Cinnamon Roll Muffins

I must give credit to Joy the Baker for this recipe. I surfed her site and just had to make this recipe. And her photography and method came out a lot better than mine, lol, but I'll catch on, don't worry. I did modify the recipe slightly, but only to add real vanilla bean to the dough.

I think we all love cinnamon rolls, but they are labor intensive aren't they? And take a long time? Here, you mix up a yeast dough, add the cinnamon sugar to the dough, and bake in cold oven as you turn the heat on, it quickly rises the dough. I was amazed at how quickly this was done, and how good they were.

I also messed them up royally (more on that later) but they still were delicious.

Here we go:


Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 packages active dry yeast
2/3 cup warm milk (100-110F)
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 vanilla bean, cut open and seeds scraped into the mixture.
1 large egg

Filling/Topping:

3 tbsp butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp milk or cream

In a large bowl, combine flour, and salt. Dissolve the yeast in a measuring cup filled with the warmed milk, and sugar and let sit for 15 minutes to assure the yeast "proofs". If, after 15 minutes the milk and yeast mixture is foamy, then you are good to go. If not, start over.

Stir milk mixture, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and egg into the flour mixture. Mix well, until very smooth. Let dough 'rest' for 20 minutes.

While the dough rests, mix together butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl using a fork until all the butter has been incorporated into the sugar and mixture is crumbly. Divide the batter between 12 greased muffin cups. Sprinkle evenly on top of rested dough and press the mixture down into the dough with your fingertips (or swirl in with a spatula.)

Place pan into a cold oven, then set the oven temperature to 350F.

Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes minutes, until bread is lightly browned at the edges and the center of the bread springs back when lightly pressed. Some of the sugar mixture on top may still be bubbling.

Cool for at least 30 minutes before whisking the powdered sugar and milk together to form an icing and drizzling it onto the bread.

Serve warm. Leftovers can be reheated in the microwave.

Now, confession time. Although these look good, and tasted delicious, I messed them up. What I did is NOT swirl the cinnamon sugar mixture down INTO the muffin! As a result the mound of sugar sitting on top bubbled up, melted, and ran all over the muffins, all over the muffin tin, and ALL over the bottom of my oven. What a mess.

So, make sure you push the sugar/cinnamon down into the muffin. In fact, the next time I make these I think I will add half the dough, then the sugar and then top with the other half of the dough.

Yeah, that's the ticket.