June 27, 2014

Daring Bakers: Cinnamon Rolls with Peach Preserves & Cream Cheese Icing

Carrie Zinnecker Breads and Muffins, Breakfast, Daring Bakers America's Test Kitchen, cinnamon rolls, cream cheese, Daring Bakers, Peach 5 Comments

I made these rolls, took pictures and began this post a couple weeks ago since I was expecting a baby mid-June. I cannot believe I am actually posting this month! Special thanks to my amazing friend, Carrie, who held my sweet baby boy and also entertained my toddlers and therefore made it possible for me to finish this post this morning! You’re amazing 🙂

Our baby’s due date was June 19, so I knew I had to get this challenge completed before my typical completion of a Daring Bakers challenge, a day or two before posting. The day I made these rolls I thought, “It will be good to have these for our house guests after the baby comes.” thinking that this baby would be early like our other two. But over a week passed before our sweet baby arrived and we’d already finished off a pan! I froze the other pan after baking it so we did have some for grandparents when they came to see the baby.

And here he is! Christopher was born on June 23 and we love him.

This month the Daring Bakers kept our creativity rolling with cinnamon bun inspired treats. Shelley from C Mom Cook dared us to create our own dough and fill it with any filling we wanted to craft tasty rolled treats, cinnamon not required!

This challenge had me excited from the moment I read it! I love cinnamon rolls, both the making of and the consumption of them. But I’ve never ventured beyond the traditional cinnamon sugar filling. This challenge encouraged creativity from the Daring Bakers. I know some people got incredibly creative, and I admire those people for not only having creative minds but for being brave enough to try something new! I played it pretty safe and just added peach preserves to the rolls. I know, it’s kinda lame. But it’s still super delicious!

I used a sweet dough recipe from America’s Test Kitchen as the base for the rolls. In the cookbook this dough is also used for hot cross buns and sticky buns. It comes together nicely, rises well, is easy to roll out and handle, and bakes into a lovely sweet bread. It’s a keeper.

Peach just seemed like a good summer choice, but you could use any kind of jam or preserves in these rolls. Add in nuts if you like. Or leave out the jam and make a simple cinnamon roll with a traditional cinnamon and brown sugar filling.

The icing is sweet with just enough tang from the cream cheese. You can make it more icing-like by adding less milk, or more like a glaze by adding a little more. The recipe below makes a generous amount for the 2 pans of rolls. Ice these when they are still a little warm so that the icing can seep in between the layers and get all wonderfully gooey. Or you can ice them individually to control the amount of icing on each roll since some people are big icing lovers and others are ~~crazy~~ not so much.

Peach Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Ingredients

Dough

3/4 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
3 eggs, lightly beaten
4 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling

3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 to 1 cup peach preserves

Icing

5 tablespoons cream cheese
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3-5 tablespoons milk

Directions

Dough

Whisk the buttermilk, butter and eggs in a small bowl.
Mix 4 cups of flour, sugar, salt and yeast in stand mixer fitted the dough hook.
Add buttermilk mixture to flour, mix on low until dough comes together.
Increase speed to medium low and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Add extra flour if dough seems sticky, one tablespoon at a time.
Turn dough out onto clean counter and knead by hand to form a smooth round ball.
Place dough in oiled bowl, cover and let rise for 2 to 2 1/2 hours until doubled in size.

Fill, Shape and Bake Rolls

Mix brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and dust lightly with flour. Pat the dough fat, and then use a rolling pin to roll dough out into a 12×16 inch rectangle.
Brush dough with melted butter, then spread with peach preserves leaving a 1/4 inch edge all around. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over the preserves and spread out.
Roll dough into a long cylinder, as tight as you can get it. Pinch the edge of the dough to seal the roll.
Use a serrated knife to carefully cut into 14-16 buns.
Butter 2 round cake pans and place 7 or 8 buns in each. Cover with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with non-stick spray and let rise for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Rolls should be pressed up against each other. To Make Ahead: Pop them in the fridge after covering, before they rise. Keep them there for up to 16 hours. When you’re ready, take them out and let them rise at room temp for 1 1/2 hours, then bake as below.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Bake rolls for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and puffed.
Let rolls cool for 10 minutes before icing.

