Saturday, February 1, 2014

Comfort food: Cinnamon rolls with Ruthy's frosting and chai tea.


Hello, everybody! It's the Fresh Pioneer here this weekend. But you knew that, right? You knew that because the post is LATE. And it has sugar and wheat and all sorts of unhealthy things. So, buckle up because I'm gonna feed you some tasty comfort foods whether you wanted Julie's GAL cooking or not! (Seriously, you can just watch us eat the rolls. No harm in that and more for ME.)

I know we've done cinnamon rolls here before but when I looked at the posts, there weren't ever any pics of the finished product. So, let's see if we can get all the way through the recipe, all the way to the sweet, sweet end!


 1 qt milk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
Heat in a pan but don't boil.

 Dry ingredients:
9 cups flour
1tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBS salt

When the milk has warmed, but not boiled, wait for it to cool a bit and then add 4.5 tsp yeast. Let it settle in and get all happy.
After ten min or so, add to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
 Cover with a damp cloth and put somewhere warm. I put it on Miss Betsy, our vintage picnic hamper. She holds crayons and pens and glue and glue sticks. She's quite the crafty gal and misses being part of the food preparation.
 After an hour or so, turn on the oven at 375F. Now cut the risen dough into two pieces. Roll one out into a square, smear with half a cube of softened butter. (You read that right.) Sprinkle with sugar.
 Add cinnamon (missed that picture!!), roll it up, cut into pieces...
 Place in a buttered dish.
 Make sure you have very small, chubby hands for extra cuteness.
 Take the second bit and decide it looks like a fat bottom and slap, slap, slap it, laughing hysterically all the while.
Pour melted butter (a few tbs) onto the rolls and let them sit for ten minutes on the warm stove.

 While it's cooking, let's use Mr. Latte maker do make some chai tea. Some of us (read: ALL OF US) have a terrible cold and need something more than a vanilla latte.
 Three bags in the top, add the water.
 Add milk, press the button. (Isn't this fascinating? It gets better!)
 *WHIRRRRRRRRR*
 Oh, some of us are on a deadline and have darling, lovely, adorable friends down in Southern states who decided to send us REAL Cafe Du Monde coffee. I should make some beignets...
Sugar at the ready.
 So, added a bit of sugar, pour in the chai tea, a sprinkle of cinnamon on top...
 Waiting.... waiting.... waiting....


 Oh, that's the problem. Someone has been watching the oven. SHOO!
 Sideways!! Horrors!
 OK, using Ruthy's frosting from Nov 2012 (see, I DO read this blog!) I made frosting:
4 oz cream cheese
4 oz butter
4-5 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla

Soften the cream cheese and butter, blend with the other ingredients. It worked!
 First bite... Kids are watching...

Altogether now, YUMMY. Sit yourselves down and have a warm cinnamon roll and some chai. We're all about the comfort here. 

Hoping all of you are staying warm and cozy. Praying that you've got a warm blanket, a good book, and wonderful friends (like the kind that send you coffee).



16 comments:

  1. Oh, my goodness! If it weren't 10:30 p.m. here I'd head into the kitchen and whip these up right this instant! I love, love, love warm cinnamon buns and haven't had any in months--maybe in over a year--and would love to bite into one or two or... well, let's leave it at that. They sound and look scrump-dilli-licious. I'll just have to make myself a chai latte for momentary gratification. :)

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  2. We hadn't made any in a really long time, too. I'm not sure why, since we made them every week or so for months. We don't have leftovers here... Two pans and they're gone in a day. So, it's a nice Sunday treat. But I hadn't made any in at least 5 months. It was a good day for cinnamon rolls!

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  3. Oh, this is perfect winter-time fun stuff!!! I love making cinnamon rolls, Virginia! I developed a Cinnabon-similar recipe and you know what? Several of my kids like my original (just like yours here) better.... and then we had fun with Dorothy Moore's cinnamon rolls, (Connealy's mom, the CUTEST WOMAN EVER!!!!) and those are different yet!

    Thank you for this lovely thing! I'm figuring out what to do for Superbowl Sunday.... I know Pioneer Woman's apple dumplings are on the recipe list. And the game is on too late for a whole party, so we do a HALF-SUPERBOWL PARTY!!!!!!

    We invite all of our daycare friends and we whoop it up on punch and treats and meaty things and we can't hear the game so this is not the house to come to if you care about football

    Which I do, but I like kids even more than football!!!!!

    AND!!!!!

    Hallmark Channel is hosting the FIRST EVER KITTEN BOWL at noon on Sunday.

    And the play by play is by John Sterling, the official radio announcer for none other than the NEW YORK YANKEES!!!!!

    #HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY!!!!!

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    1. Hilarious! Kitten bowl???

      I may just have to get cable after all...

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  4. These look divine, Virginia! I pulled out some store bought ones for us this morning, but they are pitiful next to this goodness. It's a good thing DS doesn't read this blog, he might let me know I've been slacking on the cinnamon bun front. And I have, but I will make up for it next week! Thanks!

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    1. LOL, Piper! I'm sitting her by my daughter, trying to hide the screen so she won't resent having cereal this morning! LOL

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    2. Piper... Interesting point... do you say cinnamon roll or cinnamon bun? For us over here, a bun is a round, unsweetened roll.

      Or more often, a hairstyle.

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  5. I haven't had fresh cinnamon rolls in...years!!!! Just not something one should make when one lives alone or I'd look like a cinnamon roll! But you have my mouth watering so I'm going to have to find an excuse to share so I can make them.

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    Replies
    1. I usually double the recipe, so we have 6 pans! But, we were almost out of flour (I buy the 25 lb sacks) and so it was a just the normal recipe. It still made two 9x13 pans. They keep really well, though, so you could either freeze them or give them away...

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  6. These look like the perfect cinnamon roll...sweet, soft, warm, yeasty, cinnomony (trust me, that's a real word), and absolutely divine. I can smell them from here!

    And I loved the chubby hand picture. Sigh. They outgrow that chubbiness so quickly, don't they?

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    1. They really do! The skinny dude looking in the oven? He used to be a roly-poly baby. And then he turned into a twig boy. *sigh* Even now, the youngest is losing is baby belly. (Of course I never have, but it's not so cute on me.)

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    2. Yup. The skinny dude looks like he's just getting to that "no waist, no hips, nothing to hold the pants up" stage :)

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    3. He can't wear jeans, they fall right off his body! But sweat pants are good if they've got a draw-string.

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  7. Oh my gosh, you just made my stomach start growling! And I just finished lunch about two hours ago. I should not be hungry yet!

    Amazing. LOVE the photos. I just shared the sweet pudgy hand on Pinterest. :)

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