Tis the season to bake, bake, bake! (And also eat vegetables. Never forget to enjoy the broccoli. Man shall not live on baked goods alone.) Since it’s baking season, it’s time for me to re-share my recipe for Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls!
Are cinnamon rolls difficult to make? Well, they do require more steps than say…all of the Simple Recipes I share. I prefer quick and easy – just like most of us do!
But are cinnamon rolls WORTH THE EFFORT? Can I answer a question with a question? Do I need to even answer that question? Do we all know the answer?
(Making homemade Cinnamon Rolls is worth the effort.)
And also, I find that making homemade cinnamon rolls isn’t terribly difficult. I don’t make them often, but when I do, we are all so happy that I did! It’s also worth noting that these can be prepared, then frozen to thaw and bake later. Now THAT makes baking cinnamon rolls easy!
Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 Tablespoons yeast
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 2½ cups milk
- ½ cup butter
- ½ cup honey
- 4 teaspoons sea salt
- 8 cups whole wheat flour
- CINNAMON FILLING:
- ½ cup melted butter
- ¾ cup sucanat (you can use white sugar if you want)
- ½ Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- In a large bowl mix water, yeast, and honey. Set aside.
- Melt butter in a large saucepan, then add honey, salt, and milk. Heat this to 120 degrees, then remove from heat..
- Pour milk mixture into yeast mixture and stir. Stir in 8 cups of flour, 2 cups at a time (more or less as needed).
- Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes.
- Place it in a bowl, cover it, and let it rise for 1-1½ hours.
- After dough is nice and fat, punch it down and knead out all it’s bubbles.
- Cut the dough in half, setting one half aside.
- On a well floured surface, roll dough into a nice big rectangle, about ¼ inch thick.
- Use a pastry brush to spread ½ of the melted butter all over the rectangle.
- Sprinkle ½ of the sucanat/cinnamon mixture all over the butter.
- Roll the prepared dough, then cut into thin slices, about ½ inch thick.
- Place slices in a buttered baking dish.
- Repeat process with other ½ of dough.
- Allow rolls to rise about 30 minutes.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown at 350 degrees.
Ooey-Gooey Frosting
1/4 cup butter
3 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1-2 cups powdered sugar to make the consistency you like
Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, milk and powdered sugar. Whisk together until smooth.
NOTE ABOUT WHOLE WHEAT:
I use freshly ground hard white wheat to make these Cinnamon Rolls. That makes these seem not as whole-wheaty as when using flour made from red wheat. Here are more posts that share about different varieties of wheat.
