I wanted cinnamon rolls...

Yesterday, my project was cinnamon rolls. It was kind of spontaneous, because I really wanted the cinnamon rolls from IKEA, but it was 5am and IKEA was closed. I found a recipe from another blog (HERE) and decided to try it out.

(I had preceded this with a marathon kitchen cleanup, so I had my laptop playing Gilmore Girls on top of the cinnamon toast crunch cereal box. Don't mock, you all do it.)

I got the yeast at Costco for about $4.50, which is the best deal out there. And the shelf-stable whole milk of previous posts returned (from the fridge).

I hate using bare counters to knead my dough, so I laid down parchment paper. I often use wax paper, but my current roll was buried in a box.

My hands were covered in dough and butter so I didn't get a picture, but the recipe recommends for a square of 14x8" to be measured and cut. This was crap. I had indeed cut it (with a pizza cutter!), and I ended up with a lot of dough left, and the 8" was fine, but I like having one extra layer in the rolls. If I were to do it over, I would skip the "measuring" and cutting, and just roll the dough as square and rectangular as I can. But I will probably test out another recipe next time. This one called for melted butter to be spread on the dough, then a cinnamon/sugar mix to be sprinkled over it, but I feel like there's a richer way to do it. It felt a little thin once the rolls were baked.

To cut the rolls, I used baker's twine, which I always have lots of because I use it for packaging. But floss works just fine if you have that. Don't bother with a knife to try and cut a cinnamon roll loaf, it will be a disaster. Any type of string, even yarn, is better than a knife!

The recipe told me to place eleven equally-sized rolls into a round pan. Well, I ended up with nine rolls, and I still had extra dough from when I had cut the 14x8 size, so I quickly mashed up and rolled out the remaining dough and made more rolls. I ended up fitting it all into the cake pan, but because it was early in the morning, I forgot: Pack the rolls LOOSELY in the pan, so they have room to rise!

I even had a small cake pan (I make two-layered cakes) that I could have put some rolls in, but I didn't think about it. So when my rolls rose, they kind of fell back into themselves. They tasted fine when I baked them, and still tasted rather fluffy, but the rolls were small, so it just wasn't the same as storebought rolls.

Verdict: I have some improvements to make in the next round. This recipe is very good for cinnamon roll newbies, but having made cinnamon rolls before, I know there's a more sophisticated recipe out there.