Cinnamon Rolls

The recipe I tweaked says these should take about 90 minutes. They usually take me a bit longer, but not much. Which is why they're awesome. Makes 14 pretty cinnamon rolls and 2 funky looking ones (don't you hate the ends of the roll?).

Cinnamon Rolls:

3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup margarine (softened)
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 egg
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (packed)
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
3/4 cup margarine (softened)

Icing:
4 oz cream cheese (softened)
1/4 c butter (softened)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Rolls:

Heat milk in small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in margarine. Stir until melted then let cool until luke warm.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/4 cup flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Mix well. Add water, egg, and the milk mixture; beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth (about 3-5 minutes).

Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, beat together brown sugar, cinnamon, and softened butter.

Roll out the dough into a large rectangle (my best batch came from a 24x14 rectangle). Spread dough with the brown sugar and butter mixture*. Working from a long edge, roll up dough to form a log and pinch seam to seal.

Cut into 16 equal size rolls* and place in a greased casserole dish. Turn your oven on to about 150 and let rise in warm oven for 30 minutes. Then crank up heat to 375 and let bake for 15-20 minutes.

Icing:

If you don't have leftover Cinnabon icing kicking around, blend all ingredients. Serve on warm cinnamon rolls.

Kayla's Notes:

-If you're not careful, the brown sugar mixture can make it hard to roll the dough nicely. So I finally figured out that you want to spread it pretty close (within about 1/2 inch) of all edges except one of the long edges (leave like 1-2 inches). Let that edge be the outside of your roll. That way, you're not trying to seal the edge with butter and sugar squishing out (gets messy real quick). Start rolling from the long edge with a 1/2 inch margin and by the time you get to the 1-2 inch edge, it should be easy to pinch it all closed without squishing filling everywhere. This probably seems really obvious to everyone else, but I'm a little slow and was really excited when I discovered how much easier this made things.

-I've heard using dental floss is a really great way to cut this stuff. My serrated bread knife did the trick just fine, but I thought I'd pass that along since a lot of people swear by it.