Icing (make while rolls are baking)

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar until mixed well. Add in milk, a tablespoon at a time until the icing is the consistency that you like.
Ice rolls in the pan or turn rolls out and ice on a platter.

June 13, 2012

Potato Cinnamon Rolls

Carrie Zinnecker Breads and Muffins, Breakfast cinnamon rolls, Overnight, Pastry Queen, pecans, potato 2 Comments

This recipe has been bookmarked in my Pastry Queen cookbook for a couple years at least. The photo of these always makes me pause and swoon a little whenever I’m flipping through the pages. You’ll have to buy the cookbook to see it. My photo doesn’t come close.

I find it hard to resist the sweet, bready, ciannamony, yeasty goodness of a cinnamon roll. My favorite rolls are at The Upper Crust Bakery in Austin, Texas. They’re a totally different type of cinnamon roll with a crunchy cinnamon sugar coating instead of a gooey frosting. If you’re ever in Austin, you must go get one.

The problem with me and cinnamon rolls is the commitment (and the mess). Make the dough, let it rise, make the filling, roll and fill, cut and place in the pans, rise again, bake, frost or glaze, then enjoy…if you even have the energy at that point. And if you want to make these fresh for breakfast you have to either get up at a ridiculous hour or use some time management skills to get them ready for a morning rise and baking. So much work! But these are well worth the effort. You can even freeze them for later, which does require some work on the front end, but you get yummy cinnamon rolls straight from the oven without having to touch a bit of flour.

For some reason (could have been the 2 lonely potatoes on the counter) I just felt compelled to commit to these last week and am so very glad I did. I baked 2 pans of these rolls and there are 3 more in my freezer that are a mere overnight thaw and hour rise away from being enjoyed. Yes, this recipe makes 5 pans of cinnamon rolls. So make sure you either need to feed a hungry army, give these away as gifts or have room in your freezer and save them for later. Oh, and make sure you have 2 good sized bowls for rising. The recipe says to let the dough rise in one bowl and then divide it in half. Well, I do not have a bowl big enough for that and I don’t know who does…except for maybe my mother-in-law. So I divided the dough in half before rising and still had to use 2 of my biggest bowls.

The pecans are optional. I made one half of the rolls with and the other half without. If I’d really been thinking I would have baked one pan of the with and one pan of the without, but I wasn’t thinking. So all of my rolls with pecans are in the freezer. I am sure they’ll be delicious since most baked goods are better with pecans.

Using mashed potato in these rolls gives them a lighter texture than your normal roll. They don’t taste like potato. They are just slightly sweet, unless you drench them in frosting (like I do). If you bake and don’t eat all the rolls in the same day, cover and refrigerate the rolls. Warm in the microwave for 10-15 seconds to recreate the fresh-from-the-oven flavor. Store for 3-4 days at most in the fridge. They’re just not as good after that.

Jailhouse Potato Cinnamon Rolls

From The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather

Ingredients

Dough

2 medium russet potatoes, peeled, quartered, boiled and mashed
Reserve 3 cups of potato water
1 oz active dry yeast (4 pkgs.)
3/4 cup plus 1 tsp sugar
2 sticks butter, melted and slightly cooled
3 eggs
2 tsp salt
9 cups flour

Filling

4 cups toasted pecans, optional (I used 2 cups and made half with and half without pecans)
4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 sticks butter, melted

