Two for One Deal

I am so excited to share this recipe with everyone! I mean how often do you get a Two for One deal when you are baking? A little bit of a carb overload (hence my high cholesterol...I'm trying to cut back) but so worth it! For Mother's Day we had a little family gathering at my grandparent's. Everyone was supposed to bring something and since I am a grown up now I thought it was time for me to pitch in. I of course decided to bring some dinner rolls (I really am addicted to bread). I went all out for this one...including the kneading and rising part. According to Laura, I am now a "suzie homemaker" I guess. After all the kneading and rising, (which was super easy by the way) I started rolling the dough into rolls. After about 32 rolls (only 10 people were coming to dinner) I still had half of the dough left. So I had to think of something. Option A= making 64 rolls OR Option B= sticking with the 32 rolls and using the extra dough to try homemade cinnamon rolls! Well I of course chose option B and it was a success. 32 dinner rolls and 15 cinnamon rolls later I present the Two for One Recipe!

Dinner Rolls

Adapted from All Recipes
2 1/2 cups warm milk
4 teaspoons active dry yeast 
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons salt
6-7 cups bread flour (just depends on the consistency of your dough)
1/2 cup butter, melted

To make the dough:
1. Pour milk into a large mixing bowl, and sprinkle yeast over the surface. Allow to rest for 5 minutes. Beat in the sugar, eggs, 1/2 cup softened butter, and salt; blend thoroughly. Gradually stir in the flour to make soft dough (I ended up using about 6 cups of flour). Cover bowl, and set in a warm place until the dough doubles in size, about 1 hour.
2. Punch down the dough/knead, cover the bowl, and allow to rise again. Repeat this step two more times.
3. Break off 1 1/2 to 2 inch size pieces of dough, roll lightly into round shape, and place in prepared baking dish, edges touching. Repeat to make approximately 32 dough balls. Cover and let rise until doubled in size.   ***at this point set aside the other dough for the cinnamon rolls
4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
5. Bake rolls in preheated oven until tops turn golden brown, 10-15 minutes. When rolls are finished baking, drizzle melted butter over the top and serve warm.

For the Cinnamon Rolls

Adapted from All Recipes
Use the other half of the prepared dough AND...
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
(can add chopped pecans if you like nuts)

1. Roll the dough into a rectangle (approx. 17x10 inch). Mix together the sugar and cinnamon (and pecans if you want them). Spread melted butter all over the dough. Sprinkle the sugar mixture to cover the whole rectangle.
2. Starting at the long side, roll up the dough. With a serrated knife slice into one inch slices and place in a 9x13 buttered pan. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 minutes (I actually skipped that part).
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Because this was a last minute addition I didn't have the ingredients to make icing so I just sprinkled some more of the sugar mixture over the cinnamon rolls once they were placed in the baking pan. Also, try substituting 1 cup brown sugar for the 1 cup of white sugar.

Things I learned:
- when blending the ingredients for the dough (before you add the flour) it works best to use an electric blender to make sure there are no butter chunks
- when you are kneading the bread make sure a put flour on your hands to keep the dough from sticking.
- You can place the dough in the refrigerator overnight for a slow rise (takes about 8-10 hours). That is what I did after I had rolled the dough into balls and it worked great. I just put the rolls in the oven in the morning and made the cinnamon rolls with that extra dough (that had also been in the refrigerator overnight rising)
- Here is a great Video to show you how to roll the cinnamon rolls (with icing)

-Brittany