Cinnamon Buns

Tonight we are doing the whole "Breakfast for supper" thing. I love breakfast, even though I'm terrible at making it. Sure, I can make box pancakes.. I've got them pretty well mastered ahhaha, but I can't even do a dippy egg. I ruin about 4 eggs for every 2 eggs that are good. If we have eggs, Kevin makes them. I can't do it. I'm really working on getting better at it.. I even found some new recipes. So tonight we are trying an actual french toast recipe (instead of just taking eggs, throwin in some milk and cinnamon), with some breakfast sausage, and *drum roll please* CINNAMON BUNS! Cinnamon buns are probably one of my biggest weaknesses, although I have never made homemade ones! I found a recipe.. read about 4857345 reviews and picked things from all the reviews to make these guys perfect. I decided to make them first thing in the morning since the process is pretty long. So at 6:30 this morning after Rosalie got her breakfast, I started making some cinnamon buns. 3 hours later, TOTALLY worth it. It was seriously heaven. The pictures aren't the best.... you try frosting hot cinnamon buns.. i'm not a neat froster to begin with.. but underneath the frosting is a perfectly measured bun.

Cinnamon Buns

Ingredients:

For the Dough:

1 c warm milk

2 eggs (room temp)

1/3c melted butter

4 1/2 c bread flour

1 teas salt

1/2 c granulated sugar

1 pk active dry yeast (7grams)

For The Flavoring:

1 c brown sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

1/3 c softened butter

For the Frosting:

6 oz cream cheese softened

1/2 c butter softened

3 c confectioners sugar

1 tea vanilla

1/2 teas salt

• Beat 2 eggs and add warm milk, mix in dry yeast. Add sugar, butter, salt, and eggs. Let stand 10 minutes.
• Add flour to yeast mixture and mix and knead.
• Cover and let rise for ATLEAST 1 hour ( i did just over an hour and my dough was ready.. but my kitchen is also pretty warm)
• After dough has doubled, place on a floured surface, cover, and let rise for another 10 minutes.
• Combine brown sugar and cinnamon.
• Roll dough in a 16 x 21 inch rectangle. (not as easy as it sounds.. took quite a bit of work!)
• Spread dough with 1/3 c of butter and sprinkle the entire thing of cinnamon and sugar mix on top.
• Roll up dough (Roll the long end, if that makes sense. You want it to be as long as possible, not as thick as possible.)
• Cut into 12 rolls and cut the ends off. I had mine exactly 21 inches long, so I cut mine into 1 1/2 inch wide rolls and disregarded the end pieces
• Place rolls into lightly greased 9x13 pan (do 3 columns of 4 rolls and make sure you can see the rolled cinnamon side)
• Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes
• Preheat over to 400 degrees
• Bake until golden brown (about 15 minutes).. they will APPEAR burnt on the bottom, but it's not burnt, it's just the excess sugar/cinnamon running out. I about had a heart attack thinking I burnt mine!
• In the mean time, combine all the frosting ingredients. I ended up using a mixer (which i HATE using.. I would rather hand mix everything) but there were clumps that i could not get to go away!
• Remove buns from oven and frost while hot. The frosting will run down the sides and in the creases. Let sit and cool and add another layer of frosting on top.

ENJOY!!