Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

Lately, I've been turning my attention towards dough making! I want to learn how to make more bread and pastries, and being able to master the dough is crucial. The bread of any pastry can make or break it. I found a cinnamon roll recipe from silk.com, which this recipe is based upon. I did change a few things from the original recipe, by replacing the butter with shortening and water, and lowering the amount of white sugar. Also, the portions here are much smaller because I made mini cinnamon rolls. They might not look very small in the photo, but they're literally bite-sized! In the past 2 weeks, I've made 5 batches of cinnamon rolls. These turned out super moist and tasty!

Serving Size: 12 mini cinnamon rolls

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 12 min

Total Time: 2-2.5 hours

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vanilla almond milk
• 2 tbsp shortening
• .75 tsp water
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1.5 tbsp white ultra fine sugar
• .75 tsp active dry yeast
• .125 tsp baking powder
• .125 tsp baking soda
• .125 tsp salt
• cinnamon
• brown sugar
• confectioner's sugar (optional, for the icing)
• milk (optional, for the icing)

Directions:

1. Microwave shortening, water, and almond milk for 1:30 minutes.
2. While it is microwaving, combine flour, sugar, and yeast in a medium sized mixing bowl. 
3. Once the wet ingredients are heated, slowly pour it in the dry ingredients while stirring.
4. Mix the ingredients until it forms a circular dough.
5. Knead for 8 minutes.
6. Grease the bowl and cover. Wait an hour to let it rise.
7. Add baking soda, baking powder, and salt to the mixture and mix well.
8. Roll out the dough in a rectangular shape and rub shortening, cinnamon, and brown sugar on top of it.
9. Roll dough to a cigar shape.
10. Cut into pieces with a knife or pastry cutter. (For mini cinnamon rolls, cut into 12 mini pieces.)
11. Let the rolls rise for 30 minutes.
12. Bake for 300F for 12 minutes. 
13. To prepare the (optional) icing glaze, combine confectioner's sugar and milk until it forms a thick liquid paste. Pour over the rolls.

Done!

Tips & Tricks:

• Make sure the shortening, water, and milk mixture isn't too hot! 
• Slowly pour the wet to the dry ingredients. If it's too hot and you pour it all at once, it will start to curdle and will take more time to form your dough.
• If it's hard to cut the rolls, freeze the rolled dough for 30 minutes before trying again.
• Also, it's much easier to cut the rolls if there are more layers within the cinnamon rolls.