The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Icing

Oh my! Two posts in less than a month! This could be the start of something beautiful! :D

I had a rare Sunday off today (or I guess yesterday since it is past midnight) and I was looking for things to do that would keep me from cleaning my house. I will probably clean it tomorrow, but just didn't want to deal with it today. I was good and did two loads of laundry and put away and reloaded the dishes in the dishwasher. But, beyond that, I wanted to do something fun. And different. Sooo...

I had never attempted to bake "from scratch" cinnamon rolls. I have always had that little dough boy help me out whenever I felt the urge. I know it's crazy to think I had never made cinnamon rolls from scratch, but it's true. I have always been a bit intimidated by the whole yeast proofing and rolling out the dough and then rolling it up and the other complicated steps that I thought went into making them. Silly me! These couldn't have been easier and they are probably the best cinnamon rolls I have ever eaten, hands down! I wish I could take credit for the recipe, but that goes to Ree aka The Pioneer Woman.

I have Ree's cookbook (see my post about meeting her here) and knew her recipe for these rolls was in it. And, I had all the ingredients on hand, so I got everything together and got started.

These really were easy to put together. I think the hardest, or scariest part for me was scalding the milk. It was not supposed to boil and I stood over it watching like a hawk eyeballing a mouse in the field. Once your milk, oil and sugar cools back down to lukewarm you add your yeast and let it set for 1 minute. Then you stir in almost all of the flour and let it rest, covered with a clean towel, for an hour.

After that, you add the last cup of flour, along with salt, baking powder, and baking soda. It's a bit hard to stir these last things into the dough, but hang in there until you get all those dry ingredients incorporated into the dough.

Then you roll out the dough into a rectangle, cover it with butter, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over it (I also added chopped pecans) and then roll it towards you in a tight tube. Slice the tube into 1" slices and place them into buttered pans. Cover again with those clean towels and let rise for 20 minutes while your oven preheats.

Ree says to bake these 13 to 17 minutes, but I found I had to bake mine for closer to 20 minutes before they were done. While they were baking I made the Maple icing. Powdered sugar, butter, milk, coffee (yes, coffee) and maple flavoring. Whisk it up and while the rolls are still in the pan, hot and fresh from the oven, pour the icing over them, getting it around the sides. Ree says not to be afraid of really dumping the icing on as the rolls will soak up much of that yummy-ness.

I hardly let the first batch cool before I cut out one roll and cut a piece to try. It was so good it "made me want to slap my granma" as my mother-in-law is fond of saying. Tender, sweet, maple-y, oooy, goooy, deliciousness!! I am ashamed to admit that I have eaten a total of three of them since taking them out of the oven around 5:30 this evening. I will be eating bread and water tomorrow to offset the calories I had today. But, oh, it was so very worth it. You really need to give these a try. Now that I know how easy they are to make, there's no stopping me now! :)