Cinnamon Rolls (Fourth of july Recipes)

[bholus10]

Step 10:

As you can see, my oven is the warm place. Just turn your oven on about 250 for a bit, and set your bowl on top - especially if it's ceramic. The ceramic holds heat nicely, but doesn't get too hot. Let the dough rise until doubled, about two hours. It'll start looking like this:

[bholus10]

Step 11:

Roll the dough out with a floured rolling pin (or wine bottle, whatever) until it's a big rectangle. The official measurements are 16" x 21", but I hate rulers, so I just eyeball it.

[bholus10]

Step 12:

After you've got that nice and rolled out, you want to put the filling in. Take your ****er for the filling, and melt it. Once it's melted, use a pastry brush and brush it over the entire surface of the dough. Then, take your cinnamon and brown sugar, mix them and break up the brown sugar clumps, and sprinkle that evenly over the dough. Leave about 1/2" of one of the long sides filling-free, because that will be the end of your roll, and then it will stick better to the other dough.

My dough here has some extra brown sugar sprinkled on it, simply because I thought it needed more. Also, with respect to cinnamon, if you can get it, get the Vietnamese cinnamon. Much more potent than your average grocery store cinnamon.

[bholus10]

Step 13:

Then it's time to roll. Start at a long edge, and roll up, like so:

[bholus10]

Step 14:

You'll end up with a log of dough. It's okay if the ends aren't exactly even - you can press them in a bit to even them out. Then you need to cut the log into 12 rolls. I use thread, because a knife squishes your dough, and we don't want that. To use a thread (or unwaxed, unflavored floss, whatever), just cut off about a 10" length of thread. Then slide the thread underneath your dough to where you want to make the cut. Bring the ends up and pull them towards each other, like you're about to tie a bow with them. Then just keep pulling until you've cut through the dough.

Cutting in progress:

Cut the log in half, then each half in half, and then those into thirds, and you'll have evenly-sized rolls.