Sugar n Spice Cinnamon Rolls

I've been meaning to make cinnamon rolls for a while now. I had some cream cheese frosting in the fridge that I thought would be absolutely perfect for cinnamon rolls. And I finally made some yesterday. I used Betty Crocker's recipe for cinnamon rolls, but with a couple changes. First, in the original recipe, you can use granulated sugar or brown sugar for the filling. I'd never used brown sugar, so that was my obvious choice. Second, instead of cinnamon, I used pumpkin pie spice for a special kick. It just adds a slightly deeper dimension of flavor. These two changes inspired my title for these rolls - Sugar n Spice Cinnamon Rolls. And my third change, instead of the glaze suggested in the recipe, I of course frosted my rolls with cream cheese frosting.

Sugar n Spice Cinnamon Rolls
3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 pkgs active dry yeast (4 1/2 tsp)
1 cup very warm milk (120-130 degrees)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 large egg
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Mix 2 cups of the flour, the sugar, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Add warm milk, butter, and egg. Beat with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.

Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Placer dough in large bowl greased with shortening, turning dough to grease all sides. Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 1 hour 30 minutes or until double. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.

Gently push fist into dough to deflate. Flatten dough with hands or rolling pin into 15x10-inch rectangle on lightly floured surface. Here you can spread the dough with 2 tbsp softened butter, or I just sprayed it with cooking spray to reduce the calories. Combine brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. If you don't have pumpkin pie spice you can just add some nutmeg, allspice, and ginger to your cinnamon. Sprinkle sugar and spice over rectangle of dough. Roll rectangle up tightly, beginning at 15-inch side. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal. Stretch and shape until even. Cut roll into 15 1-inch slices with dental floss or a sharp serrated knife (I actually ended up making 18 instead of 15. It was a tight fit in the pan). Place slightly apart in greased 9x13 pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place about 30 minutes or until double.

Heat oven to 350. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire rack. Cool 10 minutes.

Here's my tightly packed rolls. If you cut out 15 of them like the recipe says, yours probably won't look so squished. I think that mine didn't get to rise as well as they should have, and weren't as fluffy as I would like. They were still delicious, but next time I'll do the number suggested in the recipe.


Drizzle rolls with Vanilla Glaze or frost with Cream Cheese Frosting. I used cream cheese frosting because I had it in the fridge and it needed to be used.


But here's the recipe for the glaze if you want to do that instead:

Vanilla Glaze
1/3 cup butter or margarine
2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2-4 tbsp. hot water

Melt butter in saucepan over low heat; remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in hot water, 1 tbsp at a time, until smooth and the consistency of thick syrup. Glazes one 12-cup bundt cake, 10-inch angel food or chiffon cake, or top of 8- or 9-inch layer cake (or one batch of cinnamon rolls!).