YUM! Cinnamon Rolls!

Tonight, my great friend Shauna was gracious enough to teach the art of making cinnamon rolls to our ward Relief Society. I typed up her recipe and included all my "Cinnamon Rolls For Dummies" notes that will help me be able to actually USE the recipe!!! Here it is! I've invited Shauna to author here, but she's going to need a lesson or 2 on blogging. I told her I would teach her about computers and she could continue to teach me bread making. We are going to have a monthly bread class and I will share all that I learn there here, too! Thanks Shauna!

Shauna Colvin’s Cinnamon Rolls!

BOSCH or Kitchen Aid Recipe (Heat oven to 400°)

2 cup warm water (about 100°)

3 large eggs

2/3 cup shortening (Crisco is the preferred brand)

2/3 cup sugar

2 tsp. salt

6-7 cups unbleached flour (Sometimes Shauna uses a small amount of wheat flour in place of some of the white flour.)

3 Tbsp. instant yeast (SAF brand)

(If using a hand mixer, mix all wet ingredients together in one bowl, all dry ingredients together in another, then combine them. Knead by hand.)

Add the above ingredients to your mixer in the order listed above using 6 of the 7 cups flour initially. Mix, adding up to 1 cup more flour a little at a time IF NEEDED to reach correct consistency. Once correct consistency is reached, allow mixer to knead dough for 5-7 minutes. Roll out onto floured surface to about ½ inch thickness. (NO NEED TO RISE PUNCH DOWN, ETC.!) Shauna rolled her dough into a circle, not a rectangle which worked great and was A LOT EASIER!!! Spread with softened butter over entire surface. Cover with 1 cup brown sugar (Shauna used just under a cup, so she put it on thicker than I would have thought). Then sprinkle with Cinnamon! (Surprise ingredient, right???) (I didn’t catch any measurements for the cinnamon, but you could SEE where she had and hadn’t been over the brown sugar!) Roll the dough into a big long roll. Cut into about 1 1/2 inch sections. Arrange cinnamon rolls onto a greased jelly roll pan or cake pan so that they are touching each other, but NOT squished! (If there wasn’t room for another roll without squishing, Shauna started the next row!) Let rise on the counter for 15 minutes. Bake for about 25 minutes (ovens vary so check it at 20 and gauge accordingly!) or until nicely browned on top. Take out of oven and dump entire pan upside down onto a cooling rack. Let cool for 10-15 minutes. Flip them back upright onto a tray or clean pan to frost.

Frosting

2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup softened (but not melted!) butter

1 tsp. vanilla

Enough milk to reach desired consistency, Add just a little at a time!

For cream cheese frosting add 1/2 pkg. cream cheese before adding the milk.

(I added SALT to the cream cheese frosting cuz Charlie says that’s the secret to good frosting!)

ENJOY!!!!

Odds and Ends We Learned

You want your hot water to be hot enough to activate the yeast, but NOT kill it.

One pkg. yeast = 1 TBSP yeast

When a recipe calls for an egg, it usually means a LARGE egg unless specified. 1 large egg= 1/4 cup of egg.

We had a lengthy discussion about raising chickens, too! Shauna raises Rhode Island Reds as layers.

Yeast should be kept refrigerated once opened and stores well long term in the freezer. Unopened pkgs. of SAF can be kept on the shelf, but would be even better off in the freezer. Macey’s currently has SAF yeast on sale for $2.99.