I've been in a yeast-dough making mood lately and one of the most rewarding yeast-doughs to make has to be cinnamon rolls! It's hard to believe but we hardly ever ate them until I made my first batch about 3 years ago. Since then, it's become a family favorite. My husband requests it all the time and I'm happy to oblige when I have the time. A fresh batch of cinnamon rolls straight from the oven on a weekend morning is one of the ultimate treats, and we should treat ourselves!
For the last 3 years, I've been making the small-batch recipe I originally adapted from Oh Ladycake's vegan version. They produce the softest, most squishy, delicate little cinnamon rolls! I've taken that base dough recipe and made versions from peanut butter to Nutella, chestnut cream to almond paste (mainly with chocolate thrown in). They're all heavenly but there's just been one problem...the recipe makes 4 small rolls and each time we have them, they seem to vanish more and more quickly, and we sit there wishing I'd doubled the recipe somehow. Sometimes, you're just not in the mood for portion control!
So I toyed with the idea of making a larger batch - finding a recipe that would make slightly bigger, heartier rolls but would still be soft and pillowy like the small-batch version. I've been reluctant to mess with a great thing but I finally tried it. So now we have my cinnamon rolls, version 2.0! It makes 9, more-substantially sized, cinnamon rolls that are soft and tender.
I think the key is nailing down the dough itself. Once you have that, you can customize the filling beyond the basic cinnamon-sugar combination. So I went back to Oh Ladycakes and found her coconut oil cinnamon rolls, which appeared to be the larger batch version I was looking for. Again, I "de-veganized" it. With no disrespect to coconut oil lovers, I swapped over to butter as well as regular milk over the coconut oil and almond milk in the original recipe.
And the dough...well, it has a far heftier amount of yeast and the proportions make for taller, sturdier individual rolls. Not over doing it with the flour, the rolls are soft and tender, with a nice chew. They are slightly less fragile and squishy than the small-batch version but quite comparable. I was very happy with the process of making them and the result. It was so good to see all these gloriously puffed up cinnamon rolls come out of the oven and stand tall on their plates!
Playing around with this inaugural batch of my cinnamon rolls, 2.0, I realized I was a little too stingy with the filling. More on that later...but I filled them with a mix of granulated and brown sugar, finely chopped chocolate, and cinnamon. My family and I love a little chocolate in our cinnamon roll filling! It was delicious and would be even better with just a bit more of the good stuff inside. We made up for it with a generous coating of vanilla glaze. Next time, I'll correct the filling situation and have fun with our other favorite fillings. There's always an excuse to make another batch of cinnamon rolls!