Icing

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Grease two 9X13 disposable foil pans (you will probably need more pans, depending on how many rolls you end up with. I used 5).
Wash, peel and quarter the potatoes and boil until fork tender, 10-15 minutes. After boiling the potatoes, set aside 3 cups of the potato water and let cool to 110 degrees using a candy thermometer, or to the temp of hot water coming out of the faucet.
Mash potatoes in a large bowl, set aside. Sprinkle yeast over the water, stir until dissolved, add 1 tsp. sugar. Allow to rest for 5 minutes until foamy.
Whisk the mashed potatoes and 3/4 cup sugar together. Add the melted butter, eggs , salt and potato water and mix until smooth. Switch to a wooden spoon, and add the flour 3 cups at a time, mixing until combined. Mix until all the flour is incorporated.
Place the dough in 2 large greased bowls. Cover with a damp cloth and leave in a warm place until the dough is doubled in size, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Leaving the dough in the bowl, flour your hands and punch it down until it deflates. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. At this point the dough can be refrigerated until the next day. You can proceed from here, but it is easier to handle the dough after it has chilled.
With floured hands, remove one batch of the dough from the bowl onto a well floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll into a 1/4 inch thick rectangle. About 20 X 10. Spread the rectangle with half the butter, then half the brown sugar mix, then half the chopped pecans.
Starting with the long side, carefully roll the dough. Using a very sharp floured serrated knife, cut each roll crosswise in 2 to 3 inch slices. Place the slices, cut side down, in the foil pans spacing about one inch apart so they have room to expand. Make sure the end flap of each roll is set snugly against a side of the pan. Repeat with the other bowl of dough.
At this point the rolls can be tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and a layer of foil and frozen up to 3 weeks. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight or for one hour at room temperature and continue following the directions from this point. Leaving them covered, set the rolls in a warm draft free place and let them rise until they get puffy, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Remove covering and bake the rolls for 20 to 25 minutes or until light brown.
Combine icing ingredients with a whisk and drizzle over warm rolls.

August 2, 2009

Cinnamon Rolls in Durango

Carrie Zinnecker Breads and Muffins, Breakfast Alton Brown, Breakfast, cinnamon rolls 0 Comments

cinnrolls1 These cinnamon rolls began their life in Amarillo, Texas and will see the end of their days in Durango, Colorado. My family,all 13 of us, are spending the week in Durango. My brother-in-law’s family has about 80 acres of land just outside of the city that backs up to National Forest which means that we are completely isolated in peaceful, beautiful, glorious nature…well, I still have internet access and cell phone service. It is incredible out here and I am going to really enjoy the next 7 days of vacation.

My parents, my sister, her husband and my nephew all drove up to Amarillo on Friday evening to stay the night. I decided to make cinnamon rolls for Saturday morning before we left for Durango. I found this recipe for “Overnight Cinnamon Rolls” on the Food Network website, from Alton Brown.

I started the rolls on Friday night. The dough was nice and soft after mixing it up, and so I set it aside to double in size which, according to the recipe, should have taken between 2 and 2 1/2 hours. Not so, Alton! I let the dough sit, covered, in my kitchen for almost 3 hours and it increased a little, but not near double. I was ready to admit defeat and I was prepared to make a trip to Donut Stop on Saturday morning. I decided to keep going with the rolls and see what would happen. Maybe there was still some hope. I rolled out the dough, brushed on some melted butter, sprinkled the cinnamon sugar filling, rolled the dough into a cylinder and cut the rolls into 11 pieces (it should have been 12, but 11 would have to do). I placed the rolls into a 9×13 pan, covered the pan in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for the night.

In the morning, there was no change in the size of the rolls. Ok, so now I was REALLY thinking we’d have store bought donuts for breakfast. But I continued with the recipe, letting the rolls sit in the oven with a tray of boiling water for 30 minutes. No rising occurred in this time either. But I was determined to finish this recipe to the bitter end, so I baked the rolls for 30 minutes…a miracle! They finally spread out, rose nicely, turned a golden brown, filled my house with a warm cinnamon aroma and were practically begging for some cream cheese icing. I spread the icing on the warm rolls, and they were ready to be eaten. We did not finish the pan, so we brought them in the car up to Durango and just finished them off.

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