What I did on this rainy Saturday morning...

Good morning! Jeremiah took the boys to a wrestling tournament today, so having the house to myself I decided instead of cleaning it up I'd make it more of a mess. Makes sense, right? No, really...the first time I attempted this recipe it was a DISASTER. I put the rolls too close together in the pan (shoved ALL of them into 2 10x13!! YIKES) leaving NO room to rise. What I was left with was rolls that were golden brown on top, and DOUGH in the middle. Not good. I salvaged them, somewhat, by separating them into different pans and sticking them back in the oven. They were *not* cute, but they tasted good. I had spend so much time on them I brought them to church anyway, and wouldn't you know, they ALL got eaten!

So last night I decide I'm going to give this thing another go. In case you are wondering and want to give this a go yourself...I used the Pioneer Woman recipe. You can click on that underlined Pioneer Woman and it'll take ya right to her little page of sugar heaven. Is a long recipe, but if you are unlike me and actually have a brain in your head and *follow directions* (which I did NOT the last time. That doesn't sound like me mom, does it? Not following directions? NO way!) it won't take you two (or three) attempts to get this to come out right!

While you are at her site, check out the rest of her recipes. It is my new 'go to' place when I'm at that "NOTHING SOUNDS GOOD" road I seem to be strolling down most nights. EVERYTHING sounds good on that site! So far I've tried the #1 Cowboy sandwich, (she calls him Marlboro Man...LOVE it!) the Crash Hot Potatoes, the Zucchini Cakes, and...ahh...yeah...these Cinnamon Rolls! All very good. :)

So what you see to your left is the finished product. Yummy done cinnamon rolls with a maple glaze frosting. Doesn't get much better than that.


What you see here is unglazed rolls, because Daniel doesn't like the 'frosting' and "Please Mom can you save some without that frosting stuff on it?" works for me every.time.










Here is the state of my kitchen while the 2nd batch was baking. Because I can't ever just follow directions, I decided to do 1/2 of these the regular cinnamon rolls, and the other half caramel rolls.


Instead of the regular cinnamon sugar mixture rolled in the dough I used brown sugar and much less cinnamon.

The I mixed 3 cups of packed brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and about 9 -10 oz of melted butter together. I spread this mixture between 3 disposable round cake pans and one bread pan because all the rolls wouldn't fit between the 3 remaining cake pans and I was NOT making the same mistake twice and packing them in!





Then...I baked. This is mid-way through the baking. Looking good huh?

This is what resulted from the little bread pan. I flipped it over so the caramel could ooze down the sides of the rolls...after I ate one...or two. :)











The rest got inverted onto this big cookie sheet. Upon flipping I discovered that the ones baked in the cake pans did not have the right texture on the bottom (or what is the top in this picture).

The parts that cooked in the caramel were a little....ummm....soggy. ONLY the ones that cooked in the cake pans though. Weird huh? So, I decided to toss them back into the oven for a few minutes to see if I could get them to firm up a bit.

It is what it is at this point! Hopefully it firmed up enough to have a good texture, but didn't wreck the whole bunch. We'll see! After 2 caramel rolls and 2 cinnamon rolls, I'm all sugared out for the moment.

This makes a huge batch. 7 round cake pans would do the trick...maybe even 8. LOTS. Its supposed to! You are supposed to take a pan over to your sister's house for morning coffee...or over to your mom's, or to church on Sunday, or to that Pampered Chef party you are hosting.

What I'm saying though is this could be EASILY halved. :) What fun would that be though! Enjoy!