Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

This is for Chris. Thanks for the encouragement.

In 2017, I set a goal to write every day in November, and I finished National Novel Writing Month for the first time. The story was titled A Movie to Call Their Own, and it had a similar theme to The Girls from Ames. I wrote it to heal after losing a really close friend to cancer. I still have no plans to edit and publish it, but it did the job of helping me heal.

Now, I've had another significant loss - my dad. I don't know if this will be a consistent part of my healing process, but I want to remember the stories, recipes, and traditions my dad shared with me - and so I'm starting with this. One of those was his love for baking bread, cinnamon rolls, and homemade pizza.

Something Dad consistently made to share with others was his homemade cinnamon rolls. He often shared them with those he worked with as well as made them for family get togethers. I remember a friendly bickering between my Grandma Ana May and my dad about who had better cinnamon rolls - they both thought the other one made better rolls; however, I'm not sure one was truly better. Dad made great basic cinnamon rolls, and Grandma made delightful pecan rolls. I enjoyed them both equally.

Knowing that there was a brunch at church today, I made homemade cinnamon rolls last night and frosted them this morning. Admittedly, I did not follow Dad's basic glaze recipe for the cinnamon rolls, but I did make two different kinds of frosting - one for each pan of rolls. One pan had buttercream frosting, and the other pan of cinnamon rolls had cream cheese frosting.

Another thing that my dad and I disagreed on was whether or not to use the mixer. I firmly believe that since I have a stand mixer, I will use it. My dad never owned one and I'm not sure how long it would've taken him to use one if he did. After all, at one time, he used a dishwasher as a filing cabinet! Eventually, he did embrace the dishwasher and even ran it daily - but it probably took 25 of my 43 years with him to get him to that point.

Anyways, I used my stand mixer last night to mix up the dough for the cinnamon rolls. I let it rise for 30 minutes, mixed it up again for about 1 minute, and let it rise another 30 minutes. Once I had flattened out the dough and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar, rolled it up into a log, and cut it into pieces, I let it rest another 20 minutes before baking it for 20 minutes in a 325-degree oven, switching racks at the half-way point.

The cinnamon rolls must have been good because we came home from church with two empty pans - and they smelled so good last night that we did sample a small one.

Papa Randy's Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

• 2 cups warm water

• 2 Packages (Tablespoons) Yeast

• 3 eggs

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 cup sugar

• 4-5 cups flour

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

• Butter

• Cinnamon

• Sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees

2. Using stand mixer with dough hook, mix together water, yeast, eggs, salt and sugar.

3. Gradually add flour until dough is workable, but still a little sticky

4. Mix in vegetable oil

5. When dough is a good consistency, knead for 2 minutes

6. Cover dough with towel and let stand 30 minutes

7. Using dough hook, repeat kneading process for 1 minute

8. Cover for another 30 minutes

9. Prepare a floured surface and roll out dough

10. Butter dough all the way to edges

11. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and sugar

12. Roll into logs and cut into 1 inch pieces

13. Place in greased 9 X 13 pan

14. Cover and allow to rise 20 minutes

15. Bake at 325 for 18-20 minutes