Cinnamon Rolls

Nothing works up an appetite like opening a pile of gifts! Make sure your family is well fed this Christmas by baking up a pan of gooey and delicious cinnamon rolls. My favorite recipe is from Crisco.com

If you haven’t worked with yeast dough before, it’s easy. Since yeast is a living organism, you do have to be a bit gentle with it. When you activate it, think of baby bottle temperature. The water should be just barely warm if you touch it to your wrist. Let the yeast and water stand for a couple of minutes before stirring it to dissolve the yeast.

What makes the dough rise? The yeast “eats” the sugar and starch in the dough and then puts out carbon dioxide which “lifts” the dough. It does that most effectively in an environment that is between 70° and 80°F. I like place dough in the oven (turned off!) or on top of the dryer while I’m doing laundry. If you’re making a rich dough, like cinnamon rolls, the dough will rise a bit slower than if you were making, say, a French baguette. That’s because the fats in the dough slow down the rise. The first rise for cinnamon roll dough is about an hour and a half. After you fill, roll and cut them, the dough needs to rise another half an hour.

I’m the first to admit that making cinnamon rolls from scratch is not an everyday activity. But here’s the good news. You can make a big batch and freeze them, unbaked, so that eating them anytime you want them is a cinch. Just add a few minutes to the bake time for frozen cinnamon rolls.

You can find this recipe, and lots more holiday baking ideas, at Crisco.com.