This is my friend Rachel’s recipe and I have to say these are the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had! They are the perfect combination of cinnamon and brown sugar, I’m sure you could add raisins if you felt the need, but I have never felt that.

I will warn you these will take a little bit of time, but they are absolutely worth the effort.

Some helpful tips for making these:

use fast-rising yeast.
take your time, these need time to rise and you can’t rush them.
make sure your house is warm, so make these on a colder day when the furnace is running.
use room temperature ingredients, if your ingredients are too cold it will make your yeast rise slower.
flour your workstation and rolling pin.
roll it tightly.
give them some space in the pan.
don’t overbake.

Ingredients

For Dough
3/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (use the fast-acting kind)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk at room temperature
1 egg
1/3 cup canola oil
4 cups flour
For Filing
1/2 cup soft butter
1 1/4 packed brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Directions

Dough: In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, pour water, yeast, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. Stir this for about 5 min, until it looks bubbly and frothy, then pour in the remaining sugar and the salt. Mix this for about 20 seconds.

In a small bowl measure buttermilk, oil and egg. Whisk ingredients together until the ingredients are combined. Pour this into the water and yeast mixture and stir for 20 more seconds.

Pour 2 cups of flour into the mixer and stir on low until combined. Add the rest of the flour by half a cup, until the dough comes away from the side of the bowl clean. The dough should be sticky but not sticky enough to stay stuck to your hand. Once you have this constancy knead the dough for about 5 min.

Remove the dough from the bowl and grease the bowl, it should be pretty clean and then put the dough back in it. Cover it with plastic wrap and a towel and let it rise for an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Filling: In a medium-sized bowl stir the brown sugar, cinnamon, and cornstarch together and set aside.

Once your dough has risen punch it down, and flour a large clean table or counter space. Lightly flour the dough as well and roll it out to be a 20 x 30 rectangle.

Once it is close to a rectangle spread the softened butter all over the dough, I use my hands for this, leaving about an inch untouched on one of the long sides so when you roll them up they stay closed.

Dump the brown sugar mixture into the middle of the dough and spread it around with your hands as well. Once it’s been spread out lightly press it with the rolling pin.

Before you start rolling it up line a 9 x 13 pan and a loaf pan with parchment and spray so they will be easy to take out of the pan once they are baked.

Now roll up the dough into a tight log, start with the long end that has sugar all the way to the edge. Cut the log every 2 inches, place 10 of the rolls in the 9 x 13 pan, and the rest in the loaf pan. I placed them 2 inches apart they will expand trust me.

Once they are in the pan cover with plastic wrap and let rise again for another hour or until they double in size. Mine expands out more than they rise up.

Once they have expanded place them in the oven at 350 degrees C for 17 – 23 minutes, or until the tops start to brown.

I don’t normally put the icing on my cinnamon rolls but here is a recipe in case you would like to.

Icing:

2 oz cream cheese cup warm water
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup icing sugar

Whip the cream cheese and butter together. Stir in the vanilla. Scrape down the sides and mix again. Slowly add the icing sugar until it is all combined. Then mix on med to high for about 5 min or until the colour starts to lighten.

Once the rolls are out of put half the icing on them, which will melt quite a bit. Then once they are cooled put the rest of the icing on them.

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