Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

So I got up a little late one morning. Well, late for me, because I'm used to getting up around 5 or 5:30, so 7:00 was pretty late! Anyway, my son got up soon afterward and I fixed his "warm chocolate milk" he still wants every morning, even at six years old. Then I thought about breakfast, and just wasn't satisfied with our usual toast with fruit or cereal. So I decided to make cinnamon rolls. I looked up the recipe in my trusty Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but it was the time-consuming recipe using yeast and letting the dough rise and such. So I decided just to use a biscuit recipe for the dough. Now this is not just any biscuit recipe; it's only the best one I've discovered. Well, I didn't actually discover it, my sister did, and with a little alteration, it is the ONLY biscuit recipe I've ever used where the biscuits turn out big and fluffy as opposed to dry and hard as rocks. So I thought it would probably work nicely as the dough for cinnamon rolls. Besides, the only cinnamon rolls I'd made in the past were the Pillsbury ones in a can that seemed just like their biscuit dough, so I figured I could do it myself with my own homemade biscuit dough.

Here is the biscuit recipe, and following it is the cinnamon roll recipe.

Best Big Fluffy Biscuits Ever

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/3 cup shortening or butter
1 cup milk

Directions
1.Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

2.In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening or butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.

3.Turn out onto a floured surface, and pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet. (If you place the biscuits on the pan touching, they will bake up even softer!)

4.Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

The alteration my sister made was to not knead the dough after mixing it, because she says it makes the biscuits tough. She also used butter instead of shortening, and put the biscuits on the pan touching.

Now for the cinnamon rolls recipe.

Angela's Easy Cinnamon Rolls
1.Make dough using above recipe.

2.Roll out dough to a 12x8 inch rectangle.

3.Spread cinnamon filling over the dough. (see recipe below)

4.Roll up the dough starting from long side.

5.Seal the seam by pinching dough.

6.Cut the roll into 12 pieces. (Tip: you can use thick thread to cut the roll more easily. Put the thread around the roll, cross it a the top, then pull together quickly. This really works great!)

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

8.Allow the cinnamon rolls to cool for a few minutes, then drizzle on powdered sugar icing. (see recipe below)

Cinnamon Filling: I didn't keep track of how much I was using for the filling, but I would say about 3 or 4 tablespoons of butter, softened, then I added cinnamon and sugar to taste, probably about 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Powdered Sugar Icing
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp milk

Mix the ingredients, adding more milk as needed, until it reaches drizzling consistency.

It might seem like a lot of steps, but it's really very easy, and so worth it! An added little pleasure to making these is that your house will smell so good while their baking!

I'll leave you with this tantalizing close-up: