Cinnamon Rolls At Last!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was never really taught "how" to cook. My real cooking experience basically started at 15 and was limited to whatever my dad would purchase at the store and cook himself, or leave for me to cook for dinner. These dinners usually consisted of anything easy that I could bake in the oven and cook on the stove top. I never cooked or baked anything from scratch. It all came from a box or a can and was paired with things like baked chicken and pork chops. We didn't complain simply because we just didn't know any better.

My mother was a wonderful cook, but she was a working mother of 4 and just did not have the time to make the majority of her cooking from scratch. I know that had her life not ended when it did, she would have gladly taught me to be a better cook.

Through the years I learned there were so many things I could cook and there were actually recipes I could try. This made Tony so happy! No more Hamburger Helper! Here we are today and I would have to say that my cooking and baking (other than cakes) has been taken to another level thanks to a to a website called Pioneer Woman. (Thanks Tammy!!) I have almost taken the cooking section of her website as a challenge. Once I started making some of the recipes, and they actually turned out and my family really enjoyed the variety, I couldn't help but keep trying. The best thing about her recipes is the photos that go with them. It's like she is in your kitchen giving you a cooking lesson!

This brings us to today. I planned on making these before Hurricane Ike decided to take away my ability to bake in my oven. Now that things are back to normal, I couldn't wait to get started on these...

The cast of characters are flour, milk, oil, baking powder, baking soda, yeast (never cooked with yeast before today), sugar, cinnamon, butter, salt, coffee, maple flavoring, and powdered sugar. If you have most of these items, you can make them too! Don't worry if you don't have the maple flavoring and coffee, you can substitute the maple flavoring with vanilla and leave out the coffee.
Avery helped my measure the oil, sugar and milk.
We scalded this on the stove and let it cool for about an hour and a half.

While the first mixture was cooling, Avery measured 8 cups of flour.

After the mixture cooled, but was still warm, Cooper added two packets of yeast. We let the yeast set and absorb some of the moisture.

Now we added the 8 cups of flour and began to stir.
Cooper began to stir and stir.
The dough began to thicken as we stirred. "Avery, put some muscle into it girl!"

It's all combined now and ready to be left to rise. We waited another hour and a half. This is where we started on the cinnamon roll version of "are we there yet?". I can't tell you how many times the kids asked me this. Finally the time came. We mixed in an additional cup of flour, a heaping tsp. of baking soda, one scant tsp. of baking powder, and one heaping Tbsp. of salt.
After mixing, we rolled out half of the dough, added butter, sugar and cinnamon. Which I photographed by the way, but it didn't look very pretty, so I didn't post it. If I could post a scratch and sniff picture I would have, and you would have scratched a hole in your screen. That's how yummy and divine it smelled!
After we rolled up the dough and watched the butter, sugar and cinnamon ooze all over my kitchen counter like lava from a volcano, we cut them up and put them in the pans to bake away. Then we got started on the icing! The icing consisted of 2lbs. of powdered sugar, 1/2 cup melted butter, 2 tsp. maple flavoring, 1/4 cup brewed coffee, and 1/2 cup of milk. Brenna and Cooper stirred it all together and we poured it over the warm rolls as they came out of the oven.
Cooper asked for these for supper, then for a snack after supper and for breakfast the next day. What, no Cheerios with sugar and milk?
This recipe made eight pans for me. I know there are only 6 1/2 in the photo. We had samples out of the partially empty pan you see here and took one to our neighbors. We took another pan to our other neighbors next door and will take 4 more to our Sunday School class in the morning. I hope they like them as much as I enjoyed making them with my kids.

I urge you to go to Pioneer Woman and explore her website, if you haven't already. I'll be anxious to hear what you have to say! You will find a printable version of this recipe there and I dare you to try it!