I have a bread maker. I can count on one hand how many loaves of bread I've made in it since I got the thing in 1999 or somewhere there about. I've made hundreds of pizza crusts, though. Surely, I thought, there must be something else I can make with my bread maker!
Enter the idea maker, Eric. He loves those cinnamon rolls that come out of a can. I think they're gross, and they always burn on the bottom. So Eric said we should make cinnamon rolls from scratch. Well
that sounds like a lot of work. Sigh.
So here goes. You will need:
8-9 oz warm water
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tbl butter
3 cups bread flour (not "all-purpose". Bread flour has more protein in it.)
1.5 tbl dry milk (I didn't have any; subbed some milk for the warm water.)
1.5 tbl sugar
3 tsp bread machine or fast-acting yeast
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2.5 tbl softened butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
Add all the ingredients above the line into the bread maker and set to the dough cycle (about 1.5 hours). When done, punch down dough and remove from pan. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 15x9 rectangle, then spread softened butter across surface. Mix sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle on top of the butter.
Roll up tightly, beginning at the 15" side. Cut off ends. Stretch Roll to make even.
Cut into 1.5" slices. You'll get between 9-12 slices depending on how big you rolled out your dough. I make indentations (measured with a measuring tape), then I go to town slicing them all at once.
Line them up in a greased pan. No sense trying to save calories at this point. Butter up that pan.
Cover and let rise until double in size. This takes about 40-60 minutes. Alternative is to cover and refrigerate till morning. I've done it both ways. If putting in the fridge overnight, you will want to allow about 2 hours for rolls to come to room temperature and rise (unless it's July and you have no air conditioning, in which case it won't take as long.)
Bake them at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes before frosting. This is how I made the frosting:
1.5 cups powdered sugar
1.5 tbl butter
1-2 tbl milk (add a little at a time)
Mix till smooth. I add in about half of the milk, then a little bit at a time after that. You want it thick, but smooth. After your rolls have cooled for about 10 minutes, ice them.
Let that frosting goodness run all over the place.
And eat 'em while they're warm! If that's not possible, make sure to reheat in the microwave for a few seconds. These are some of the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had. And they didn't burn on the bottom.
Just look at it. Don't you want one? They were easy to make, but the time involved is the killer. Not your every-day recipe, but these sure will impress if you're up to the task! The funny thing is that I set out to make something besides pizza dough. All I ended up doing is making cinnamon roll dough. I need to branch out a bit more.
So here's my binder. It's for ages 8-13, but to get the most out of it, a student would benefit from being on the upper end of that age range. My youngest can hold her own, but her understanding isn't the same as my oldest.
A word about the game pieces. This is a homemade game from some photocopied pages of a colorful period table which was then glued down onto some poster board. I then needed to provide some coins, a pair of di, and game player pieces. I happened to have an old "Star Wars" game picked up a couple years ago at a rummage sale. It's missing many of the pieces, so it's used for salvage. That's where Princess Leia and Hans Solo come from. Hans and Leia take on the periodic table of elements. This game is starting to sound less geeky.
Player Two
