Let me start off by saying I didn’t actually make these cinnamon rolls, my husband did. These were WAY too delicious not to post though and it’s no surprise this recipe was the 2021 Recipe of the Year. He graciously got up early to make these so we could enjoy them for breakfast! I basically interviewed my husband so these are his thoughts on the recipe.

This recipe isn’t very difficult, but it does require some rise time so don’t assume you can just throw these together for a quick breakfast. This recipe stats with the Tangzhong, a yeast bread technique, that my husband said is like a thick roux. Once you’ve got this done you can start making the dough, which he made in our stand mixer. Then you just let the dough rise for anywhere between 60-90 minutes.

From here it’s easy; make the filling, press the dough into a rectangle, and fill. We don’t have any plain floss so my husband just cut these with a serrated knife. You’ll let this rise again anywhere between 30-60 minutes. When you think you’re about 20 minutes from baking, preheat the oven. My husband used the recipe in the cookbook we have and it recommended baking these for around 22 minutes so that’s what he did and it worked out well. Just keep an eye on things to make sure they don’t burn and this is where using a thermometer comes in handy since the recipe gives you the right temperature so you know when the rolls are done. Then comes the hardest part – letting these cool for about 15 minutes before icing and eating them!

While this recipe is a bit time consuming, as said earlier it’s not super difficult. We ended up ranking this as a 10 for baking ease because other than making the Tangzhong, this shouldn’t be hard. Taste-wise these are amazing! I noticed right away the dough had a nice tang to it and that might be because there’s only 2 tablespoons of sugar in the actual dough. These are so good they’re addicting. I try not to eat a ton of sugar, but I could not help myself and kept going back.

For your sake, it might be best to make these when you’re feeding more than a few people otherwise you’ll be tempted to eat a half batch yourself. We did manage to keep these in the house a few days, even if we did eat the whole batch ourselves, and they were just as good a day or two later as the first day. Yes it’s time consuming, but this recipe is well worth the effort; especially if your husband gets up early to make these for you! 🙂

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	7
Taste	10
Visual	10

Recipe used: King Arthur