Process essay on how to make cinnamon rolls

Everybody knows that smell: you walk into a mall and it hits you right in the face. It is cinnamon cooked onto bread and then spread with gooey sticky frosting. The only thing better than smelling those cinnamon rolls when you walk into a mall is heading right for the Cinnabon counter and ordering one to go with a Starbucks mocha grande. However, a person can make a clone of the Cinnabon at home for himself if he wants to. It is easy! Here is how to do it:

First the ingredients:

1 cup of warm milk heated to 110 degrees F or 45 degrees C

2 eggs at room temperature

1/3 cup butter, melted

3 ozs. of softened cream cheese

4 ½ cups of bread flour

1/4 cup of soft butter

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ½ teaspoons of yeast

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon

1/3 cup of soft butter

Directions:

  1. First warm the milk so that if you overwarm it, it has a chance to cool to the right temperature. I say this because most of the time, I overwarm the milk when I make cinnabon rolls. I also heat my oven to 200 degrees F at this time too. Once the oven reaches 200 degrees, shut it off but leave door closed. Then I place a ceramic bowl of water in it to make a proof box for the dough.
  2. Grease two large round cake pans.
  3. The next step is to put the yeast and 1 tablespoon of the ½ cup of sugar, and salt into the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook attachment. *
  4. Pour the milk that should be at the right temperature now over the yeast. The way to tell if the milk is the right temperature is to test it with your finger. It should be barely warm.
  5. Let the yeast and milk mixture set and rise for about 5 minutes.
  6. In the meantime, mix the remaining sugar, salt and flour in a bowl. Beat the eggs and set aside.
  7. When the yeast mixture looks foamy, using the paddle attachment, add the 1/3 cup of melted butter and beaten eggs slowly to the bowl. When that mixture looks fairly well blended add about 2 cups of the flour sugar mixture until the dough become stiff. Then switch to the dough hook and continue adding flour mixture until it is gone.
  8. Continue beating dough with dough hook until strings form as the dough pulls away from the dough hook. When that happens, stop mixture, scrape dough from dough hook and let dough rest in bowl.
  9. Coat a large ceramic bowl with butter or coconut oil and place dough in the bowl turning it once to coat all sides with the butter or coconut oil. Cover with a damp towel and place in the oven to rise. Rising time varies by climate but check dough in about an hour. It should be doubled in size and when you stick two fingers in it, there should be a lasting depression.
  10. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  11. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead by hand for a minute or two to flatten it out a bit. Divide the dough in half. Roll each half into a 12” x 12” rectangle.
  12. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Spread the dough with the softened butter. Sprinkle cinnamon mixture onto the dough. Roll dough up from the long side so that the ends look like a pinwheel.
  13. Carefully slice the dough into 1” slices and place them into the greased pans. The rolls can be touching but leave room for them to rise again and become puffy. Cover the rolls with a damp towel and leave on top of oven to rise for 30 to 60 minutes. Again, this is done by look and feel. Rolls should be higher than the edges of the pans.
  14. Put rolls in oven for 20 to 30 minutes. After 20 minutes, check them frequently because you do not want them to get too brown; on the other hand, you do not want soggy middles either.
  15. While rolls are baking make the frosting:
  16. Place cream cheese and butter into a mixing bowl. Beat on high speed until creamy and well blended. Then add vanilla, salt and the confectioner’s sugar a little at a time until it is well blended. Set aside.
  17. When rolls are finished baking, set them on wax paper or you can leave them in the pan and pour frosting over them spreading to cover each cinnamon roll.
  18. Now you can eat them without having to go to the mall!

*If you do not have a dough hook attachment, you can knead the dough for about 5 to 8 minutes by hand until the strings of gluten form as described.

Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.