Okay boys, these magical numbers are what make our Christmas Mornings, well...magical, and if I had to pick just one recipe to hand down to you all, this would be it. It is my most famous and frequently asked for recipe and there is not question why.
These rolls are reminiscent of Cinnabon cinnamon rolls but even better because they are scratch-made with love and a couple of secrets-plus they're actually super easy to make with the help of my trusty, old bread maker doing all of the hard work for me. You will still want to start them the night before you want to eat them though. Recipe makes 12 rolls.
INGREDIENTS
For the dough:
1 cup warm (not hot) milk
⅓ cup room temp/softened unsalted butter
4 cups AP flour
½ cup sugar
1 package of quick rising/fast acting yeast
1 tsp salt (in another corner of the pan)
2 room temperature eggs
For the filling:
1/3 cup softened butter or margarine
1/2 cup packed light & brown sugar each or 1 cup of just light brown sugar (secret #1: a mixture of light and dark muscovado brown sugars puts an even more superior, delicious taste to your rolls)
2 ½ T cinnamon (secret #2: I use 2 different, high quality cinnamons-1 at least MUST be Saigon/Vietnamese)
1 heaping T of flour (secret #3: keeps the filling from liquifying and running out too much)
For the icing:
1 stick room temperature unsalted butter
1 brick room temperature cream cheese
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
½ tsp good quality vanilla
⅛ tsp fine salt
DIRECTIONS
Prepare the dough by following your bread maker manufacturer's order while putting in the ingredients. For my bread maker, I do it in this order: warm milk, butter, flour, sugar in one corner of the pan because you don’t want it touching the yeast, the salt in another corner of the pan, the yeast into a hole that you drill with your finger down the middle of the flour, and lastly, the eggs in another corner of the pan. Select the "dough cycle" on your bread maker, and let it do the hard work for you.
While the dough is working, in a medium bowl, combine the all of the filling ingredients except for the butter. I like to use a fork to work out all of the lumps. Set aside.
When the dough has completed in the bread maker, I punch it down while still inside and let it rest for another 20 minutes in the machine. Then, on a lightly floured surface (I usually use a large cutting board) roll the dough out to approximately 16 x 21 inches laying horizontally. With your hands, evenly spread out the ⅓ cup of softened butter across the entire rectangle. Sprinkle the filling mixture evenly over the butter. Working carefully from the long edge, roll it up to the other side into one long roll. Using a bread knife or unflavored floss, cut off the uneven ends (about ¾ inch each end). Also using a bread knife or the floss method, divide the dough in half, then 1/3rds for each half. Cut each ⅓ in half, so that you end with 12 even slices.
Butter a 13x9 baking pan and place slices in the pan. Lay plastic wrap and a clean dish towel over the pan and allow to rise at room temperature for at least a couple of hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake until a golden brown (15-18 minutes). While the rolls are baking, make the cream cheese icing by beating the room temperature cream cheese and butter together in a stand or hand mixer until creamy and well mixed. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla until mixed well and no lumps remain.
Immediately after taking the rolls out of the oven, slather icing all over them so it melts into them and gives them the ooey gooey-ness that you love. Allow to cool for 15 minutes and then serve with extra icing. ENJOY!
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