I love cinnamon buns, I always have. They've always been a treat in my house, since my mom usually buys them for a "special occasion" (Easter morning, Christmas morning, a kid home from college, etc.). And while I'm a pretty adventurous baker/chef, I've never attempted to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. It's the yeast. There's something scary about baking with yeast, the possibility of failure lurking closer than usual with other baked goods. I'm not afraid to admit this up front.

Thankfully, my mom bought me The New Best Recipe cookbook, after I got a recommendation from emakelle. This is a fantastic cookbook for several reasons: 1) it covers all basic recipes across the board, 2) it goes into great length about how the kitchen came up with each particular recipe (science and all), and 3) it also gives great kitchen tips. While reading it, I came across a recipe for Quick Cinnamon Rolls. That's right, no yeast! So, last weekend, seeing how it was a "special occasion" (Peter's graduation weekend), I attempted the rolls.

The filling and the dough was pretty basic, and even rolling up the dough with the filling wasn't that difficult. It was fairly time consuming however, but I'm sure it would go faster the next time I make them. Also, I used way less butter than the recipe call for (2 Tbls, or 25%), without even trying.

Cutting the log of dough with a serrated knife makes a huge difference.




The recipe calls for 8 rolls, which are HUGE as seen above, but fit in the pan really well, giving them plenty of room to expand during baking. I even baked the "reject" end pieces, which came out just as well as the full pan.




Oh my goodness, SO GOOD.


I'm going to try to try a new recipe each week and document it in an attempt to post more. Who doesn't love pictures of food, right? As motivation, I won't let myself post the last recipe until I make something else new. Something to look forward to! :o)