Cinnamon Rolls

I know, totally not healthy. I decided to be a good wifey and send some treats in to hubby's work since they were working long hours on projects.

These were the first batch I made. They didn't rise at all. The kids tried to make some rolls with the dough. Bricks. I used "Clone of a Cinnabon" on allrecipes.com for these. Many people have made those successfully but it didn't work for me. Maybe because I wasn't using a bread machine. IDK.

I moved on to "Cinnamon Rolls II" and loved the dough! I didn't change a thing! Since the directions were for bread machines on this one as well, I had to use guesswork in the assembly process. Super easy!

I'm giving directions here to make life easy on you but the ingredients came from allrecipes.com. I used the dough from one recipe, caramel from another, and frosting from a third. :-)

These are the rolls with the caramel and the frosting. I flipped the rolls upside down after they were baked and spread the frosting on them.

This recipe fit in my KitchenAid mixer when doubled. FYI

Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients

Dough:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg

Cream Cheese Topping:
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

Caramel:
1/2 C Vanilla Ice Cream (or heavy whipping cream)
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1/3 C Butter

Preparation

Dough:
In 2 cup measuring cup, heat milk. Add water, butter, sugar, and yeast. Let sit for a few minutes. It should foam.

Put mixture in mixing bowl. Add salt and eggs, mix. Add flour, mix for a while. This will let the mixer do the kneading for you.

When finished mixing, put a little bit of flour on the counter and knead for a minute. It should be slightly sticky. Put a few drops of oil in a bowl, put dough in bowl then turn the dough over. This gets the oil on top so the dough doesn't form a hard crust. Cover bowl and let dough rise.

Punch down dough then spread softened butter, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar (I use brown and white). Roll dough so it looks like a long log. Cut slices. Put in lightly buttered pan to rise unless using caramel. Add caramel to the pan before you put the rolls in if using caramel. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes (190 degrees in center roll).

Add topping while warm.

Cream Cheese Topping:
Whip it all together, easy!

Caramel:
Dump ingredients in a saucepan and bring to boil for a minute, too long and the caramel will get too hard after it bakes.

*You can flip the rolls upside down after baking to keep the filling from coming out. I didn't have any problems but apparently others have.