Glazed Cinnamon Rolls
When I was still a young girl, somewhere between seven and nine years old, my passion was already cooking. If our parents went out for the evening I’d pull out a cookbook (that my mother never used, by the way) and pick out a recipe to make. It was my only opportunity to have the kitchen to myself with a chance to explore and experiment. The goal at the end of the evening was to eat something absolutely sweet and yummy, so clearly dessert recipes were my top choice. At that stage of my life I was crazy about cinnamon so I naturally chose recipes that included this luscious spice, like glazed cinnamon rolls.
My first play with cinnamon was during weekend breakfasts. In the early morning before our parents got up my younger sister and I would take a slice of white bread (you know, the completely no-nutrition kind of bread that if left out on the counter would probably last a year before it would get any mold on it. I remember the bread came in a polka dot plastic package…Wonder Bread I believe. Who knows if that stuff is still around.) In any case my sister and I would pull off the crusts and heap spoonful after spoonful of cinnamon sugar on each slice. We would then roll up the bread and seal it by pinching it together to make a doughy ball of cinnamon sugar. That would be our decadent weekend breakfast accompanied by a forbidden television show before our parents came down to the kitchen.
I've shared this piece of culinary trivia with American friends who grew up at the same time and for some odd reason did the exact same thing with bread and cinnamon sugar. Who knows? Did we see it done somewhere or were we all similarly inspired at that age?
As I mentioned, one of the recipes that I chose for my evening cooking adventures was glazed cinnamon rolls. Buttery and sugary and full of my favorite spice: cinnamon. My tradition was to make myself some popcorn, pour a glass of milk and sit down in the kitchen to study a recipe and make sure I had all the necessary ingredients. My mother was a culinary tragedy so more often than not anything strictly out of the ordinary was missing. Yeast was one of those items. My mother was always willing to procure the needed food items for my recipes, including the packaged dried yeast for my cinnamon rolls.
Glazed cinnamon rolls are the kind of thing that seem so much more complicated than they are: it's simply a question of getting the feel for kneading dough and understanding the way it should feel and look when it's ready to pop in the oven. I loved playing around with dough (what kid doesn’t?) and the end result was usually something so delightful it was well worth the effort I put into producing a perfect yeast roll. So that's what I did. Basically it's a question of reading directions, following directions, and a lot of practice. I learned early on that experimentation in the kitchen is the sure road to success, particularly when you're as motivated as I was to eat something gooey and sweet and freshly baked.
Nowadays when I share this childhood cinnamon roll story with friends they find it amazing that I was baking yeast breads as a little kid, and to a certain extent I now realize it was quite unusual. I think it all happened because I’ve always been a food-fixated person, anxious to do whatever it took to eat something yummy and delicious. This coupled with the fact that my mother was both disinterested in cooking and seemingly incapable in the kitchen. For those of you familiar with TV dinners I recall at least one occasion where my mom heated up TV dinners and scooped them onto dinner plates to serve to guests, which I guess says it all.
When our daughter Giulia reached about the age, and maybe slightly younger, that I was when I began baking cinnamon rolls she looked me squarely in the eye, when I was either kitchen gardening or cooking, and with hands on hips declared “certainly mom when I grow up I won't be doing this".
Now Giulia is nearly 30, married with a young son, and her culinary passion has remained just about where it was when she proclaimed her complete lack of interest in cooking. Perhaps I'm somewhat the culprit here as in Giulia’s growing up years I did all the cooking and great things to eat without any effort whatsoever were always readily available to Giulia. Heck, I might have done the same a kid but I had to forage in our home to find anything special and delicious to eat.
So you can imagine my surprise (and delight) when a few days ago Giulia expressed an interest in learning how to make none other than glazed cinnamon rolls. Just like me her desire to perfect cinnamon roll preparation wasn’t about learning any particular culinary technique but more so about achieving the end result: devouring warm and gooey cinnamon rolls.
I purchased all the ingredients and headed to Giulia’s house, along with all the necessary equipment and baking tools, to teach her how to make cinnamon rolls. Giulia’s kitchen is tiny so it was a challenge to find counter space for the ingredients, let alone space to work with dough. End result: glazed cinnamon roll perfection!
