Arkansas Vs. Mississippi State
It's morning again on a Saturday, and that must mean the Razorbacks are about to play a football game in the least coveted spot on the TV schedule. Let's win this one and pig out in the process!
All the glory for this recipe goes to a friend of mine who wishes to remain nameless because she adapted her recipe from the Pioneer Woman. For your crime of adapting another cook's recipe, Mrs. C, I hereby sentence you to give me all your other adapted recipes because they are AWESOME. Mrs. C has one of the most interesting and detailed food blogs I have ever seen, and is truly an artist. I would not be shocked to see her on the Food Network some day.
I first tried this recipe last Christmas and it was incredible, though I am pretty sure I made it wrong. Last year I misunderstood the recipe and put in half the amount of sugar in the dough. This year, I caught my mistake and put the other half in the spongy dough starter after it was made.
The really interesting and unique thing about the recipe is that you make the sticky dough in a dutch oven and let it rise there with the lid on. That just appeals to the campfire side of me. If you can't make it in cast-iron cookery then it is probably crap.
Originally, the Pioneer Woman did this with a maple glaze. I plan to try that next time around as I am a big fan of the maple. This time, however, I honor Mrs. C with her coffee-spiked topping, and look forward to watching my kids ping off the walls for an hour or so.
WARNING -- start softening butter and cream cheese now, a couple of hours before you do this. See, this kind of stuff is what always gets me. Recipes are not linear. You have to read them through and takes notes because the first step is generally the sixteenth step and, being the kind of guy who rips the package open on tings and never reads the instructions, I need help with this kind of thing.
Mrs. C's Buttery Cinnamon Rolls
1 pint whole milk (that's two cups for you greenhorns)1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 package active dry yeast
4 cups (plus 1./2 cup extra) all-purpose flour
1/2 HEAPING teaspoon baking power ( missed the heaping part this time, thus the emphasis)
1/2 SCANT teaspoon baking soda (ditto)
1/2 HEAPING tablespoon salt
Plenty of melted butter -- (nearly 1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon of cinnamon for sprinkle
Coffee-Cream-Cheese Frosting
1/2 bag powdered sugar (this is kind of inprecise. I had a "box"")1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons whole milk (warmed up with 1 tablespoon espresso or French roast powder mixed in)
1/2 stick softened butter
1 8 -oz. package softened cream cheese
1/8 teaspoon salt
In a large stew pot or a Razorback-colored cast-iron enamel dutch oven made by Lodge, (it holds in warmth and promotes the cause) heat up the milk, vegetable oil and sugar, until warm. Just dip a finger in to check -- it should be quite warm but not hot. I like "quite warm," by the way. It's very British. Quite so.
Turn off the heat, take pot off the burner and sprinkle in the package of yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add 4 cups of flour. Stir the mixture together. Cover and let rise for at least an hour on the burner that is TURNED OFF NOW.
After rising the sticky dough for at least an hour, add 1/2 cup extra flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stire the mixture together.
Sprinkle your rolling surface generously with flour. Stretch the dough to form a rough rectangle. Not a square. Go for something longer on line side by a ratio of like 3 to 2 or so. Roll the dough thin -- I never do this thinly enough! If you don't get it thin, it is harder to roll this thing up into a neat roll.
Melt the butter. The recipe calls for 1/4 to 1/2 cup and I was closer to the larger number. Spread the butter across the dough then sprinkle it with a mixture of the sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling. Sprinkle the mix evenly over the butter.
Now, from the SHORT end of the dough, roll this thing over as tightly as possible. If you rolled it too thick or put too much butter on, it will be hard to get it to make a perfect tube and it your roll will kind of become oval. Welcome to my world of imperfection.
When it is entirely rolled up, pinch the seam to seal it. Yeah, I didn't do that either. Oops.
Okay, now take a talespoon of butter and spread it in a 9x13 or so baking dish., then begin cutting the rolls approximately 3/4-to-1-inch thick and laying them in the pan. If it seems like your rolls are squashed together use a second pan. I overcrowded my pan. What a shame -- it was delicious anyway.
Cover in plastic and let the rolls rise in the refrigerator overnight (or, you can just rise them for an hour on the countertop.) Bake at 375F until golden brown, about 16 to 24 minutes. Larger rolls will need more time.
For the frosting, mix together all the ingredients with a mixer. If you impatiently tried to use the cream cheese and butter without properly warming them, and then you used the warm feature on the microwave, and you had lumps in the mixture, then had to overprocess it to get them out, meaning that you never really got the frosting to set up, well then shame on you because that's what I did, even though decades of experience have taught me better.
If your frosting is too thick to mix, add more milk gradually. Generously spoon this over the rolls while warm, allowing it to melt (yeah right -- mine was permanently in melt mode) into the crevices (I like to say crevass because it reminds me of Chekov).
Now eat it!
For various reasons totally within my control I had this sort of frosting emulsion, and because it completely obliterated the top of the cinnamon rolls, I served them upside down so you could see the cinnamon swirls. It was incredible, and my thanks go out again to Mrs. C!
No comments:
Post a Comment