life: styled: The Ultimate Cinnamon Roll

Whether it's the warm dough, the gooey sugar glaze or the carmelized cinnamon goodness, I just can't get enough of a good cinnamon roll. Any bakery I go to I must try their roll. Most are sub-par, day old, hard, & crusty. But I still try them. But by far, the World's Best Cinnamon Roll title belongs to Old West Cinnamon Rolls in Pismo Beach, CA. Anyone who's been there and tasted their divine rolls will agree: they are other-worldly.

And I wanted to be second.

So when our friends the Hendrix got the book "Artisan Breads Every Day" by Peter Reinhart, I asked if I could have the cinnamon roll recipe. I've never tried them from scratch before, knowing the kind of high standards I had. But this recipe did not fail. And it really wasn't that hard! I made half plain and half with pecans (for those of us that know nothing can taste bad with pecans) and we had them with Sunday Family Dinner.

I ate four.

At one sitting.

#65 completed

Dough:
6 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt
6 tbs sugar
5 tsp instant yeast
2 C plus 2 tbs lukewarm milk
1/2 C veg. oil or unsalted butter
Zest of 1/2 lemon

Cinnamon sugar mix:
3 tbs cinnamon
3/4 C of sugar
melted butter for brushing
Raisins and/or walnuts, pecans to taste (optional)

Glaze:
4 C powdered sugar
2 tbs light corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 milk

Combine flour, salt, sugar in mixing bowl. Whisk the yeast into milk until dissolved. Pour mixture to dry ingredients. with oil and zest. Mix low, 1 min. Add dough hook or mix by hand for 4 min. add milk or flour if necessary. Mix 2 more min.

Knead by hand on flour surface for 1 min. Put ball in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic and refrigerate overnight to 4 days.

Remove dough 3 hrs before baking. Split into 2 balls and rest for 20 min. covered. Roll out each ball into a 12 x 15 inch rectangle, 1/4 inch thick.

Brush dough with melted butter and sprinkle sugar mixture over with a 1/4 inch border.

Roll up like a rug, to form a log.

Cut log into 1 inch thick slices, place them on a sheet pan or round cake pans lined with parchment paper, 1.5 inches apart. Mist tops with oil; cover with plastic wrap. Let rise at room temp. for 2 hours.