The dream house that I hold in my head is sunny and smells like banana bread.  It has a real-life adult couch and big, fluffy, matching, totally not hand-me-down bathroom towels.  The bookshelves aren’t dusty and my desk is huge and spotless.  There’s also a lovely woman that comes over everyday to help me clean my kitchen.  She’s wise and knows everything about life.  She’s my secret, dream house guru… and she does dishes.

My dream house has hints of food everywhere.  Raspberry colored lamps in the living room.  Black coffee colored walls in the bedroom.  A French vanilla bathroom.  Avocado rugs.  Pink Himalayan sea salt for a little girl’s room.  Fig colored guest room.  Cauliflower whites through the office.

This is what my brain does.  It makes a dream house and fills it with beautiful food smells, food colors, love, cat hair (why!?), and kid laughs.

I’m going to try hard not to call these cinnamon rolls.  These are not cinnamon rolls.  They’re something better and messier… that starts out just like cinnamon rolls.

We’re making a soft yeasted dough, with lemon zest.

This dough gets kneaded with a dough hook in an stand mixer for about 10 minutes.

It’s a soft dough… that means you really need a stand mixer to make this dough.  Otherwise, the dough will stick to your hands like mad.

After kneading in the mixer, I quickly knead it in a bit more flour and get it ready for its first rise.

Can you see the sheen in the dough?  That means the dough is a bit sticky.  That’s what we want!

After an hour of warm resting, the dough is ready for action.  Time for rolling and filling.

Dough is doused in browned butter and topped with a crushed raspberry, lemon zest, sugar, and cornstarch mixture.

And then it gets messy.

Yes… there is a raspberry juice mess going on here.  After rolling and slicing, and carefully lifting these rolls into the buttered pan you’ll totally have sticky hands.  Don’t freak out.  Sometimes food gets messy.

Let the rolls rise in a warm zone and bake up to perfection.

All love.

Believe it or not, these rolls aren’t overly sweet.  The dough is soft and tender.  The filling is bright and fruit studded.  I topped the cooled rolls with a quick lemon glaze.  Doughy and fruit sweet.  These rolls TOTALLY belong in my dream house.  What more do you want from life?

I made rolls, of the cinnamon variety.

I use cinnamon rolls as a sort of… well, anxiety calming drug.  I don’t pop pills, I definitely pop cinnamon rolls.

See… there was this thing invented a good long while ago called the 10 Year Class Reunion.  It’s where you get together with all the people that made fun of you during your painfully awkward teenage years.  Yea.  Why?  Why do I have to do this?  Can’t we all just become friends on Facebook and Twitter and consider ourselves properly reunited!?

Seriously.  The future is now!

Since I think I’m going to gracefully bow out of the reunion festivities, here’s the CliffsNotes of what I might have said to my old classmates.

Hi.  Yea, it’s me Joy.  I sat behind you in.. a bunch of classes probably.  Here’s the update.  I went to college.  I read a lot of books.  I graduated.  I traveled around some.  I haven’t gotten married or pregnant yet.  Yea.. I’m prettier now, but that’s mostly because I was actually really ugly when you knew me.  I’m a baker.  I think it’s the most awesome thing ever.  I know a crap ton about food.  Would you like to discuss French cheeses at all?  I have a blog… also awesome.  Sure, I’d like to meet your boyfriend Steve.  I recognize him from your Facebook photos.  Your relationship status is “complicated” though… care to discuss?  No?   Hm… well, sure I’d like to see pictures of your kids.  Would you like to see pictures of my cinnamon rolls?  It’s only fair.

Don’t make me go to this thing.  It will be awkward.  Awkward.  Awkward. Awkward!

I need counsel and another cinnamon roll.

These cinnamon rolls are nothing short of amazing.  The cream cheese is folded (literally) into the dough, creating an extra moist, truly irresistible roll.  They take time… sure.  Yes.  But when it comes to things like your 10 Year Class Reunion… you just take the time to make the rolls.  It’s necessary.

Here’s the recipe.

Below the recipe are my step by step photos, in case you get knee deep into the recipe and panic.

Some of the stuff you’ll need.

This is what the dough looks like as it’s coming together after the flour is added.

After kneading in the mixer for 10 minutes, I took the dough out, added 1/3 cup more flour and kneaded.

Gettin’ ready for the first rise.

Now make the filling!

Big, happy dough after 2 hours!

Knead the dough on a heavily floured surface, adding more flour so the dough is no longer sticky.

Roll that darling in a 10 x 10-inch circle and cream cheese it!

Fold it up.

And again.

Keep folding.

Done!

Now roll again.  This time to 10 x 20-inches.

Time for the good stuff.

And roll.

Trim the edges and slice into 8 slices.

Into the pan.

And baked!

That’s good stuff.  Great job.

Think this recipe is a little too daunting!?  I understand… you might like this one though!

Just the thought of cinnamon rolls-  warm, gooey, soft, sweet- makes me literally swoon.  I love them.  If I were a baking superhero (I’m working on it) my weakness would be cinnamon rolls.

As much as I love the little devils (and I hate to say this) I hate to bake them.  The problem is not the sweet yeast dough or the rolling or the slicing.  I simply have no patience for the waiting that is required of me during the proofing, rolling, slicing and proofing again process.  I realize this is totally unreasonable, but it’s just the truth.

Nicole at Baking Bites seems the understand my need for instant, yet stubbornly homemade cinnamon roll goodness.

