Snowy Sweets

Once I heard there was a chance for snow & ice this weekend, I immediately made “snow” plans for a weekend filled with lots of baking and cooking.  Ben offered to bake me a cake as lately I’m always buying slices of cake from the bakery on my grocery shopping trips.  I thought since we had the time and he has become quite the expert with grains and yeast to make home-made cinnamon rolls.As usual I searched for a recipe on Allrecipes.com and found the #1 Cinnamon Roll recipe with 5 stars and almost 4,000 reviews.  It’s named Clone of Cinnabon and it did not disappoint!  These are not for carb-fat-calorie conscious!  The recipe calls for a bread-machine, so Ben adapted the recipe to use regular yeast, knead the dough in the Kitchen-Aid and let it rise. 

Clone of A Cinnabon

• 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F)
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup margarine, melted
• 4 1/2 cups bread flour (or all-purpose)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 packet yeast

 

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup butter, softened

 

• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a large bowl. Mix in the sugar, margarine, salt, and eggs. Add flour and mix well. Knead the dough into a large ball, using the dough hook, occasionally adding flour to prevent sticking. Put in a bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

After the dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls. Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.