Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls

I love baking. Even if I don’t like to eat what I bake, I’ll still bake it. I do however, LOVE cinnamon rolls. For my fellow T dot peeps, I’m sure you’re all familiar with Sheppard subway station and its HEAVENLY scent of Cinnabon cinnamon rolls… That, my friends is what my apartment smelled like today. OOH YEEEAH!

So, I’ve always found it intimidating to work with yeast. I wasn’t too sure what to expect, but after two botched attempts, here we are! It’s amazing! Today’s experiment opened up a new world of baking for me, a world that I am now vowing to conquer!

The great thing about these cinnamon rolls? There’s hardly any butter! And the recipe uses sweet potatoes to keep the rolls soft. I think I may try using whole wheat pastry flour next time and see if I get similar results!

I get pretty picky when it comes to cooking/baking… so I always do an “After Action Report” (AAR) after I finish whatever it is I’m doing. That being said, here is today’s AAR:

1. I realized afterwords that I forgot to spread a layer of butter on the dough before sprinkling the cinnamon sugar. (On account of jabbering on the phone!) (Don’t phone and bake. You make mistakes that will cost you perfection)

2. When rolling out the dough, I didn’t roll it out thin enough, so when I rolled up the dough with the sugar and all, I realized that the dough was too thick, and you don’t get many swirls inside with the sugar. Don’t know what I mean? Look at my picture vs the original recipe. You’ll see that the swirls are bigger and the dough isn’t as thick.

Maybe I’m a little anal. Whatever. Food’s gotta be done right B!

Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls
(From Eat Live Run. I <3 Jenna and her recipes! My first and favourite food blog I’ve ever followed!)

Eat Live Run – Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls

makes about 15 rolls

Ingredients:

4 tbsp butter

2/3 cup milk

1/2 cup mashed sweet potato (about 1 sweet potato, baked)

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 packets active dry yeast (1/4th oz each)

4 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cardamom

for filling —

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

4 tbsp butter, very soft

for glaze—

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Heat the milk and the 4 tbsp butter together in a small pan on the stove over low/medium heat until the butter melts and the milk is warm to the touch. Remove from heat, let cool about 10 minutes (temperature should be around 100 degrees—like warm bath water. If it’s hotter than that, the yeast will die and the rolls won’t rise!) sprinkle in the yeast and stir so yeast will dissolve. Let yeast mixture sit for five minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the mashed sweet potato and eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment.

In another bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.

Add flour mixture to the sweet potato mixture. With mixer running on low speed, slowly pour in the yeast and milk.

Knead for about six minutes on medium speed with either a paddle attachment or dough hook. The dough should be smooth and elastic when you’re done.

Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a dishcloth and set in a warm area to rise for 1 hour 15 minutes. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Remove dough and punch dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll out to a large rectangle and spread soft butter on top. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture on top keeping an inch bare around the sides.

Gently roll up dough so it resembles a log. Slice dough into 1/2 inch slices and place in a greased 9 x 13″ dish. Cover with a dishcloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake rolls for 25 minutes. Let cool while you make the glaze.

For the glaze, mix together the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract. If glaze seems too runny, add a little more powdered sugar. Place glaze in a small plastic bag and snip the tip off. Make swirls over the cooled rolls and serve.

Time:

~3 1/2 hours

-Side note: I used 4 cups of flour in the dough and kneaded it by hand. Since you’re using a floured surface and all, I figured you’d be adding close to 1/4 cup of flour in the kneading process anyway, so decided to omit it!

-I also omitted the cardamom and allspice. They remind me too much of Indian food. While I love Indian food, I don’t want my cinnamon rolls to remind me of it.

-read my AAR so you don’t screw up like I did lol.

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