It's starting to get cold at night and mornings are chilly and frosty so it's an indescribable pleasure to smell cinnamon rolls baking and then sit down to eat them with my morning coffee.
Cinnamon rolls are a wonderful holiday breakfast and can be prepared either the day before or prepared up to the point where the dough has almost fully risen. You can then place the rising dough in the refrigerator and in the morning quickly roll it out, lather with soft butter and sprinkle abundantly with cinnamon sugar. Roll up tightly into a log, slice and pop into the oven to bake for 15 minutes and breakfast is ready!
Glazed Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients:
For the dough:
525 g all-purpose flour
4 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
25 g fresh compressed yeast
180 mL tepid water
90 mL room temperature milk
70 g butter
Two medium eggs
For the filling:
160 g unsalted butter, softened in the microwave.
1 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
105 g brown sugar
For the glaze:
180 g powdered sugar
50 – 65 mL milk
Directions:
For the dough:
Dissolve the yeast in the tepid water and let sit.
Whisk the flour, sugar and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
Whisk the eggs and milk together, then whisk in the yeast mixture.
Use a wooden spoon to beat in the yeast and milk mixture, and melted butter
Continue beating until the dough is creamy, and thoroughly blended.
Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface.
Flour your hands and begin kneading the dough: press down with the palm of your hand, turn the dough 90°, fold over half way, and press again with the palm of your hand.
Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic, about five minutes.
The dough will become sticky to the touch, and will begin to stick to the work surface as you knead, so dust lightly with additional flour as needed.
Form the dough into a ball.
Place the dough ball in a lightly oiled mixing bowl, and cover with a damp dishtowel.
Let the dough rise for an hour or more, or until doubled in bulk.
Let the dough rise in a room kept at about 80°F, or place the dough in an unheated oven with the oven light turned on.
Prepare the filling:
While the dough is rising soften the butter in the microwave.
Whisk the cinnamon and brown sugar together in a small bowl and set aside.
Prepare the glaze:
Whisk the powdered sugar and milk together until it is smooth and thick enough to spread, but not runny.
I usually find that 50 to 55 mL of milk is sufficient for the glaze.
Prepare the rolls:
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Once the dough has doubled in bulk place it on a lightly floured work surface and press down gently into a rectangle.
Use a 
to roll out the dough, into an elongated rectangle. roughly 25 centimeters X 40 centimeters.
The dough should be about ½ - ¾ cm thick.
Make sure that the butter for the filling is extremely warm, and that you can easily spread it across the dough without pressing down the dough.
I usually place the butter in the microwave and heat it to the point that it's partially melted.
I then whisk the partially melted and fully melted butter together, to form a creamlike consistency.
Use a small silicone spatula to generously spread the butter evenly across the dough rectangle.
Grab handfuls of the brown sugar mixture and sprinkle it evenly across the dough.
Roll the dough tightly together to form a log; make sure that you roll from one long side to the other alongside, so that you’d up with a long log.
Pinch the edges of the log together along the seam so that it's perfectly sealed.
Take a long piece of unwaxed, unflavored dental floss and slide it in under the dough log, about 1 - 1 ½ centimeter in.
Overlap the floss and pull; this will cut a perfectly shaped roll from the dough.
Place the rolls in a well-buttered 10 inch pie pan.
Repeat this process, cutting off as many rolls as will fit comfortably into the pie pan, with the rolls nestled against each other.
If you have excess rolls bake them separately.
Place the pie pan in the preheated oven, lower the temperature to 375°F and bake for 15 minutes, or until the rolls are just turning golden brown.
The rolls will have risen nicely during the baking process.
As soon as you remove the rolls from the oven begin icing them.
Again I use a 
to glaze.
As you glaze the rolls some of the icing will seep in between the rolls; this will give them additional gooeyness and flavor.
I can’t resist digging into these cinnamon rolls while they're still warm and gooey but if you manage to not eat them immediately, the rolls will keep nicely if kept covered and refrigerated, for several days, or they can be frozen.
