As we've said many times before, sometimes the simple things are the very best. We gathered at Queen Carol's house and spent the day cooking together - well actually, baking together - well better yet, playing with dough, butter, sugar and cinnamon and getting all sticky and gooey together. Whatever, it was a blast!
Carol is famous in our family for her Cinnamon Rolls. It's an art passed down from our Nana, and after she passed, Carol took it over and has been making them ever since for our Thanksgiving and Christmas family get-togethers. And after hearing about these yummy delights for years, the ladies finally asked Carol to teach them how to make her Cinnamon Rolls. And she agreed.
We all met at Carol's house, and then dashed off to Subway to pick up some sandwiches and chips for lunch . . .
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| Sylvia, Annie, Linda, Tina and Debbie - lunch in hand, let's go eat! |
After lunch, we gathered in Carol's wonderfully large and welcoming kitchen to learn how to make her Cinnamon Rolls. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here's the recipe, told in photos . . . .
Ingredients - There are no exact measurements for this - it's all approximations . . . .
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| Bridgeford Frozen White Ready Dough - (one package (3 loaves) will make approx. 3-4 dozen cinnamon rolls) |
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| Melted Butter (figure approx. 1 lb. for each package of bread dough) |
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| Cinnamon and Sugar Mixture - (approx. 1 lb. Sugar and 2 oz. Cinnamon - mixture should look like what you would use for cinnamon toast) |
You also need a small amount of all purpose white flour. That's it.
Now for the process . . .
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| The ladies quickly gathered around to hear the instructions |
First step - Defrosting the bread dough and letting it rise. There are two ways to do this . . .
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You can use a Convection Oven (on "bread" setting if you have that option or 100 degrees). . .
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| On warm days, you can use Mother Nature and put the bread on your patio table to defrost and rise |
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| Once the dough is ready, sprinkle some white flour on your pastry mat and have your rolling pen handy |
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| The bread dough comes with 3 loaves in a package. Cutting across the loaves, divide into 3 equal portions. Hint - Don't try to separate the loaves on their original cut lines - It's best to cut across the loaves in case the center loaf hasn't risen as fully as the two outer loaves. |
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| Place your loaf on the floured pastry mat and pat it with flour. Then start rolling it out like you would a pie crust - until it's just the right thinness |
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| Feeling the dough to check for proper thinness |
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| Next comes the melted butter |
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| Spoon the butter down the center of your dough, and then using the back of the spoon, spread the butter over the dough from the center out towards the edges. |
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| The Cinnamon/Sugar mixture is next - Sprinkle it all over the butter, and be generous! |
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| This is how it should look |
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| Spoon some of the melted butter into the baking pan (9"x13") and tip the pan this way and that to spread it evenly |
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| Now the tricky part - rolling the dough. Pull it slightly towards you as you roll it tightly along the length of the dough |
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| A closer look at the rolling process |
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| Keep the roll as even and as tight as you can |
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| Until it looks like a long skinny worm (or snake) |
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| Now using a sharp knife, cut into approx. 1-1/2" sections. And - now don't freak out at this step - throw the ends away! Yep, drop them right into the trash. They don't cook properly and you'll have plenty, trust me! |
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| As you cut, place the rolls into the baking pan. Each pan will hold 12 Cinnamon rolls. Don't crowd them - the dough will rise and by the time they are baked, the pan will be full. |
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| The most important step - pinching! Using your thumb and first finger, gently pinch the end of the roll tightly against the next layer of dough. This is important so the rolls don't open up while baking. |
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| The finished pan - ready for the oven |
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| The rolls need to rise again before they are actually baked. Carol again uses her convection oven for this process. |
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| When they look like this, they are ready for baking. |
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| Bake in a Conventional Oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes - in Carol's oven, she can bake 4 pans at one time. |
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| After 15 minutes, the pans need to be rotated. Turn them front to back, and move from top shelf to bottom, and from right side to left. Then bake another 15 minutes. |
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| The finished product - ready for eating! So Yummy! |
So that's the process. Now it's time for everyone to try their hand at making them . . .
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| Tina getting her loaf floured up and ready to roll |
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| Annie rolling hers out | | | | | | | | | |
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| Debbie got hers rolled out perfectly |
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| A closer look at the way the dough should look when properly rolled - but the odd shapes work too and the finished cinnamon rolls taste just as good! No worries! |
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| Sylvia had the butter part down pat (hmmm, I guess pun intended) |
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| Tina sampled the Cinnamon/Sugar mixture |
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| Debbie conquered the sprinkling process right away |
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| Annie rolling the dough |
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| Sylvia rolling hers too |
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| Linda got creative . . . |
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| Before she sliced hers |
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| We all had so much fun! Hope we can do this again sometime! |
Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating . . . . And so . . . .
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| We happily sampled the fruits of our labor - YUM-O!!!! |
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| Look how many cinnamon rolls we made! |
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Thanks, Carol, for always being so willing to open your home to us, and for sharing your "secret" recipe and teaching us how to make these delicious treats. This was one of our best events ever!!!!!
