Okay it's official. I am addicted to these suckers. So I made 4 different kinds, as planned... I made one full batch of The Pionner Woman's cinnamon rolls. Ree is an amazing woman. Bless her. I refrigerated my dough after adding the last cup of flour and the baking powder/soda. Had other things to do, like make a huge batch of egg rolls and teryaki noodles for dinner.. That I completely forgot to take pics of. LOL Anyway, after dinner and the mountain of dishes were cleaned up.. I got started on the different fillings.
For the blueberry ones, I simmered a pint of blueberries, a cup of sugar, a tablespoon or so of cornstarch and half a cup of water with the zest of a lemon, and the juice of half a lemon.. I cooked this until the blueberries burst and the sauce thickened up. Turned off the heat and let it sit there and cool while I started working on everything else. Then I took a cup of white sugar (which ended up being too much.. more like half a cup woulda been fine) and zested a lemon directly into it.. then worked the lemon zest all through the sugar with my hands until I had a gorgeous sand like yellowish lemon scented sugar. (this was a gorgeous substance.. the orange was even tastier) . When it came time fill these rolls, I slathered half a cup of melted butter and spread most of the blueberry filling out on the rolled out and rested dough (more on this later).. there was simply too much filling so I didn't need it all... After spreading as much filling as I thought that dough could hold, I sprinkled it with the lemon scented sugar and rolled it up, pinched it closed and sliced into 1-1.5 inch rolls and laid them out in a 9x13 that had been rubbed down with melted butter. It was an ooey gooey mess.. Everytime I cut a roll, blueberry filling splurged out onto the table. It was quite the mess!! Thank god I had my sis in law there to help me clean up as I went or I'd probably still be scrubbing things. LOL For the glazed on these, I took about a third of a bag of powdered sugar and the zest and juice of one lemon, about 1/3 cup melted butter, and a few splashes of milk and whisked it together.
For the orange rolls.. I did the same trick as the lemon scented sugar.. zested 1 whole orange into 1 cup of white sugar and worked it through with my hands. This tasted amazing all by itself.. but I really wanted to know what it would be like with a tad clove and cinnamon.. so I took a small portion out and tried it.. I liked it.. but The Husband wasn't wild about it, and my sis in law preferred the plain orange. Well after thinking about it.. I had a PMS moment and grabbed a couple chocolate chips, and sorta dipped them into the orange sugar.. and popped them into my mouth.. cuz I love orange flavored chocolate so much. And I had an epiphany! I needed to put chocolate chips in my orange sweet rolls!!! And so that's what I did. After slathering the rolled dough with the required half a cup of melted butter, I sprinkled the entire cup of orange scented sugar (since there was no blueberry filling, I needed the whole cup in this batch) all over the surface and then liberally dispersed chocolate chips.. Rolled it up, sliced it, put it in the buttered dish. I die. For the glaze I did the same as the lemon glaze, except obviously replacing the one whole lemon for one whole orange.
For the chocolate chip round, I did it just like PW does hers.. Slather with melted a butter, a combo of white and brown sugar, generous sprinkling of chocolate chips and rolled it up and sliced it (Sis in law actually did this batch :)) and set it into the buttered pan. For the glaze on these I took a third of a bag of powdered sugar, added a couple teaspoons of vanilla (I actually got a little carried away with the vanilla, oh well LOL), 1/3 a cup of melted butter, and several splashes of milk, and whisked together.
The last pan was my standard version of PW cinnamon rolls.. melted butter, a mix of white and brown sugar, a hefty sprinkling of cinnamon.. roll 'em up and slice 'em. For the glaze I softened(actually accidentally mostly melted lol) 2/3 a brick of cream cheese, 1/3 cup melted butter, 1/3 bag powdered sugar, a teeny splash of vanilla and a couple splashes of milk to make a cream cheese glaze.
Now my note on rolled and rested dough.. Even though my dough had already risen technically twice.. once warm and then the second a slow cold rise in the fridge.. I like to roll out the dough and then leave it for 10-20 minutes before spreading the filling onto it and rolling it up. I find that because I tend to roll it rather thin no matter how hard I try not to.. this allows the dough a minute to sorta puff back up so the spirals inside the roll are nice and prominent and not tons of tiny spirals that fall apart. So what I ended up doing was rolling out all 4 portions of dough in separate spots on the table (thank god for a big table!), once I was done with the last one, the first was nice and puffy again and ready to be filled. Once the rolls are filled and sliced they have to rise one last time for 30-45 mins, depending on how cold the dough was from the fridge. I do it on the back of the stove while the oven warms up.. the oven vent provides heat that really makes them puff up and rise nicely.
Here's a pic of my rolls rising.. as you can see the ones in the back, by the vent are nice and big and ready to go.. once those were in the oven, I moved the other two pans to the back and they got just as big..
Being risen techincally 3 times resulted in a REALLY yummy tasting dough. I couldn't have been more pleased with all of this.. and refrigerating that dough after the first rise instead of going ahead and making rolls right away, really made the dough SO much easier and less sticky to roll out. All in all, a really fun project and I'm glad I finally experimented with some new flavors.
As of right now, I've only had the orange chocolate and the blueberry lemon, because I'm showing self restraint.. both were amazing. I tried to go with just half of each.. but.. well PMS got the better of me and I went back for the other half of the orange chocolate one. It reminds me so much of those "whack it and unwrap it" chocolate oranges that you can get at christmastime. I *love* those things and that's just what the inside of these rolls taste like.. I just can't even get over how in love I am with it. Yummy stuff. Best idea EVER!!! :)
Oh and just because I really needed a plain orange sweet roll.. I pulled the chocolate chips out of two of them before rising and baking, so that I'd have a couple that are just like my orange ones from the can.. but better. :D I hid them in a tupperware in my room. Those heathens woulda stolen it by morning. I don't trust em. Not with my sweet rolls! lol
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