My grandmother, former home-ec. teacher and enthusiastic chef and baker, had file of cabinets of recipes, cabinets of dishes, and an addition built to house a formal dining room. All of which is to say, Grandma loved to entertain and provide food for those she loved.
It is somewhat strange then, that while I have several family recipes I inherited from my Dad, I have only one directly from my Grandmother.
But if I was only going to have one, I'm glad it's this one. There are a handful of dishes that say "Grandma" to me: jello salad, bananas in milk with sugar, oyster stuffing, and these cinnamon rolls.
She would make them in huge batches and freeze them uncooked, then pull them out for company. They were always amazing in my book, so it was the one recipe I requested. The result: a hand-typed recipe card, with a few typos here and there, is a especially precious bit of my baking book.
But for all that, I made the recipe for only the second time this weekend, and I more fully understand the large batch/freezing practice, because with a yeast dough base they literally took all day to complete. Most of it was rising time and very little was hands-on time, but still - not something I'm going to bang out every weekend.
That said, if you have the time, these are well worth the effort for a special meal and way better than those things in a can.
Grandma Batt's Cinnamon Rolls
makes 18 rolls
Sweet Roll Dough
- 1 pkg active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm (not hot) water
- 3/4 cup lukewarm milk
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup shortening or (softened unsalted butter)
- 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups flour
Cinnamon Filling
- 2 Tablespoons melted butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
Quick White Icing
- 1 cup confectioner's/powdered sugar
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- Few drops of vanilla extract (optional)
In a bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add milk, sugar, salt, egg, shortening and half of flour to the yeast. MIx with spoon until smooth. Add enough remaining flour to handle easily.
Turn onto lightly floured board; knead until smooth (5 min.). Round up in greased bowl, bring greased side up. Cover with cloth. Let rise in warm place (85 degrees F) until double, about 1 1/2 hours. PUnch down; let rise again until almost double, about 30 min. Shape.
Roll dough into oblong, 15" x 9". Spread with a the Cinnamon Filling mixture. Roll up tightly, beginning at wide side. Seal well by pinches edges of roll together. Even up roll by stretching slightly. Cut roll into 1" slices. Place in greased 13"x 9" pan or 18 greased muffin cups. Cover and let rise until double, 30 to 40 minutes.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes in 375 degree F oven. Frost while warm with Quick White Icing as desired.
To make icing, shift powdered sugar into bowl...moisten with cream or milk to spreading consistency. Add flavoring.