Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

These cinnamon rolls are super light and fluffy! Cinnamon is one of my favourite spices to use in baking as it brings such warmth to any recipe! I use a Paula Deen recipe, from the Food Network website – unfortunately this means all measurements are in cups, but I have yet to find a recipe to challenge this one!

The dough is extremely light which I enjoy, however the cinnamon rolls don’t have a chewy texture which I do loooove in a cinnamon roll – this may be because the recipe uses plain flour opposed to strong white bread flour, so I will be experimenting with this recipe and others until I find the perfect textured cinnamon roll – I will keep you posted 🙂

This recipe is ideal for first-time yeast and dough bakers as it’s a particularly straight forward recipe, and kneading can be done in a machine!

Enjoy 🙂

Ingredients:

• 7g of instant yeast (which normally comes in 7g packets! I use Allinson’s
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of butter, melted
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 large egg, free range
• 4 cups of plain white flour
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar – I like to use a combination of caster and light brown sugar to give a caramel flavour
• 2 tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup chopped up pecans
• 1/2 cup cream cheese
• 3 tbsp. milk
• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar

Method:

1. First, grease two standard cake tins with butter and set aside.
2. Place your yeast in a small bowl filled with the warm water, and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the milk, melted butter, salt and the egg, until you have a uniform mix. Next, add in 2 cups of plain flour and mix until a dough-like structure is formed. Add in your yeast, followed but the remaining flour until a soft dough is formed.
4. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 7-10 mins, until elastic and stretchy – you could use a free-standing mixer instead with a dough hook attached! 🙂
5. Place your dough in a large, greased mixing bowl and leave in a warm place for 1-1 1/2 hours, until doubled in size!
6. After proving, tip the dough onto a floured surface and punch all the remaining air from inside.
7. With a rolling pin, roll out your dough into a large rectangle, with the rough dimensions of 40 x 20 cm – it need to be roughly the thickness of a £1 coin!
8. Using a brush, spread the melted butter all over the dough, leaving an inch gap of dough along the further most edge away from you.
9. Mix together your sugars and cinnamon, and sprinkle generously over all the melted butter, YUM! Finally, sprinkle your chopped up pecans evenly across the dough
10. starting with the edge closest to you, roll up your dough tightly until you get one long roll of cinnamon dough!
11. Chop your long sausage of dough into 12 equal chunks – start by cutting the dough in half, and then each half into 6 pieces
12. Place 6 pieces of dough into each of your greased cake tins, with plenty of space in between each roll, and finally sprinkle any remaining cinnamon sugar on top (if you have a lot of cinnamon sugar left over, its great to keep and sprinkle over pancakes in the morning!)
13. Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees C and leave your cake tins in a warm place for another 45 mins, until the cinnamon rolls have doubled in size.
14. Place in the oven and bake for 30-35 mins, until the rolls are a beautiful brown/ gold colour.
15. Leave the rolls to cool, and quickly mix together your cream cheese, milk and sifted icing sugar. Brush over your cinnamon rolls whilst they’re still warm and WOO you have cinnamon rolls!
16. Enjoy!! ❤

Lots of love, Sofia xxxxxxx