Cinnamon Roll Recipe

Cinnamon Roll mmmmmm.

Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients:

Rolls:
1 1/4 oz. package. Yeast
1 cup. warm milk
1/2 cup. Caster (granulated/white) sugar
1/3 cup. melted butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
4 cups. all-purpose flour

Filling:
1/2 cup butter softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbs. cinnamon (use the best cinnamon you can find)

Icing: (optional)
7 tbs. butter, softened
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup (2 oz.) cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 t. salt (if desired I left it out)

Directions:

Rolls:

Dissolve yeast in the warm milk.

Mix in sugar, butter, salt, eggs, and flour. Mix well.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface it will be a very sticky dough so you may need a lot of flour to knead it. Knead into a large ball. Place in a clean bowl and cover with a tea towel and put somewhere warm (I put the covered bowl near the fire as it was the only place not freezing); let rise 1-2 hours.

Preheat oven to 360 F (180 c).

Roll dough into a 21 x 16 wide rectangle. With the butter softened, spread it generously over the dough (I used my fingers but you can use a spatula).

Sprinkle the filling over the buttered rectangle.

Roll the dough up carefully from the long edge. (I rolled from the long side but you can roll from the short side to make a smaller amount of fatter rolls)

round and round we go

Using a very sharp knife cut into 1 inch wide rolls, making sixteen large rolls (or carefully cut the roll in half and measure out the dough to get 24 smaller pieces that can be tucked into muffin tins/muffin papers). Alternatively if you want big fat rolls, cut them wider.

Grease (butter) your baking pan (11x 15 pan or muffin tins or use muffin cases) Then place rolls in pan and into oven. Bake until the rolls are browned around 15 to 20 minutes (depending on your oven).

Take them out and cover them in icing.

Filling:
While dough is rising, prepare the filling and the icing.
Soften butter.
After dough has been rolled out into a rectangle, spread the softened butter all over.
Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle over entire buttered rectangle.



Icing:

Cream together butter, icing sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Spread onto the hot rolls.

nom nom nom

cook's notes: I have been suffering withdrawal pains lately for all things sugary sweet, cinnamon drenched and American and in that vein I have been mulling over this recipe I have for making Cinnamon Buns (an much altered version of a Cinnabon clone recipe I found long long ago) which as anyone knows are the embodiment of all things sickly sweet, fatty, and overloaded with cinnamon and cream cheese icing. They have helped me get through some very tough times in the past. There are dozens upon dozens of cinnamon roll recipes on the interwebs, this is the one I use and have for years, though I do alter it from time to time, little tweaks here and there until one day the recipe will be as perfect as I can possibly make it. Until then its a pretty damn fine recipe.

It's also really important to use the best cinnamon you can find, I used cinnamon that I bought at Chatsworth Farm Shop and it is amazing how different cinnamon can taste from the regular (cheap) storebrand.

Alice in Wonderland Swap Partners emailed

I'm working on emailing and pairing partners up.. I'm waiting on two emails at least but I have just noticed that 26 people signed up but I only have 19 emails so if you signed up but forgot to fill in the questionnaire please can you get it done now and I will partner you up later tonight or first thing in the morning.

p.s.

H is much much better now.. ..thankfully it wasn't a really bad bug he picked up. He is currently playing out in the snow! But I need to go call him back in so he can have a warm by the fire.

New Year, Plague House, Alice swap update

First of all Happy New Year Everyone! Secondly I Have a bit of a poorly child on my hands. H has caught a bit of a tummy Bug from a friend. So I have been babying him all day and he seems a bit brighter and less grey in colour. Because of that I haven't sorted out partners and emails for the Alice in Wonderland Swap. I'm so sorry I will set out the time to sort out partners and emails later tonight or possibly in the morning if I can beg the use of M's laptop for a few hours. So if there are any last minute straglers or people sitting on the fence you have till tommorrow to sign up. X Apryl

a little faery dust

faery, faerie, fairy.... whatever

Ingredients:
glitter
mini jam jars (the kind that you get when you order a scone with jam and cream or found at a hotel breakfast bar)
a handful of buttons
a few scraps of fabric
twine (a hair tie or rubber band will work too)
small piece of card
alphabet stamps
ink
scissors
1 x child

Instructions:
*Make sure the jam jar is clean (glitter and jam not so great actually). Fill the jam jar with glitter and put the lid on tightly (you can tape it down if you hate glitter as much as I do)

*Use scissors (or pinking shears) to cut the fabric into a circle to cover the lid of the jar. (I used a slightly larger jar as a template)

*Tie the fabric around the jar using the twine, (hair tie, rubber band).

*Cut a small piece of card into a tag shape and let your child stamp faery dust, magic dust, glitter (ignore the temper tantrum that follows when you say to said child that they have missed a letter,blurred the ink, or no they cannot have the glitter back it is it the fairy dust pot.....then sit and re-stamp another piece of card because you are fussy and anal about crafts and the letters must be perfect)

*Have a mini breakdown when said child stomps off in a rage, leaving you threatening to cancel Christmas and call Santa .....after eating all the chocolate in the advent calender.

*Thread some buttons onto a piece of thread and tie around the jar.

*Add the tag and there you go one lovely little faerie dust decoration/gift (and a way to hide the evil glitter in plain sight. because there is nothing more evil than a child with a bottle of glue and a pot of glitter)

*send annoying demonic offspring to help Daddy while you have a cup of coffee (or something stronger) and steal the chocolate meant for Christmas Day.

(alternatively you could fill them with edible glitter, but I couldn't find any round these parts)

if only it made kids be good, calm, and comatose

Snowmen Cupcakes

who you lookin at?

ingredients:

cupcakes:
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 ½ cup caster (white) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup milk
3 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
Grease 12 cupcake cups or line with paper muffin liners. (recipe makes 24 cupcakes (not fairycake size, muffin tin size.)

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.In a small bowl mix the milk and the vanilla.

In a large bowl cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

add half the flour and mix well. Add half the milk and vanilla mixture.

Add eggs, one at a time mixing well. slowly add in the remainder of the dry mixture.

Add the last of the milk and vanilla.

spoon the batter into the cups and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the cake springs back when touched.

Remove from oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, then turn out of pan and onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting
ingredients:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened)
1-1/2 cups powdered (icing) sugar
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or vanilla flavouring)

Place the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in a bowl and slowly add in the powdered (icing) sugar as you mix. Blend until smooth.

decoration:
1 large bag of plain m&ms
1 industrious child to separate the m&ms ( you only need the brown and orange ones so bribery is easy)
sweetened and tenderized coconut
1 bag plain chocolate chips


assembly:

place the sweet coconut in a bowl.

ice a cupcake with the vanilla icing and gently dip the cupcake into the coconut.

use the brown m&ms for the eyes and the orange ones for the nose, and chocolate chip (coal) for the snowman's smile. Its a fun job that the kids can help you with, especially separating out the m&m colours, as H quite happily sat for an unheard of 10 minutes separating out all the m&ms and was quite happy to steal a few.

alternatively you could use other orange sweets for the snowman's nose or colour some marzipan orange and roll flat and cut small triangles (carrots) or roll into small carrot shapes.

cooks notes: I made two batches 48 cupcakes to sell after H's school Christmas Concert, every single cupcake sold!, M assures me they were very nice I never got one though I may have made myself just the teensiest bit sickly "tasting" the icing....and cake batter... I also made 24 Double Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes which sold too, so I was quite pleased that even if my crafts aren't selling my cakes were appreciated and raised some money for H's school.