To me, nothing says, "I Love You," like sharing food. And, around the holidays, that's just what I like to do to say "thanks" for all the people that love on our family all year long. One of my favorite foods to give are these cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing. I modified my dough and filling recipe from the Pioneer Woman's sweet roll recipe. They are SO delicious and they freeze like a dream. Although they are a bit of a labor of love to prep, they are definitely worth it. Each batch will make around 40 rolls or so, depending on how you cut them. My mom and I doubled the batch yesterday. They turned out great, but it was a good reminder to me that I needed some more mixing bowls. I put them 12 to a pan (in disposable pans), but you can also buy small, round or square pans and put in 6-8. Just as a heads up, 6 go well in an 8x8 pan, and 12 go well in a 9x13 pan.
Listen, you do you and put on whatever kind of icing you want. I like cream cheese. The Pioneer Woman likes maple. I need to try out caramel, because I LOVE caramel rolls. Without further ado...
RECIPE
Dough and Filling
4 cups whole milk
1 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
2 packages active dry yeast
9 cups all purpose flour
1 rounded tsp baking powder
1 scant teaspoon baking soda
1 TBSP salt
4 1/2 sticks butter, melted
2 cups sugar
Ground cinnamon
Cream Cheese Icing
4 oz cream cheese, softened
14 TBSP butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 TBSP whole milk
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Warm milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a measuring cup in the microwave to about 110-115 degrees. I heat the mixture 1 minute at a time and keep a check on the temperature with my Thermapen (PS - they are on sale right now for $20 off - BUY ONE). Once the mixture gets to temperature, sprinkle the yeast on top and let set for 1 minute. Transfer contents to a glass mixing bowl and add 8 cups of flour. Stir until combined, cover with a clean tea towel, and set in a warm place for 1 hour. If you have a proofing setting on your oven, that works great.
Mix remaining cup of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Stir into the flour and yeast mixture until well combined. Refrigerate the dough in a large, glass mixing bowl (covered with plastic wrap) for approximately 1 hour or up to 3 days, depending on when you plan to use the dough. You may need to punch down the dough if it rises to the top of the bowl (you will definitely need to punch it down if you don't plan to use it that day).
Preheat oven to 375.
Remove half the dough from the bowl. Flour your counter, lay out the dough, and add flour if it's sticky in places. Roll the dough out to approximately 12 inches wide by 30 inches long.
Melt 2 sticks of butter in a glass measuring cup or bowl. I use a ladle to pour butter all over dough. Add 1 cups of sugar across dough. sprinkle ground cinnamon to taste across the dough. I tend to be pretty generous with it (as pictured). Filling will run out and this will make a huge mess. Just roll with it.
To roll the dough, start with the long end on the left and roll it tightly to the right. Pinch the seam when it touches. I then use a pastry cutter/scraper to cut it into 1 to 1.25 inch rolls. Each half of the dough will make 20-24 rolls.
Put about 1 TBSP of melted butter (from the 1/2 stick) in the bottom of each pan. Then transfer the rolls to the pans. Be careful to leave them plenty of room (12 rolls in a 9x13 pan or 6 rolls in an 8x8 pan). If a bunch of filling leaks out, you can use the pastry scraper to scrape some up and pour along the top. I promise it will still be delicious. Let the dough rise on the counter or stove top for at least 20 minutes.
Repeat this same procedure with the second half of the dough.
Once rolls have risen, put them in the oven. Cook approximately 6 minutes, and then flip pans and cook another 7-8 minutes until done (but not overdone).
As the rolls bake, put together the cream cheese icing. Mix the ingredients in a stand mixer until well incorporated.
When rolls come out of the oven, ice them pretty quickly. The rolls may absorb some, and that's ok. They will be so good, and your house will smell divine. You can either serve these delicious rolls right away, OR you can let them cool, cover with cling wrap and tinfoil and stick them in the freezer. They freeze really well. I've been freezing these cinnamon rolls for about 3 years now and then pulling them out for gifts and holidays.
I usually write baking instructions on the foil, so if I give them away, reheating the rolls is easy. To REHEAT, preheat oven to 250 degrees. Put frozen rolls directly in the oven for 20-30 minutes until warmed through. I'm not going to tell you to enjoy these, because I know you will.
Variation
My mom has a friend that is allergic to cinnamon, so she makes these with blueberries instead. The dough and butter for the filling are exactly the same. she uses about 1 1/2 cups of fresh blueberries for half the dough (mixed with 1/2 cup of the sugar).
She rolls them and cooks them just the same, and then frosted them with the same cream cheese frosting. They are so delicious and give a different spin to this great recipe.
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