Experiment 10 - Cinnamon Rolls - The Resuls

Ingredients list 

I had great intentions of making this recipe early on Saturday.  Unfortunately, I mislaid the clipping and didn't find it until most of the morning was gone, so I had to decided to wait until Sunday morning.

All these weeks, I've been taking photos of my ingredients all laid out and ready to go, and I didn't even know that was practicing "mise en place", as recommended in this article  and defined here -
Just seems obvious to make sure everything is at hand and ready to go.  So yay me.  And speaking of laying out all the ingredients, here they are.

 I used Jiffy baking mix, because it's been my preference for years, plus it's cheaper than the more popular big brand name.  I also used the turbinado sugar I recently picked up at Trader Joe's, figuring that the richer taste would be a good match for cinnamon rolls.  Also, I have no white sugar in the house anyway.

Preparataion wise, nothing hugely difficult.  Combined the Jiffy and the milk and mixed together for about a minute with a wooden spoon.  Dumped that out onto a floured surface (the recipe calls says to use a wooden ......, but I just used the counter).  Turned the dough over to coat it with flour, kneaded 8 to 10 times, then rolled it all into a ball.

The ball got rolled out into roughly a 16 x 7 inch rectangle.  This was a bit of a challenge, but I kept trimming and recombining until I got approximately the right shape.  The melted butter was spread evenly onto the dough, then the combined sugar and cinnamon was sprinkled all over.

The whole thing got rolled up "jelly roll style", the long way.  Since my dough was only slightly rectangular, I had to scruffy ends to trim off, and the roll tapered a bit from left to right.  C'est la guerre.  The recipe called for cutting into 1" wide slices; at a theoretical 16" long, this would result in the stated yield of 16 pinwheels.  Rather than trying to estimate an inch, I let my math background take over and, using my large serrated knife, I sliced the trimmed roll in half, then sliced each half in half, then again, and again.  Voila, 16 pieces.

Placed all of them on a greased baking sheet (including the raggedy ends), and placed in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.  When I first read the recipe, I was amused and confused when it said to place the pieces "cut side up".  Surely both sides were cut!  This morning I figured out that they just meant to lay them flat.

And then today's goof ... I had to melt some more butter to brush onto the rolls when they came out of the oven, so I placed it into a small bowl and put it in the microwave for a minute.  That would be the same microwave that I use as a timer when I'm baking something in the big oven.  D'oh.  Since the microwave power was set at 0, the butter didn't get melted, and when I had punched in 1:00 for the time, it threw off the timing for the baking.  I cleared the microwave and melted the buter, then I just had to keep an eagle eye on the rolls until they were a light golden brown.

When they were done, I took them out, brushed with the melted butter and transferred them to a rack for cooling.  In the meantime, I made the icing with the confectioner's sugar and (slightly warmed) milk, it's just a matter of mixing until smooth.  I think I used a bit too much milk, because I was supposed to drizzle onto the rolls using a teaspoon, but it all just kind of poured out and sank in to each roll, instead of sitting on top like a proper icing would do.

I remember making something quite similar to these with my Nana decades ago.  I don't know that she used a baking mix, as my part in the process was mostly to get dough samples and to taste the results.  And even though it's been more years than I care to publish, they tasted exactly like I remember.

Verdict:  Meh.  These are very biscuity, although the butter, sugar, and cinnamon certainly help the taste.  The nostalgia factor is nice, but it seems like this was a lot of effort for the end result, not just in the preparation, but in the amount of stuff I had to wash when I was done.  I can get a can of store-brand cinnamon rolls for a buck or two, not have to spend so much time and create such a mess in the kitchen.

Lessons Learned - I was doing "mise en place" without even knowing it.
Tools needed - maybe I should get some kind of wooden surface for dough preparation, I've had a lot of dough recipes already.
Skills needed - nothing new this week.