Cinnamon Rolls

The new year has arrived, or rather, the new decade and here, in Alida’s Food, I keep bringing you many tasty recipes!

I spent almost the whole month of December traveling through the cold countries of northern Europe and brought with me many ideas for tasty food, new recipes I want to try out, and many delicacies that I hope will be part of my daily recipes during 2020.

And nothing better than starting the year with some beautiful cinnamon rolls, made from scratch in the comfort of your home.

The dough is very fluffy, the filling is sweet and cinnamon-flavored, and when fresh out of the oven… they are a temptation! They are also quite dry and therefore not cloying at all.

In Portugal, there is not much tradition of eating cinnamon rolls.  I was also never a big fan of them because the only ones I knew of were the famous IKEA cinnamon rolls, which you buy and then just put in the oven.

But recently and with my several trips through the Nordic countries, I got to know the real cinnamon rolls – the real deal!

So I decided to look up several recipes for these delicious cakes to make them from scratch. I saw and reviewed recipes, gathered several tips, and came up with this wonderful recipe!

 

To discover a tasty recipe with cinnamon, check out this Ginger Cookies recipe.

 

 

Let’s check the recipe?

CINNAMON ROLLS RECIPE (APROX. 22 SERVINGS):

INGREDIENTS:

FOR THE DOUGH:

• 4 cups oat flour
• 70 gr butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 sachet of dry Baker’s yeast
• 1 cup lukewarm milk
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 eggs

FOR THE FILLING:

• Butter to taste
• 3 to 4 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 cup brown sugar

FOR THE ICING:

• 1 tbsp cream cheese
• 1 to 2 tbsp milk
• 1 cup golden yellow sugar (or you can use icing sugar)
• 1 pinch of salt

 

PREPARATION METHOD:

FOR THE CINNAMON ROLLS DOUGH:

1. Start by preparing the yeast mixture. Heat the milk in the microwave for about 30 sec.
2. Pour the warm milk into a bowl and add the dry Baker’s yeast. Mix it well with a whisk and let the yeast activate for 10 min. Set it aside.
3. In a large bowl add the flour and sugar and mix well.
4. Add butter, eggs, and salt and mix them well.
5. Knead the dough until it forms a uniform mixture. Continue to knead until it is smooth and malleable.
6. Form a ball and place it in a bowl. Use a little of the butter to grease the dough.
7. Cover the cinnamon rolls dough with a damp cloth and let it rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until it doubles in size.
8. After the dough has risen, flour a flat surface and place the dough on it.
9. With the help of a rolling pin, roll out the dough so that it makes a rectangle about 1 cm thick.

FOR THE CINNAMON ROLLS FILLING:

1. Start by spreading the butter over the dough that is on the flat surface (already spread), as if you were spreading the butter on bread.
2. In a bowl, place the brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix them well until the sugar and cinnamon form a uniform, granular mixture.
3. Spread the sugar and cinnamon mixture over the cinnamon rolls. Next, use the rolling pin to ensure that the granulated mixture is spread evenly and it sticks well to the dough.
4. Roll up the dough so that it resembles a kind of giant roll.
5. Once rolled up, cut the giant roll into smaller rolls of about 3 cm each.
6. Place the rolls on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Make sure there is some space between the rolls because they will grow.
7. Place a damp cloth over them and let them rise for another 30 minutes before putting them in the oven.
8. Remove the cloth and bake them for about 20-25 min.
9. Once they are cooked, remove the cinnamon rolls from the oven and let them cool for at least 10 min.

FOR THE CINNAMON ROLLS ICING:

1. In a small saucepan add the cream cheese and milk and bring it to medium heat, mixing them well.
2. When the mixture starts to get hot, add the golden yellow sugar, whisking it to ensure there are no lumps.
3. Add a pinch of salt, just to balance the flavors.
4. Add the icing on top of the cinnamon rolls or place it on a tiny bowl, so that each person can serve themselves individually.

Suggestion: You can replace some ingredients if you want to bake a healthier version. For example, you can use coconut oil instead of butter: coconut sugar instead of golden yellow sugar; spelt flour or whole wheat, a mix of both, or flour you prefer. Just pay attention that there are some flours for which you’ll have to adjust the quantities.

If you have a kitchen robot, you can use it to complete the entire cinnamon rolls dough cooking part. You just have to choose the option and set it to the option “blender” or “vel 2 with inverse rotation” if you want to mix, and the option “kneading”, when you want to knead the dough.

Regarding the icing, you can make the one you enjoy the most. This one with cream cheese is just a suggestion, but it tastes so good! Yuuum