I’d like to introduce you to Cinnamon Roll Muffins-  add the yeast, subtract the long rising.

Imagine my glee when I had cinnamon roll-esque goodness coming out of my oven in well under an hour.  These muffins rise for a short 15 minutes in the bowl and then are placed into a cold oven to cook as the oven preheats to 350 degrees.  After 20 minutes in the oven, they’re risen and golden and bubbling with cinnamon and brown sugar.

I have a confession to make.  It’s about cinnamon rolls.  I love these gooey little treats to pieces, but I only eat the center. That’s it, just the center coil.  Why?  That’s where all the goodness is!  I see the rest of the cinnamon roll as protection for the precious, beyond delicious center.  I always feel wasteful, but someone always comes along and gladly eat the shamelessly discarded scraps.

Recently McDonalds came out with a dessert that tries to simulate the center cinnamon roll euphoria.  Without openly admitting that I’ve actually enjoyed something from McDonalds, I will say that this dessert (which I think only costs a dollar) is served warm, and full of cinnamon and tenderness… and lots of sweet white frosting type stuff.  I won’t say it’s delicious, but I will say this: warm, cinnamon, sweet, 2:30am, 24 hour drive through, plastic fork, disposable container, no dishes, no evidence.

But if you have the time and inclination, these cinnamon rolls are a dream. 

 These cinnamon rolls were adapted from a recipe for a Norwegian Coffee Cake.  The yeasted bread has cinnamon, cardamom and freshly grated nutmeg.  The bread, in its original form is a beautiful braided creation, that even rivals the picturesque yumminess of these cinnamon rolls.  

Cinnamon Rolls- Sugar and Spice

Sponge:

2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

1/2 cup bread flour

2/3 cup whole milk, cold

4 teaspoons honey

Final dough:

1 cup bread flour

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons butter, cold

1/3 teaspoon cardamom

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

2 eggs, room temperature

Cinnamon Sugar Filling:

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

2 Tablespoons butter, softened

Icing:

2/3 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons milk

1/8 teaspoon orange zest

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Method:

1.  Mix the sponge: In a medium bowl combine all of the dry ingredients followed lastly by the milk.  Stir together for 2 minutes, then cover with the flours, then the salt from the final dough.  The flours are used on top of the sponge like a covering of plastic wrap.  Allow to ferment at room temperature for 20 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile combine all of the ingredients for the cinnamon sugar filling and set aside.  Grease and flour a cupcake baking pan and set aside.  

3.  Begin the final dough:  While the sponge is fermenting, in a 4-qt mixing bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter of medium speed until smooth and pale.  Add the sugar, lemon zest and spices and continue creaming at the same speed for 5 minutes.  It should be light, fluffy and fragrant.  Add the eggs in 4 additions, mix until combine.  The mixture will look very wet, and curdled.  This is a lot of eggs, for the amount of butter, it won’t be completely incorporated.  Don’t worry!

4.  Add the flour covered sponge to the butter mixture.  Mix on low speed until evenly combined.  On medium speed, continue to mix with the paddle attachment for 2 minutes.  Switch to the dough hook and mix on low speed until smooth and satiny.  If the dough is sticking a lot to the sides of the bowl, add all purpose flour 1 Tablespoon at a time.  Stop the mixer occasionally to scrape the dough off the bottom of the bowl.  Mixing with the dough hook takes about 5 minutes.  You can finish with a minute or two of hand kneading if you like.  

5.  Place the dough in a lightly greased and floured bowl.  Next, tuck greased plastic wrap around the dough so that no air can enter. Place a clean dish towel over the bowl.  Bulk ferment at room temperature for 1 1/2 hours.

 6.  Flip the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface to fold the dough and redistribute the yeast.  With a floured hand, pat the dough roughly into a rectangle.  Lift the left side of the dough and fold it over almost to the right side of the dough, leaving about 2 inches of room.  Lift the right side and fold it all the way over to the left.  Lift the bottom of the dough, the side closest to you, and fold it almost to the top of the dough, leaving about an inch.  Lastly, fold the top of the dough all the way down towards you.  Return the dough to the bowl and cover as before, leaving it for 30 minutes.  

7. On a lightly floured work surface, using a rolling pin, degas and roll the dough out to a rectangle 15 inches high and 12 inches long.

8. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar filling.  Beginning with the long edge, roll up the dough and cinnamon sugar filling.  Brush the edge of the seam with water and pinch closed.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

9. Using a bench knife, or sharp kitchen knife, slice the dough into 1 inch cinnamon rolls.  Place cinnamon rolls into the cupcake pan for baking.  At the point, sliced cinnamon rolls can also be placed on a cookie sheet to freeze for later baking.  Either way, cover the sliced cinnamon rolls with plastic wrap and allow to rest and almost double in size, about 50 minutes.  If the room is very warm from the oven, they will proof in as little as 35 minutes.

10.  Bake for 10-15 minutes, keeping an eye on them after 10 minutes, until they are a lovely golden brown.  If you’re freezing some, place the entire cookie sheet in the freezer, after the final rise, until rolls are frozen.  One frozen you can stack them for storage.  I let them mostly thaw before I bake them.

11.  Remove from the oven and cool in pan on rack for about 20 minutes.  Carefully remove form pan, and when completely cool, drizzle with glaze.  These are  best eaten the day that are made!