Cinnamon Rolls using bread dough

I haven't posted in a while so I'm going to put up a few of them. Oddly enough its the fact that I can't find my camera charging cord that has put me off from blogging more than a lack of time (though that is a constraint also).

I'm continually experimenting with bread. Sometimes I knead it, sometimes I don't. I play with how 'firm' I can make a no-knead dough and how 'soft.' I play with the time, the yeast, the ratio of grains etc. You should too, because it makes you dare to experiment more.

Lately I wondered if you could make cinnamon rolls just using ordinary bread dough. There are plenty of cinnamon roll recipes out there certainly, but I didn't want to learn another recipe. Or if I ended up doing so, I wanted a good reason. When you stray from straight bread you start seeing things like eggs, milk, and/or oil ending up in the dough. These do a number of things, but I'm saving those experiments for later. My question is, how much can you do with basic bread, in particular, how much can you do with noknead bread?

So far I've managed to make a stiff enough no-knead dough to make rolls and bread bowls. I have found though that taking 2 minutes and kneading it a bit helps, but its still optional. So those were some victories. But what about something like cinnamon rolls?

I hit the web and looked to see what I could find. The closest thing was a woman using frozen bread dough (that you can buy at your grocery store) to make them. It looked simple enough and it was.

Step 1: make up bread dough. If you're doing a no-knead (long rise) dough, then do it the night before you want them. I set up the dough in the evening to bake them the next morning. You'll have to play with the amount of yeast as it will depend on your home temperature, season and the type of grains you're using and how long you want to let your dough rise. EXPERIMENT! :)

Step 2: When the dough is ready (for me this was the morning), heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare some sort of greased (I use butter) dish to bake in. I use a cake pan and can fit all the rolls in (squished together) and when they bake they puff out and up and make a lovely sight. Dump out the dough on a well floured surface and stretch it into a rectangle with your hands. I'd say go for about 1/4 of an inch thickness maybe? You're going to be rolling this dough up, so the thickness of your rectangular will be the wall thickness of your cinnamon rolls.

Step 3: Brush on melted butter. Be generous, half a stick goes a long way and I can make a dozen rolls from this, so its not going to end up being that much fat.

Step 4: Sprinkle with brown sugar, though I'm going to try just regular sugar next time.

Step 5: Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Step 6: Now roll up the dough. If its no-knead then it may stick a bit to the counter despite your best efforts, just be patient and work at it. Once its in a log you're ready to cut.

Step 7: Cut the rolled up dough into slices, I make mine about 2" thick, but I'm only eyeballing that measurement. I wouldn't go too much bigger however.

Step 8: You should have put all your slices into the baking dish. Now put that baking dish into the oven for 30-40 minutes.

By squishing them I generally get a crisp exterior and a more moist doughy (but cooked) interior.

While they're cooking, make up a glaze. I use about a cup of powdered sugar, a couple tablespoons of butter (very soft), a half teaspoon of vanilla and 1-2 tablespoons of warm water. Beat it with a whisk. You can mess around with the consistency and the flavor of course by changing the ratios. Put it all in a ziploc bag, cut off the corner (just a little bit, you don't want a GIANT hole) and use it like a frosting bag. I go back and forth over the finished cinnamon rolls making a criss-cross pattern and the glaze melts and runs and ends up covering the whole set. You could probably even half the amount of glaze you use (I already did once) and still get that sweet warm cinnamon morning flavor you want.

Next step....Bagels!