Cinnamon Rolls!

Ok first off I would just like to say just how easy it is to misspell Cinnamon lol
Alrighty. Ingredients! We shall start with the Yummyness that goes on top :D It is called Confectioner's Frosting :D It has a looooot of Powdered sugar in it, then it is suppose to have half and half but I didn't have any so I improvised :D I used half coffee creamer and half milk :D (Don't judge :P) it also called for Vanilla :D (I love the smell of vanilla extract. So yummy!) Ok and for the actual Rolls. MILK! I got to drink a whole glass for myself as well :D Butter...lots of butter. Some sugar and salt. Then Yeast.............I hate yeast lol. WATER! Warm water to be exact. Very important for the yeast. Eggs. Rooooom temperature. No idea why but thats what it said. Vanilla <3 Flour...lots and lots and loooots of flour :P More Sugar! More Butter! And of course they wouldn't be CINNAMON ROLLS without Cinnamon :P
Alright so my baking adventure started at around 10pm or so :) The VERY FIRST instruction was, and I quote, "In a small sauce pan, SCALD, the milk over medium heat." I stood there for about 5 minutes thinking, "hmmmmm scald...scald...what does that even mean?" then I had an epiphany :D I continued to read :P "(See page 9)"...It is now that I shall encourage anyone who decides to try to do cooking like this...read ALL instructions! You will feel a lot less stupid in the long run <grin>. Ok so scald means to heat the milk to the point RIGHT before boiling. :P Simple as that. They could have just said that but nooooo :P they decided they wanted to make fun of us who are less fabulous with words and squish it into 1 word :P ANYWAY, Then once it is scalded :P add the butter sugar and salt then blend it together. Once it is blended remove it from the heat. Then...the horrible part lol...the yeast...It said while waiting for that other mixture to cool off a bit, (I am paraphrasing :P) in a small bowl sprinkle yeast over WARM water...not hot..not cold...not luke warm...WARM lol. Very important. But take it and stir and bled the water and yeast. At first I was like OH COOL! Yeast! So I stirred and stirred and stirred. Well then I got the bright idea to smell it cause it looked like it would be something that smelled good....WRONG! Wronger then wrong! So after I got done getting my sense of smell back :P I continued. It said to combine the 2 mixtures plus 2 cups of flour. So I did. Thanks to my wonderful mother I had an electric mixer to help me out. Then it got a tad bit more difficult. It told me to ditch the mixer and switch to a big spoon...It was so sad. For about 4 minutes I had it so easy lol. Anyway it said to take that big spoon and slowly stir in more flour until the dough wasn't touching the sides of the bowl anymore...in other words till it looks like bread dough. Then it said to put a towel over the bowl and let stand for 5 minutes. A CLEAN towel. This is important as well :D  THEN take the dough out of the bowl and knead for about 10 minutes...I tell you, 10 minutes of kneading is like lifting weights for 10 minutes lol :P But it said to knead it till it was smooth and like elastic. Then grease a pan really good and put the dough inside the pan...then flip it over and get the dough all greasy then cover the pan with a towel and let sit for 1-1 and a half hours...so I waited...10 minutes passed...then 30...then 50...then and hour...the 1 and a half...but sadly...the yeast didn't appear to be making the dough rise...I was so sad...so I left it sitting there...and another hour past and I kept glancing over at it frowning. But at about 2 hours later to my surprise it ACTUALLY started to rise! I got so excited. Sara was sitting in the living room and I went and was like, "Sara Sara Sara! It is RISING! YAY!" I am pretty positive it was annoying but I did it anyway lol. Anyway from then on it just rose and rose until aout 2 hours from when it actually started to rise it had doubled in size :D That was a pretty cool feeling. Going from thinking I messed up the yeast to it working beautifully :D So by that time I had decided ok this is going to have to wait till a few hours later because it was already 4AM! So I went to bed for a VERY short time and got up at around 6:30 and opened the cookbook and got started again. The next instruction was "Release all your anger that you built up last night starting this recipe out on the dough and punch it"…ok so maybe I am paraphrasing again. <grin> So it really said to "punch the dough down and knead it a little more" :D So I did as it directed. Then I was to cut the dough in half and roll the dough out in rectangle shapes…it was about this time that I remembered a small conversation I had with Sara the night before…
(Fades into yesterdays conversation with magical music) :D Sara was on the phone talking to Clint (My brother in law :D) and they were talking about Clint being a follower of my blog and how that gave him the right to be a taste tester of my Cinnamon rolls :) somehow that lead to the statement, "Uh oh! Amy you don't have a rolling pin…" To which I responded, "I have a tree outside I will just go out and rip a branch off and use that." Clint and Sara both laughed but were not to fond of the idea of "barky" cinnamon rolls. And so the conversation ended with no solution to the problem…(Fades back to the future *cue music from the movie*) Ok now it is just getting silly lol.
On a more serious not :) I was standing there with 2 balls of dough that needed to be rolled out and I was without a rolling pin. So I was looking around my kitchen thinking, "hmmmm what to use…what to use." Then something caught my eye. I found a glass bottle that was of ample size and shape for me to use as a rolling pin. I was so excited. I had no rolling pin but I had a bottle! Yay! So I successfully rolled out both balls of dough perfectly. Then I took some melted butter and coated 1 side of the dough with a thin layer of butter. Then I mixed ¾ cup of sugar and a table spoon of cinnamon and sprinkled the mixture on both of the rectangles and rolled them up in "Jelly Roll" fashion :D Then I decided to try my hand at a trick my mom taught me a long time ago. I took a piece of string and used it to cut the rolls into pieces :D It was pretty wonderful :) It turned out amazing :) It made 24 wonderfully PERFECT pieces in 1 pan :) So I put them in the oven for 20 minutes and they came out beautiful :)
Ah yes I almost forgot. The "yummyness sauce" for the top! Yes…that is what I decided to call it :) It took a buuuunch of powdered sugar, like I said earlier. Then I put milk, vanilla and some creamer and mixed it all up (with my wonderful electric hand mixer) till it was all wonderful and smooth and PRESTO! You have the "yummyness sauce"…and when I say yummyness…I mean YUMMYNESS! It was so hard not to just try eating the sauce while waiting for the rolls to get done. I assure you Sara can attest to that :)
So after the rolls had gotten out of the oven and cooled to where there were just warm…I drowned them in the "yummyness sauce" and let is melt into the little crevices and such and then let the topping kinda crystallize a bit but then I cut them apart and ate one and it was at that moment :) alllllll the frustration and heart ache that the yeast gave me the night before were gone :) It all became worth it. It was a warm yummy sweet cinnamony cinnamon roll that I made and I was soooo proud :D It was really good! It was hard to make but so worth the time. I definitely won't be making them very often that is for sure but not because they weren't good :) Just because of the effort it took to make them :)
Now for my rating…I give it a perfect 6! Like I mentioned in my previous post I am going by a 1-5 (and occasional 6) scale. The 6…yeah that is "FANTABULOUS!" :D
My next dish shall be a bit scary for me cause I am not sure how it shall work but stay tuned for the next round :)

Fresh out of the oven :)

Finished product! :D The sauce hadn't seeped down all the way yet :P

Happy Eating!