A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Oven

Cinnamon Rolls baking in the oven on Christmas morning.  This could happen with just a few, easy preparatory steps. Make the dough, roll the rolls, stick them in your freezer and thaw in the refrigerator on Christmas Eve.  On Christmas morning, you bake the rolls.

Maybe it’s something about having four boys around you all the time, but your mind races for quick-fixes, shortcuts, and easy-way-outs.  These paths always lead to destruction, I’ve found. For example, I realized that brioche is a sticky dough, so I thought it might be wise and quick-and-easy to use my food processor to mix the flour into the melted butter and honey.  I stopped what I was doing long enough to tie a costume. You know that fine line you can cross on the work bowl of the food processor?  I crossed it; and before I knew it, I had this:

That would be melted butter, honey and eggs. My, this is fun.

This cinnamon roll recipe starts with a rich, and easy-to-make brioche dough from the book Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The dough will give you enough to make four pans of rolls. (Give some to friends, or store the excess in your freezer.

• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 8 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup honey (this is my all time favorite!)
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
• 7 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• Mix the yeast, salt, eggs honey and melted butter with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container.
• Mix in the flour, using a spoon until all of the flour is incorporated.
• Cover (not airtight), and allow to sit at room temperature for about two hours.
• Chill dough to make it easy to handle. Or you can freeze the dough here, in one-pound servings.

The cinnamon rolls:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 30 pecan halves

The Filling:

• 4 tablespoons salted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 cup chopped and toasted pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350. Cream together the butter, salt and brown sugar. Spread half of the mixture evenly over the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan. Scatter the pecans on top.
2. Cut of a grapefruit size chunk of your brioche dough, dust with flour and shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around the bottom on all four sides. Watch video for technique.
3. Roll the dough to a 1/8 inch thick rectangle.  Use a bit of dough to keep from sticking.
4. Sprinkle remaining half of butter mixture on dough. Roll the dough into a log.  You may need to chill the dough so that you can cut it at this point.
5. With a serrated knife, cut the log into 8 equal pieces.
6. Bake 40 minutes.  While still hot, run a knife around the inside of the pan to release the rolls and invest immediately onto a serving dish.

Check out these gorgeous bread on a stick rolls, direclty from the Artisan Bread website.  See how to make these here.

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