Monday, January 19, 2009

Yummy and easy cinnamon buns


Here's how we started Martin Luther King Day with 14" of new snow on the ground from yesterday's storm.

REALLY, REALLY EASY cinnamon buns


1 roll of regular frozen bread dough, defrosted.

a bunch of brown sugar

cinnamon

walnuts

melted butter or butter spray

confectioners sugar

a little milk


350 degrees  ( I have NO idea how to type the ‘degree’ symbol)


When the frozen bread dough is soft, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle, about 12” wide and about 8” high. (I just roll it out until it doesn’t want to roll out easily anymore.)

Brush on some melted butter OR I just liberally spray it with butter flavored spray.

Sprinkle on quite a lot of brown sugar, so the dough is well covered. yum

Sprinkle on some cinnamon, a medium amount.

Sprinkle some broken up walnuts evenly all over the surface of the dough, as much as you want. (you can add raisins at this point, too.)

Drizzle with more melted butter OR spray on some more butter flavored spray.


Start rolling the dough from the long end to make a nice long tube. Pinch the ends of the dough together so it doesn’t uncurl.


Cut in half. Cut in half again. Then I cut each quarter into 3 pieces, but it all depends on how high you want the rolls to be.


Put the rolls, spiral side up, into a greased or sprayed 9”x9” pan. Spray or drizzle more butter on top and then sprinkle a little more brown sugar on the tops.


If I have time, I cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm place to let the yeast do it's thing for about 1 hour. Another thing you can do is to assemble them all together the night before, cover with plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator to rise. One way or another, that's the best thing to do, let it rise. OR if it's an emergency, you can do like I did this morning, bake right away! (the buns will be a little bigger if you let them rise.)


Bake in oven at 350 degrees. I check it after 15 minutes and then every 5 minutes after that until it gets light golden brown.


Remove from oven, let cool a little bit, and then turn the whole thing upside down onto a platter so that the melted sugar coats the now new tops.


Cool somewhat or totally. Drizzle a sugar frosting on it made from about 1/4 C confectioners sugar and barely a tbsp of milk. It takes very little milk to make it into a drizzle-able frosting. You may have to add more confectioners sugar so it isn’t too runny.

Drip all over the tops of the buns. Soooo good.


Warm in microwave a little over the next few days, if they last that long.