough. Sprinkle with walnuts, pecans, or raisins if desired.

Look at all the sugary, buttery goodness!!!!

Beginning at 15 inch side role up dough and pinch edge together to seal. Coat bottom of baking pan with butter and sprinkle with sugar.

**I coated the pan with butter and sugar in Texas the first time I made these and it kinda burned, so I didn't do this step this time around and they were perfect. I just sprayed the pan with cooking spray and I had no issues!

Cut into 12-15 slices. Place cinnamon roll slices close together in the pan and let rise until dough is doubled, about 45 minutes. They will get slightly squished and out of the roll shape during the cutting, but it's easy to roll them back up. And once they bake, you wont notice the shape anyway!

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes or until nicely browned.

So as I said above, I had some left over butter cream frosting that I used for my batch.

Here are the directions for Paula's glaze that got with this recipe:

Meanwhile, mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add hot water 1 tablespoon at a time until the glaze reaches desired consistency. Spread over slightly cooled rolls.

Since the recipe for the frosting that i used is from a book, I'm not going to post it online. I will tell you though that it is the greatest baking cookbook of all time!!! I used the Crispy Magic Frosting recipe from Joanne Chang's "Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery and Cafe." I recommend this book to anyone who loves to bake!! And you can find the recipe for the icing there as well!!!

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Flour/Joanne-Chang/e/9780811869447/?itm=1&USRI=flour%3a

OK, done with the plug! Here is how my rolls turned out...once topped with icing and more walnuts!!!

Gooey and delicious!

http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/view2/cinnamon_rolls/

I'm always looking for a good recipe to try, so if you have one, or a suggestion, send it my way!