As expats, we’ve moved around a lot. Most houses had company furniture and the carpets and paintings and personal effects were the only things that made them feel like ours. We’d tell our girls, “Home is where we are all together.” This got more challenging when both girls went off to university and their father and I continued to move. They have bedrooms with some of their stuff in our current house in Dubai, but it would be a far stretch to say it’s home for them since they’ve never really lived there, except for holidays. This year we are taking that mantra to extremes, celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve in a rented house, found on Airbnb. We didn’t know if our elder daughter would have any time off from her job and, so, if Christmas was going to be spent as a family, as it must be, we would have to come to her. We flew in from Dubai, collected younger daughter from her school housing, elder daughter from New York, and then both grandmothers flew up from Texas. The house is full! It's now a home.
This is a big, long prelude to telling you that we find ourselves in the small Rhode Island town of Tiverton where the only grocery store didn’t have any yeast on Christmas Eve. And younger daughter wanted to make cinnamon rolls to bake on Christmas morning. In desperation, I went into the small pizza place across from the grocery store and asked if they could sell me some yeast. The kind owner did better than that! He handed over a large chunk of fresh yeast with a hearty “Merry Christmas!” We had traditional cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning and then I made a pan of these non-traditional ones to bring to Classic Pizza as a thank you. It makes the perfect recipe for my first post for #TwelveLoaves, a group dedicated to bread in all its forms. This month’s theme is Keep It Simple, and what could be easier than a yeast bread that doesn’t requiring an electric mixer or any kneading?
Credit for the traditional cinnamon roll recipe goes to Baked Bree.
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 tablespoons fresh yeast cake or 1 package (1/4oz or 7g) dried yeast
1 cup or 240g milk
1/2 cup or 115g sugar plus 1 teaspoon for proofing the yeast
1/3 cup or 75g room temperature butter plus extra for greasing pan
1 teaspoon salt
2 room temperature eggs
4 cups or 500g flour plus extra for rolling out the dough
For the filling:
About 1 cup chopped up leftover Christmas pudding, preferably one infused with rum
1/2 cup or 100g dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/4 cup or 60g room temperature butter
or
1 cup or 200g brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/3 cup or 75g room temperature butter
1 tablespoon flour
Method
Warm your milk to about 125°F or 52°C. If you don’t have a thermometer, just warm it until it’s hot but you can still put your finger in it comfortably for 15 seconds without wanting to pull it back out and shout, “Ouch.” Pour it into a small bowl and then crumble in the fresh yeast or sprinkle on the dried yeast. Add one teaspoon of sugar and give the mixture a gentle stir. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk your eggs, butter, sugar and salt until well combined.
Check on your milk/yeast mixture. It should look frothy on top. If it’s not, your yeast is dead and you need to buy more. Let’s assume yours is frothy.
Add in 1/2 cup or 125g of flour and mix well. You will have a thick batter.
Now add in the rest of the flour 1 cup or about 250g at a time, mixing with a wooden spoon or stiff spatula.
You will have very soft dough and it may look like the flour won’t all mix in. Never mind. We are keeping it simple!
Meanwhile, make your filling by combining all of your ingredients in a medium-sized bowl and stirring with a fork until thoroughly mixed.
Grease your baking pan liberally with butter. Choose one that will comfortably hold about 12 or 13 large cinnamon rolls. Mine was 11 3/4 x 9 1/4 in or 30 x 24cm.
When the hour is up, punch down the dough and sprinkle your work surface lightly with flour.
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| After the first rise. |
Roll the dough out in a rectangle about 12 x 18 in or 30 x 45cm.
Sprinkle on your filling of choice and make sure you get some all the way out to the edges. Roll the dough up from the long side.
Cut the roll into 1 1/2 in or 3 3/4cm slices and put them cut side up in your prepared baking pan.
Cover the pan with cling film and a towel and put in a warm place to rise for another hour.
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| After the second rise. |
When the hour is almost up, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.
Bake your rolls in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.
Serve plain or with cream cheese icing.
Enjoy!
Or give the whole pan to someone who saved Christmas breakfast for you and wish them a Happy New Year!
If you love bread but have found the holidays hectic, this is the #TwelveLoaves month for you! Check out all of our recipes that Keep It Simple!
- Broiled White Free-Form Loaf by Lora at Cake Duchess
- Buttermilk Honey Bread by Renee at Kudos Kitchen by Renee
- Country Boule with Spelt and Sourdough by Karen at Karen's Kitchen Stories
- Crumpets by Felice at All That's Left Are The Crumbs
- No Knead Bread from Holly at A Baker's House
- No-Knead Christmas Pudding Cinnamon Rolls by Stacy at Food Lust People Love
- Pumpkin Bread by Alice at Hip Foodie Mom
- Soda Bread by Rossella at Ma che ti sei mangiato
- Sour Cream Drop Biscuits by Renee at Magnolia Days
- Sweet Potato Fry Bread by Anne at From My Sweet Heart
- Victorian Milk Bread by Deepti at Bakingyummies
- Whole Wheat and Molasses Quick Bread by Liz at That Skinny Chick Can Bake
If you’d like to join us for this month’s #TwelveLoaves Keep It Simple challenge, choose a recipe that is not overly complicated, whether in technique or ingredients.
Then share your January Keep It Simple Bread (yeast or quick bread) on your blog.
If you’d like to add your bread to the collection with the Linky Tool this month, here are the rules!
1. When you post your Twelve Loaves bread recipe on your blog, make sure that you mention the Twelve Loaves challenge in your blog post; this helps us to get more members as well as share everyone's posts.
2. Post your Twelve Loaves bread on your blog by January 31, 2014.
3. It must be a bread inspired by the Twelve Loaves Keep It Simple theme, baked between January 1, 2014 and January 31, 2014.
#TwelveLoaves is a monthly bread baking party created by Lora from Cake Duchess. #TwelveLoaves runs so smoothly thanks to the talented and brilliant help of both Paula from Vintage Kitchen Notes and Renee from Magnolia Days.
