First Post/ Cinnamon Rolls!

First post, awesome!

I am rather adventurous when it comes to trying new recipes, and I often dive head first into something challenging. Case in point; I have never made a “regular cheesecake” but the first vegan recipe I tried was in fact an amazing chocolate cheesecake (I plan to make it again soon, and will post it then) and it turned out fantastic.

So today’s recipe is another example of how daring and reckless I can be…. Cinnamon Rolls! (yuuuuum) I’ve never made “regular” cinnamon rolls, but whatever.

So here we go, let’s dive on in!

Firstly, I have to say that I scoured the internet for the yummiest sounding recipe; I particularly wanted one that promised to be as close to Cinnabons as possible (because those things are amazing.)

I also watched tons and tons of videos on how to knead dough, and roll up the dough, and cut the dough… etc, this was a thoroughly researched venture.

Anywho, here’s the recipe, modified as I made it, but I’ll put the original link at the end of this post. 

Yeast Mixture
4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (a little less than 2 packets)
1 tsp Sugar
1 Cup Water, 110º F

Dough
1 Cup Almond milk
2/3 Cup Sugar
2/3 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
2 tsp Salt
Yeast Mixture, from above
6 Cups All Purpose Flour, more for kneading

Dough Filling
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine, melted

1 Cup of Apple Butter
3 Cups of melted brown sugar
Cinnamon for sprinkling on top

(pay no heed to the nutmeg and vanilla in this picture; I thought they would be playing, but they ended up just sitting on the side lines)

Pan Sauce
*I’ll address this later on in the post*

Cream Cheese Frosting 
1/2 Cup Earth Balance
1/2 Cup Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Cup Powdered Sugar

(no picture because at this point I was in a hurry to get the darned things in my mouth!)

Combine yeast mixture and set aside to proof (this was by far the most pleasant beginning to any baking adventure… the yeast smelled like fresh bread, and I do love me some fresh bread)

Combine the dough ingredients (except the flour  and yeast) in a sauce pan and heat until the Earth Balance has all melted, and everything is happily combined. Make sure its not too hot though; test it by putting your finger in it, if you don’t yelp with pain, it’s good to go.

Then, add your proofed yeast and mix gently.

Place 4 cups of all purpose flour in a large bowl. Add the warmed wet ingredients.

Beat the batter well with a spoon, or use a mixer. The dough should look more like a batter at this point.

Add 2 more cups of flour and mix in partially.

Dump everything out onto a large work surface and begin kneading (slower at first, you’ll be doing this for about 8-10 more minutes, so pace yourself.)

Whilst kneading, only add more flower if the dough begins to stick to you and/or the surface. Mine was terribly sticky so I had to add quite a bit more flour, and even after that it was rather sticky (next time I’ll keep kneading till its keeps its hand to itself!)

In the end, you want the dough to be tacky, not sticky, and elastic. It should not stick to your work surface.

Once you’re done kneading, place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with oiled seran wrap.

Then let it hang out in a warm spot for around 90 minutes (mine went for about 2 hours… I think the lack of flower may be to blame, cus it kept sticking to my fingers when I poked it.)

*If you have an unusually cold house, or something else like that, you can turn your oven on lowlowlow for 1 minute, turn it off, and place the bowled dough in there to rise. Just be sure to let everyone around you know that the oven is off limits until further notice*

You will know the dough is done rising when it leaves a dent(s) when you poke it. If it springs back (or sticks to you, it needs more time.)

As you can see, I got a little carried away :)

 Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and press it down. You want it press/roll it out into aprox. 15 x 20 inch rectangle.

Spread your filling evenly over the dough, go to the corners and sides, every little section needs some looooove.

Prepare the largest baking dish you have (I used a 9x13 and it only held 6 rolls… so, the bigger the better) by melting 1/2 cup of earth balance and ½ cup of sugar in the same bowl/dish you had the filling in (this gives the added yumminess of whatever filling was still stuck to the bowl. However, I found the pan sauce to be a tad bit much and think next time I’ll just spray it and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar… this is what I did for the small pan I had to have to fit the rest of the rolls in.)

Roll up the dough, starting at one of the short sides, roll it up tight!

Let it rest on its seam, then with either a bit of sewing thread/unflavored floss or a knife of your choice, cut the roll into 12 equal pieces and place in your pan(s).

Normal ones with pan sauce

The extras with the cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on top

Cover the buns and let rise for 45 minutes if you will be baking these immediately. If baking the next day, cover the buns and let rise in the refrigerator overnight. Bake in the morning with no need for more rising. If making the buns for a date in the future, cover the buns and freeze immediately. The day before you are ready to use them, defrost in the refrigerator overnight, then let warm up on the counter the next morning for an hour.

When ready to bake, do the following:

Preheat the oven to 350º F

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Stir together the frosting ingredients.

Don’t heat or add liquid,

Just keep whisking

Just keep whisking

Until there are no lumps

I put the frosting on the rolls as soon as they came out of the oven.

Let cool and eat up!

Alright, so here is what I thought of the end product.

The rolls in the bigger pan were good, but the pan sauce was definitely not needed; you could also definitely taste the appleyness, and it reminded me of an apple fritter. If you like apple fritters, then go for it, and maybe even added finely chopped apples to the filling. If apple isn’t your favorite, then I would go for a traditional filling (1/2 cup earth balance melted, poured on top, then cinnamon-sugar sprinkled evenly on top.)

The second pan with the leftover rolls was my favorite; somehow they seemed to bake different, and the dough was more tender and gooey. Likewise, I didn’t use pan sauce, I just sprayed the pan all over, sprinkled cinnamon-sugar on the bottom and sides, and then the rest of the cinnamon-sugar on the rolls before baking. These tasted the most like traditional cinnamon rolls, and a lot like cinnabons. One important thing to note is that a lot of the filling melted down into the bottom of the pan, but in this case it wasn’t as overbearing, since there wasn’t pan sauce flooding it already.

In regards to the glaze, I was happily surprised by how “real” it tasted.

I tired a teeny-weeny bit of the cream cheese before mixing it all together and I have to be honest, I thought to myself “ehhh, is this really going to work?”

But it did, and it was gloriously delicious!

If you have a morning to kill, and don’t mind baking baking baking, make these :)

They are so good!

*Here’s the original recipe; she has a video of the kneading,rolling,and cutting process that is really helpful*

http://veganyumyum.com/2009/05/perfect-cinnamon-buns/

Happy Baking