Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls

Ever since Grandma Newson came to help us out after Alex was born, the kids have been pestering me to make cinnamon rolls. Nedra is great at making lots of different kinds of food, and we all ate wonderfully while she was here, but obviously the cinnamon rolls left the biggest impression on my kids. Still, I never did get her recipe for the dough, and it had been long enough since the last time I had made dough that I wasn't feeling too keen on attempting it, anyway.

So when I ran across a recipe for Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls at the Heavenly Homemaker's blog, it sounded too good to resist. And so I caved. I bought all the ingredients. I felt determined to make them the very next day. And yet I managed, in my reluctant laziness, to put it off for another full week. When our friend Johanna invited us over for dinner, I decided it was finally time to get down to it. And I'm so glad I did! They were delicious. :) And... I was reminded how much I love the smell of yeasty dough. The bonus of making them for a dinner party, though, is being able to share them and feel less tempted to eat them all up myself. And let me tell you, I probably could!

The recipe uses dehydrated cane sugar juice instead of refined white sugar for the filling. And YUM! The texture it creates is just perfect.

After the dough had doubled in size and it was time to punch it down, the kids got so excited. "PUNCH?? We get to PUNCH the dough?!?!?" Yessiree. As soon as I saw Jacob "Ha! Ha-ha!"ing at the kitchen pantry's door, I advised them that they'd better go wash their hands so they could help me with the punching. Boy did they like that idea!

And seeing as how our apartment was a lovely 81 degrees today, the dough had no trouble rising at all. Isn't that a nice bonus for not using your air conditioning? ;)

Here it is, the Cinnamon Roll recipe courtesy of Heavenly Homemakers. But you might want to just go right over to the original post to see all the nifty pictures to make you even more eager to make them yourself!!

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls

1 c. water
2 T. yeast
2 t. honey
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
4 t. sea salt
8 cups whole wheat flour
butter
salt

Ingredients for the “innerds” of your cinnamon rolls:

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup rapadura (dehydrated cane sugar juice) (you can use white sugar if you want)
1/2 T. ground cinnamon

Melt your butter and set it aside. Mix together the rapadura and cinnamon in a bowl.

Ooey-Gooey Frosting

1/4 cup butter
3 T milk
1/2 t. vanilla
1-2 cups powdered sugar to make the consistency you like

Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, milk and powdered sugar. Whisk together until smooth.

Okay, here’s how to make the dough…

In a large bowl, mix 1 cup very warm water, 2 T. yeast and 2 t. honey. Stir this together and kind of mush the yeast around. Let this sit for a few minutes while you do the next step.

Melt a stick of butter in a large saucepan. Add 1/2 cup honey, 4 t. salt and 2 1/2 cups of milk. Heat this to 120 degrees.

Pour milk mixture into yeast mixture and stir. Stir in 8 cups of flour, 2 cups at a time. (add more if you need it)

Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes. Plop it into a bowl, cover it and let it rise for 1-1 1/2 hours.

After dough is nice and fat, punch it down and knead out all it’s bubbles. Cut the dough in half, setting one half aside.

On a well floured surface, roll dough into a nice big rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick.

Use a pastry brush to spread 1/2 of the melted butter all over the rectangle. Sprinkle 1/2 of the rapadura/cinnamon mixture all over the butter.

Roll up the dough.

Cut into thin slices, about 1/2 inch thick.

Place rolls side by side on baking pan.

Repeat process with other 1/2 of dough.

Allow dough to rise about 30 minutes.

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown at 350 degrees.

Allow rolls to cool a bit, then drizzle lots and lots of ooey-gooey frosting all over them.