Celebration Cinnamon Rolls

Today is my baby's 12 th birthday.  My "Bubby";  my boy;  my sweetness.  Every momma should have a son as huggibly delicious as my Eric.  Can I just say... I love my kid?  This child will jump up at the chance to help you with groceries, LOVES to make you smile or laugh, and can't pass kissin' a baby's cheeks even if he wanted to. I mean, c'mon, they just don't make them like him anymore.  I s'pose I get to take some credit for him, but really, I think God just gave him to me like this.  I am blessed.

So, it's no secret that I work very hard in the garden and once in a while I get pooped before I'm really finished.  Cleaning up my tornado of weeding isn't my strongest point, so I often strike up a deal with my dear son in order to get him to clean up after my gardening garbage.
This week, the deal was a week long menu of breakfast dishes.  I'd like to be able to say that I make a piping hot breakfast for my kids every morning, but the truth is... I don't.  I'm more apt to make breakfast for dinner than for the actual slotted time for breakfast.  So I agreed to make Eric breakfast every day this week, beginning with Tuesday.
Tuesday we had french toast.
Wednesday was scrambled eggs and bacon.
Thursday saw Chocolate chip waffles.
But today is my Bubby's birthday, so we are going all out with homemade cinnamon rolls. He's beside himself.  I think he might have even had trouble sleeping last night. ;)

Celebration Cinnamon Rolls
I made the dough last night by using my "Favorite dough recipe" dough with an added teaspoon or two of lemon juice in with all the wet ingredients.  I let it cycle through in the dough cycle on my bread machine, then I went to work making the sweet rolls.      

 I rolled out the dough into a rectangle.  Betty (Crocker) says to make the rectangle 15x9...  Well, I don't have a ruler, but I guess this will do.  

Then I softened about a 1/4 cup of butter (half a stick) in the microwave and brushed it all over one side of the dough.  You don't want to get butter too close to the edge because you don't want the sugar to get in the way of the dough sticking to itself when you roll it up.  So keep a good inch or so clear of butter and sugar.  I cheat and use the cinnamon n' sugar combo you can find at wal-mart.  I hear brown sugar is a pretty incredible alternative... it's supposedly what Cinnabon uses, but we're fine with white sugar here.  

Roll the dough up so you have a really long snake of dough.

Next is a trick Betty taught me:  Use a piece of string to cut the rolls instead of a knife.  A knife will squish the dough, but a thick piece of string will just pinch the roll right off.  I like to use a thick coated piece of quilters thread, but really any kind of thread will work. 

See. :)

Keep the thickness of each cinnamon roll the same.  You want to make them a little thicker than you might first think.  I like to squish them down a bit once I put them into the pan to rise.  

Now, cover these and let them rise for an hour, or cover them and put them in the refrigerator to bake the next day.  If baking them the next day, take them out an hour before baking, and continue as normal.  They won't rise quite as much after they have been refrigerated, but it sure beats trying to do everything early in the morning!!

Bake at 375 degrees about 25-30 minutes.  Spread rolls with glaze while they are still warm.  

Simple Glaze:  

1 cup powdered sugar

1 TBS milk 

1/2tsp. vanilla. 

 Mix until smooth.  Remember the glaze will thin out when poured over hot rolls, so leave it a little on the thicker side.

Cinnabon cream cheese glaze:... should be illegal it's so good. ugh!

4 tablespoons softened butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

ENJOY and Happy Birthday Eric!!!

Raised Glazed

So this morning, my children inquired as to whether or not I was inclined to make doughnuts any time in the near future.  I took this as an opportunity to bribe... er, uh... positively reinforce desirable behavior.  I agreed to make deliciously baked delicacies as long as they refrained from poor judgement when in each other's presence.  Okay so basically, I promised them food if they wouldn't fight.  Yes, it has come to this.  Now you know what I'm willing to pay for peace and tranquility.. or at least the illusion of it.

 My recipe (and by "my" I mean Betty Crocker's) isn't a bread machine recipe per se, but as long as I put all the wet ingredients plus the salt in first, followed by the flour and sugar, keeping the yeast last and separated from the wetness, it works.  This recipe is a bit larger than most I make so I had to be sure to take it out as soon as the hour and a half was up.  Even then, the dough was beginning to ooze its way out of the mixing bucket.

yes, I stole this image from Amazon...
SO if you want to buy this book, buy it there. :)

It brought to memory a favorite childhood book.  "Homer Price" by Robert McCloskey... who coincidentally also wrote "Blueberries for Sal"... but that's another day.  The collection of short stories about a young boy named Homer was written in 1943.  Its wonderfully simple, vintage illustrations just scream "school library".  One of the stories tells about Homer and his encounter with Uncle Ulysses's doughnut machine.  I don't remember everything, but I do recall the machine goes haywire, cranking out doughnuts in a very "I Love Lucy" sort of scene...great book.

So the ingredients are put in, the machine turned on, dough comes out the top...

I rolled the dough about a 1/2 inch thick and cut out the doughnuts.  One of the best things about making doughnuts is that it's inevitable that you will make doughnut holes as well.. BONUS!  Doughnuts (and holes) got placed on parchment paper and covered to rise for about 30 minutes.

This was about when I realized I didn't have enough oil in which to fry the doughnuts.  I'm sure this never happens to Rachel Ray... SHE has a staff.  Heading down to the garage, I grabbed my car keys and slipped on my shoes.  That's when I met up with my dear husband, doing his dear husband thing.  He's halfway through waxing both cars.  He noticed the purse... Lucky for me the KwikStar is just down a block, and even though I had to pay astronomical prices, I got two bottles of oil, a little exercise, and a diet Pepsi for my trouble.


I heated the oil to
350 and plopped those bad boys right in.  Oh, the sound of food frying in 3 inches of pure vegetable oil is wonderful thing.  The first time I made doughnuts I used a spatula to turn them over, but now I like to use two wooden skewers.  Not nearly as messy.  After about a minute of frying, I flipped them over one by one.  Another minute in the oil bath, then they got hoisted onto a paper towel laid over a cooling rack.   This process repeated several times.

 Some were buried in powdered sugar, some were twisted in glaze and still others were iced with chocolate.  The holes were dropped into a paper sack filled with powdered sugar and given a nice shake.  They were handed out to the natives before dinner to keep them from getting too restless.


The kids held up their end of the bargain... as far as I know, and I took great joy in watching them feast on their reward.

 Good thing I had that
Diet Pepsi earlier.  It cancels out the doughnut... right? ;)

P.S. Deaconess Sarah, if you're reading this, Pastor will be bringing some in to the office in the morning.  Make sure he shares.