In the Kitchen With Ruby

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I have been cooking and baking a lot as of late. It brings me great joy to do so. Peace as well. I can loose myself when in the kitchen, but in a good way. I feel productive, and once I work around the road blocks the pain and weakness brings I manage quite well.

This week I was in the mood for cinnamon rolls. I stumbled across an easy way to make them in the most recent All You magazine. No it was not from the tube, but I do like those and they are easy. This recipe used pre-made frozen or fresh pizza dough. So I went across the street from our apartment and bought a couple baggies of dough in the fridge section and got to work.

I decided on raisins instead of nuts

Close up of photo from magazine

Will have recipe typed out below for you

Extra cinnamon for me, raisins no nuts and the brown sugar.

Pizza dough likes to shrink back...learned that today.

Ready to roll!

Now to cover and let rise ....

All puffed up and ready to go! * Next time may use a rectangle dish squeezing 16 rolls in was tough and left no spaces in-between as called for. Made hard to slice out later too.

Baking, browning...mmmm

All done, ready to cool and frost. I skipped the frosting. I liked them as is . But as mentioned above, I would rather not make 16 slices and have them be bigger and less squished, or use a rectangle glass baking dish.

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Rise: 1 hour
Yield: 16 rolls (serving size: 1 roll)
Cost per Serving: $.43

Ingredients

• Rolls:
• 1/2  cup  packed dark brown sugar
• 3/4  teaspoon  cinnamon
• 1/2  cup  chopped pecans
• 1  pound  frozen pizza dough, thawed in refrigerator
• 4  tablespoons  (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• Frosting:
• 1/2  cup  confectioners' sugar
• 4  tablespoons  (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3  tablespoons  cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/4  teaspoon  vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl; stir in nuts. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to a 15-by-7-inch rectangle. Spread butter on top; sprinkle with sugar mixture.
2. Starting at long edge, roll up dough, jelly-roll fashion. Moisten edges with water; pinch to seal. Cut crosswise into 16 slices. Place rolls in pan, with space between them. Cover with a clean kitchen towel; let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Bake until tops of rolls are golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes.
3. Make frosting: Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat confectioners' sugar, butter, cream cheese and vanilla until light, about 2 minutes. Frost rolls. Serve warm.

Nutritional Information

Calories:

190

Fat:

10g (sat 5g)

Protein:

2g

Carbohydrate:

23g

Fiber:

1g

Cholesterol:

17mg

Sodium:

142mg

All You, MARCH 2011

***** A few notes. As mentioned I subbed in raisins for nuts. Loved it. I used Best Life Margarine and it worked just fine and saved a few fat grams and calories. Again, making 16 slices was a pain. If you are needing them to be exact, it takes a lot of math. Also squeezing them into the 9' pie dish , difficult. Slicing into individual sweet rolls, even harder. I might try a rectangle dish. Also I baked mine for 18 minutes....bit too long, but 15 was not enough. Watch them closely and make sure that the rack is indeed in the middle. I often have issues with my oven temp, it is an apartment oven after all...but they still were yummy and I shall make them again. 

Bonus !!!!!!

I had one more pouch of dough to use up, so rolled out, squeezed mustard in it, added pre-cooked bacon, slices of ham and then swiss cheese, rolled up and sprinkled with poppy seeds and dehydrated onions, baked till medium golden brown ...about 25-30 minutes( you can slice open after it looks done, if still needs a bit of time in middle to finish, wrap in foil and pop back in for a bit)  at 400 degrees... hubby had it with apple slices and a salad for a nice supper. 

You can also make individual pockets, or fold over the rolled out dough and fillings and make it more like a calzone ...I am loving using the pre-made pizza dough and quickly making something that looks like I slaved in the kitchen all day!