If you choose to freeze the rolls be sure to defrost them in the refrigerator overnight.
You can warm the cinnamon rolls slightly before serving by placing them in the microwave or a barely warm oven.
Below is a print ready version of the recipe. At the bottom of the printable recipe you have the option to choose either metric or U.S. customary measurement.
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 525 g all-purpose flour
- 4 ½ tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 25 g fresh compressed yeast
- 180 mL tepid water
- 90 mL room temperature milk
- 70 g butter
- Two medium eggs
For the filling:
- 160 g unsalted butter softened in the microwave.
- 1 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 105 g brown sugar
For the glaze:
- 180 g powdered sugar
- 55 ml milk or more if needed
Instructions
For the dough:
- Dissolve the yeast in the tepid water and let sit.
- Whisk the flour, sugar and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
- Whisk the eggs and milk together, then whisk in the yeast mixture.
- Use a wooden spoon to beat in the yeast and milk mixture, and melted butter
- Continue beating until the dough is creamy, and thoroughly blended.
- Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface.
- Flour your hands and begin kneading the dough: press down with the palm of your hand, turn the dough 90° or a quarter of the way, fold over half way, and press again with the palm of your hand.
- Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic, about five minutes.
- The dough will become sticky to the touch, and will begin to stick to the work surface as you knead, so dust lightly with additional flour as needed.
- Form the dough into a ball.
- Place the dough ball in a lightly oiled mixing bowl, and cover with a damp dishtowel.
- Let the dough rise for an hour or more, or until doubled in bulk.
- Let the dough rise in a room kept at about 80°F, or place the dough in an unheated oven with the oven light turned on.
Prepare the filling:
- While the dough is rising soften the butter in the microwave.
- Whisk the cinnamon and brown sugar together in a small bowl and set aside.
Prepare the glaze:
- Whisk the powdered sugar and milk together until it is smooth and thick enough to spread, but not runny.
- I usually find that 50 to 55 mL of milk is sufficient for the glaze.
Prepare the rolls:
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Once the dough has doubled in bulk place it on a lightly floured work surface and press down gently into a rectangle.
- Use a
to roll out the dough, into an elongated rectangle. roughly 25 centimeters X 40 centimeters. - The dough should be about ½ - ¾ cm thick.
- Make sure that the butter for the filling is extremely warm, and that you can easily spread it across the dough without pressing down the dough.
- I usually place the butter in the microwave and heat it to the point that it's partially melted.
- I then whisk the partially melted and fully melted butter together, to form a creamlike consistency.
- Use a small silicone spatula to generously spread the butter evenly across the dough rectangle.
- Grab handfuls of the brown sugar mixture and sprinkle it evenly across the dough.
- Roll the dough tightly together to form a log; make sure that you roll from one long side to the other alongside, so that you’d up with a long log.
- Pinch the edges of the log together along the seam so that it's perfectly sealed.
- Take a long piece of unwaxed, unflavored dental floss and slide it in under the dough log, about 1 - 1 ½ centimeter in.
- Overlap the floss and pull; this will cut a perfectly shaped roll from the dough.
- Place the rolls in a well-buttered 10 inch pie pan.
- Repeat this process, cutting off as many rolls as will fit comfortably into the pie pan, with the rolls nestled against each other.
- If you have excess rolls bake them separately.
- Place the pie pan in the preheated oven, lower the temperature to 375°F and bake for 15 minutes, or until the rolls are just turning golden brown.
- The rolls will have risen nicely during the baking process.
- As soon as you remove the rolls from the oven begin icing them.
- Again I use a to glaze.
- As you glaze the rolls some of the icing will seep in between the rolls; this will give them additional gooeyness and flavor.
- I can’t resist digging into these cinnamon rolls while they're still warm and gooey but if you manage to not eat them immediately, the rolls will keep nicely if kept covered and refrigerated, for several days, or they can be frozen.
- If you choose to freeze the rolls be sure to defrost them in the refrigerator overnight.
- You can warm the cinnamon rolls slightly before serving by placing them in the microwave or a barely warm oven.
Nutrition
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