Sixty Minute Rolls and Cinnamon Buns

 You have seen the roll recipe before which I put in The Country Wife Cookbook for our children (yes, I am still working on that sporadically so that one day I can publish it for everyone), but here is the recipe again, just in case not:

SIXTY MINUTE ROLLS

4-5 cups flour

2 packages (scant 2 Tablespoons) dry yeast

4 Tablespoons sugar

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup butter or margarine

Combine 3 1/2 cups flour, sugar, salt and un-dissolved yeast in bowl of mixer.
Attach bowl and dough hook and mix for one minute.
Combine milk, water and butter in a saucepan and heat over low heat until very
warm-120-130 degrees-but no hotter. Butter need not melt. Turn mixer on to medium
speed and slowly add the liquid to the flour mixture, taking about 30 seconds. Mix one
minute longer.
Add remaining flour as needed for dough and knead 5-7 minutes until dough is
smooth and elastic.

Place in greased bowl and cover. Place in a sink full of warm water. Let rise 15 minutes.
Turn dough out onto floured surface and shape as desired and place in greased pans.
Cover and let rise again for 15 minutes or until doubled in bulk. Bake in 425 oven for 12 minutes.
 Remove from tins and cool on wire racks.

This is the recipe from the Kitchenaid mixer ancient cookbook. I increased the sugar from
3 Tablespoons to 4 Tablespoons and sometimes add even more.

To make rolls without a heavy-duty mixer, put water, yeast and 1 teaspoon of the sugar
in a bowl and stir well and allow the yeast to rise a little. Mix the yeast and the milk/butter
mixture together and pour into a well in the flour mixture and stir all together until smooth
then beat in the remaining flour. When most of the flour is incorporated put the remaining flour
on the clean counter (I mention the clean counter because my young children will see these 
instructions and I want it clearly  in mind that we wash off the counter BEFORE putting the 
dough onto said counter! Clean hands are also critically important to healthy cooking.) and
knead until smooth and elastic about 5-7 minutes.
When you can't knead any more, look at the clock and knead two more minutes.
 Then proceed with the above recipe as directed.

Yields 2 dozen rolls, depending on the size you shape them.

Sixty Minute Rolls in the foreground, in the King Arthur Flour hamburger bun pan, with the ones baked in the non-stick muffin top tin on top.

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Yesterday I was up at the crack of dawn, well, before the crack of dawn because I could not sleep...and decided to make Sixty Minute Rolls and use half the dough for cinnamon buns.  I have done this before but not always successfully.  Now that we live in SUCH A WARM CLIMATE the dough has NO PROBLEM rising, which has been a problem in our cold Vermont kitchen in the past.

To make the cinnamon buns, first I rolled out the dough and cut 12 3" rolls out and put six of them in our hamburger bun pan we bought at King Arthur Flour years ago, and 6 into the non-stick muffin top tin we bought this year.  The rest of the dough I pushed together, rolled out into a rectangle probably 10 inches by 12 or 14 inches.

With some soft butter still in the wrapper, I spread a small amount of butter over the whole face of the dough.  At this point I got out the brown sugar and sprinkled on between 1/2 to 1 cup of brown sugar, covering the dough.  Probably not 1 cup but a VERY HEAVY half cup of brown sugar.  Now for the cinnamon component!  I sprinkled on a LOT of cinnamon over the brown sugar then rolled up the dough tightly from the long side.

With a sharp knife I cut the dough in half then cut each half into 6 thick slices (say that fast six time!!!).  The slices were at least 1 inch thick, probably a little more.  I placed them on a parchment-lined half-sheet pan and let them rise for 15-30 minutes...more towards the 30 minutes because I baked them after baking the plain rolls which were about cooked at 12 minutes then cooked three more minutes but I did not feel the cinnamon buns had risen enough.

Bake the cinnamon buns in a 400 degree F oven that is well preheated,  Start checking the buns after baking 12 minutes.  I found that our oven took about 15 minutes.

Place on a wire baking rack and let cool completely.

When completely cool, frost with a delicious frosting that has no redeeming value except that it tastes really good.  If you are impatient and frost while the buns are warm, the icing will drip right off and be wasted.  Well, sort of wasted but not quite. You CAN use your finger or a spoon to scrape up the frosting and eat it that way BUT that defeats the purpose of having frosting on your buns.  At that point it will only be a glaze on the buns...

Frosting for Cinnamon Buns

1 1/2 -2 cups confectioner's sugar

2 Tablespoons or more very soft butter...don't use anything but real butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract...I used Mexican vanilla

1 tablespoon or more milk

In a good-sized bowl place your confectioners sugar.  I did not really measure but guesstimate what the amount was.  With a long-handled spoon stir in the butter. It won't really mix in very well but do the best you can.  Stir in the vanilla and 1 tablespoon of milk.  Stir very well.  If it is really sludgy and not spreadable, add more milk or water a teaspoon or so at a time until you can spread it.

Spread it on the completely cooled buns and pass them around.  You will get nothing but smiles in return.

You will notice the is no icing on these buns.  I did not get a photo of them immediately after icing them.  Now it is WAY TOO LATE...though I might make them again some day.  Depends on how much Dear One begs for something sweet...!