Shortcut to happiness (or, a cinnamon roll recipe)

Last weekend I made a batch of cinnamon rolls so sinfully delicious it ought to send any Catholic straight to confession. Not being Catholic, I found redemption in sharing it stuffing it down the throats of any and all who came by over the following days and once they got over the shock of me doing that, they all went mmmmmmmmh, yummy.  So I thought I'd share it with you.  Or, at least, point you to the original recipe, which can be found by clicking HERE.  I halved the recipe and there's a brief recap of it further down on this page, but go read the original. It has ramblings aplenty, and that's always worth a detour.

In Denmark, cinnamon rolls are often quite a depressing experience, with far too much dough and nowhere near enough icing. These are quite the opposite and your fingers will get sticky. You have been warned.

What else have I been up to?  ....hmmm. I've been exorcising Moaning Myrtle and am progressing nicely. I've taken up yoga again and thrown in aqua yoga as well, and that is really good. I've started having regular massages and lemme tell ya, it is the most awesome thing to throw money at. I've been to the cinema, visiting friends, and looking at train time tables. Oh yes, and working. My holiday ended 3 weeks ago, and it seems like a small eternity already.

Yesterday was a really nice day.  First I went with a friend to an old state prison which is now open to the public (the prisoners have moved elsewhere, save for this one guy who has been gainfully employed there since his release).  We started out with a sandwich at the café and intended to go all in with cakes etc for dessert when suddenly a herd of children descended upon the place and instantly turned us into grumpy little ladies, so we hastily departed to the ticket office and thus saved ourselves a considerable calorie intake (I'm now baking bread to compensate for that)

After our tour behind bars, which was quite interesting, I drove halfway across the country -which, this being Denmark, only took an hour and a half - and met up with a guy who helped me out with some tricky bookings a while back and was now due for repayment in the form of beer and grub and sparkling conversation. We had a really great time and I have now added one more destination to my list of places-I-want-to-go. Win-win, all round.

Anyways, the cinnamon rolls....

The recipe, as I made it:  You start by heating 

2 cups of milk (for Danish readers: that's about 5 deciliters and please, use whole milk, because that is just soooo much better all round)
½ cup vegetable oil (DK: 1.25 deciliters)
½ cup sugar (DK: 100 gram)

Heat it up, but don't let it boil. And then let it cool to lukewarm.

Sprinkle 2-3 teaspoons dry yeast on top, and let it sit for a minute. 

Add 4 cups flour (DK: 500 gram), stir it all together, and let the dough rise for an hour.

Go and read a book.

After an hour, stir the following into the dough:

1 more cup of flour (DK: 125 gram)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
...maybe a tiny bit more flour...


And then, on a floured surface which isn't too difficult to clean afterwards, roll the dough into a large rectangle. The book said 30x10 inches, and I have no idea what that is in metrics, or at all really, so I just rolled it out until it was fairly thin and looked like it would roll up nicely without falling apart.

Now we come to a delightful bit: 

Melt 1 cup butter (in Denmark, a standard pack of butter is 250g which is a bit more, but I just melted the whole pack because butter)

And pour most of it over the dough and spread it lovingly with your fingers so everything is covered in butter.  (You'll want to keep aside some of the butter for greasing the pans, and around 3 tablespoons for the icing)

It's a very nice feeling...

Mmmmmmmh, BUTTER

Then you sprinkle the dough with sugar and cinnamon. The recipe (halved) says 1 cup sugar + a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon, but just do what you like here I think.

And then you roll up the dough fairly tightly, cut it into slices, and put the slices in a greased baking tray. Leave them to rise for 20 minutes, and if you forget and they rise for 35 minutes then no harm done.

Fortunately, this seems to be a very forgiving recipe.

And then you bake them at 190 degrees C (which google reliably informs me is the same as 375 degrees F) for 15 minutes, +/-, until they are golden brown and smell delicious.

15 minutes, incidentally, is also enough time to make the icing, which you pour over the rolls while they are still hot.

The recipe (still, halved), calls for 1 pound powdered sugar (which I start by sieving because otherwise I never get rid of the lumps), 2-3 tablespoons milk, 3 tablespoons melted butter, 3 tablespoons coffee, and a tiny bit of salt and a teaspoon of maple flavouring.

I freestyled this a bit, but as long as you have a deliciously thick, pourable icing that tastes good, I think you are good to go.  Maple flavouring isn't something you easily come by in Denmark (I have some that I bought in the US and I make a point of not looking at the sell-by date), but more coffee or perhaps vanilla flavouring works well.

When the cinnamon rolls look like this, they are ready to come out of the oven and be drenched in icing.  Leave them for a couple of hours (hah) and either eat with a spoon or have plenty of tissue on hand for your greasy fingers.