cinnamon buns

Noah bought me the Pioneer Woman’s cookbook a few years back and as much as I’ve been loving the other recipes, the one for cinnamon rolls is my favourite and most-used one. I’ve been asked for the recipe numerous times, so I figured I’d post about it.

I’ll admit a few things bother me about the book, like that I’m constantly having to convert measurements into Canadian and the instructions include a photo for every step instead of just a plain list of text instructions (her online recipe lists the instructions in plain text after all the photos, but the book recipe doesn’t), but the recipes are hard to beat. They’re all delicious. All of them. Every one. That’s not common for a cookbook.

Anyway. Cinnamon buns. I tweaked her recipe a little bit. I’m not going to list all the ingredients because I don’t want to do that plagiarism thing (and that link up there leads right to the recipe), but I’ll tell you what I changed. They’re minor changes, but they make a big difference.

I use the dough after it’s been chilled overnight. This makes it a bit harder to roll out, but the butter sticks to the dough much better, therefore making less of a mess. Easier clean-up! And more butter stays in the cinnamon buns, therefore making them tastier.

I use brown sugar instead of white (because brown sugar tastes better than white). I usually add a bit more of each ingredient, but we only had exact recipe amounts left.

I make them bigger. The original recipe says that half the dough will make 20 to 25 rolls, but I make just over a dozen. Because that way they’re bigger and fatter. There are fewer, yes, but quality over quantity or something like that.

Being bigger, they also have to be baked longer in a bigger pan. I use glass casserole dishes instead of pie plates. And rather than the 13-17 minutes the original recipe calls for, they need to be baked for 20-25 minutes, or until the ones in the middle turn light brown.

Now, enjoy. Or share. I brought some to work the yesterday because I felt bad posting photos of them without sharing them. They’re a perfect way to start a Saturday.