Week Twenty-One: Cinnamon Rolls and Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

(The recipe for Cinnamon Rolls came from “The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book” and the Lemon Meringue Cupcakes were cobbled together from a couple of different recipes.)

Twenty-one weeks! Now that I think about it, I should have baked something with alcohol in it, seeing as how my blog is now legally allowed to drink. Instead, I went with Cinnamon Rolls.

I love cinnamon something fierce. A friend of ours got us the Baker’s Assortment gift box from Penzey’s Spices for our wedding, and it contains a jar of Chinese Cassia Cinnamon, which has a nice bite to it. I understand that it’s a little stronger than your typical McCormick’s Cinnamon, so I was all for it.

My day started off with a drive to Penzey’s to redeem a gift card a friend had given me for Christmas. The Baker’s Assortment box had contained a bottle of strong vanilla extract that I LOVED and had used up, so I wanted to go and buy another bottle. What should have been a fifteen minute trip because about an hour trip, as the main road I needed to use was closed. As someone on Facebook said, “Henderson Road Fail”.

I finally managed to procure my bottle of vanilla and start baking.

The Cinnamon Rolls started with a dough made with warm buttermilk. I made sure the buttermilk wasn’t too hot so I wouldn’t kill the yeast this time around, like I did with the Chocolate Marbled Brioche Bread. Once the dough was kneaded for about ten minutes, it was turned out onto a floured surface and kneaded by hand into a smooth ball. That ball of dough went into a lightly greased bowl to double in size, which took just about two hours:

Once the dough had doubled in size, it was once again turned out onto a floured surface and pressed into a 16″ by 12″ rectangle:

I brushed some melted butter on top of this, and then sprinkled on a heavenly mixture of cinnamon, brown sugar and cloves. Mmmm mmmm:

Then, starting at the bottom, this rectangle was rolled up into a log. Then seam was pinched together and the log was rolled seam side down. It was then stretched into an 18″ log and cut into 12 equal pieces. These pieces were placed into a greased 9″ by 13″ baking dish:

The rolls were then left to proof for a second time. Before they were to go into the oven to bake, they should double in size and touch each other. When I came back an hour later, this is what I found:

Oh, look at that! They’re touching each other! Scandalous!

They then went into the oven for about 30 minutes. When I checked on them at the 30 minute mark, they still seemed a little pale, so I let them go for about another five minutes. They came out looking a little like this:

I cut them apart and flipped them upside down on a rack to cool while I mixed up the glaze. Check out all that yummy brown sugar/cinnamon goo on the bottom of those rolls. Delicious:

The glaze was a very simple mixture of cream cheese, powdered sugar and buttermilk that was mixed together until smooth:

The rolls were then flipped back over and the glaze was drizzled over the rolls:

I think I ended up baking these for about four minutes too long, as they are slightly dry. I threw them into an air tight container overnight, so I’m hoping that they may have softened up just a bit. They’re still fantastically delicious. Yum.

While I was waiting for the dough and the cut rolls to proof, I whipped up a batch of Lemon Meringue Cupcakes. These are the same ones that I made about two weeks ago. I loved them so much that I needed to make another batch. They came out quite yummy this time as well:

Yummmmmm.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to make next week just yet. I have a co-worker who has requested baklava, and that looks verrrrry interesting. It may be the winner.