Easy Cinnamon Rolls

Hi everyone, I just copied this recipe from my other blog, so sorry if you've already seen it!

I love cinnamon rolls, but I've never been that great at making them. Sure, they've always turned out pretty good, but the process... not good.

Let's just say there have been tears shed over the making of cinnamon rolls at my house, and they were mine. I don't have a fancy mixer or anything, so I've always mixed them by hand, and ended up with sticky dough that stuck to everything when I was trying to roll it up. Kinda drove me crazy.

But last week one day, I was making scrambled eggs with ham for dinner, and just had the idea "I should see if I can find a cinnamon roll recipe that will work in the breadmaker.", you know...to beef up my breakfast for dinner. Well, I found one! So we ended up having breakfast for dinner/dessert!

I love using my bread machine to make pizza dough (because let's just face it, I don't love handling dough). It's so easy to throw the ingredients on and turn it on the dough cycle. Granted, you do have to do that step an hour in advance of when you might have started making it by hand, but to me it is SO worth it to have the bread machine do all the work. I don't know why I didn't think of doing cinnamon rolls in there sooner!

I found this recipe on Allrecipes.com.

The website calls them "Clone of a Cinnabon". I call them Delicious. And Easy. Or maybe... So Delicious and Easy That I've Already Made Them Twice in the Last Four Days. But whatever you choose to call them, I hope you try it and enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup margarine, melted
• 4 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
  

**I just used the leftover portion of the stick of butter from the first part of the recipe, which ends up being less than 1/3 cup, but it is more than enough. I also didn't measure the cinnamon and sugar, i just sprinkled it on till it looked good.

• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

**I didn't have any cream cheese, so I just made some standard powdered sugar icing, and they were still delicious! Normally I'm all for cream cheese frosting, but you could easily save yourself the calories and they will still be so delicious!

Directions

1. Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select dough cycle; press Start.
2. After the dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon.
3. Roll dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls. Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
4. Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on warm rolls before serving.

Saltine Homemade Heath Bars!

So, I was eating tuna and crackers for lunch today, when I saw this recipe on the side of the box of saltines and decided to try it out. And it's great! I'm planning on making a bunch of goodies at Christmas time, and this is definitely going to be one of them!

1 sleeve (35-40) saltine crackers
3/4 -1 c. brown sugar
1 c. butter
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 10x15 in. cookie sheet with foil; spray very lightly with cooking spray. Cover cookie sheet with saltines. Boil sugar and butter for 3 minutes. Pour mixture over saltines and spread evenly. Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Remove from oven.

Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Let sit 1 minute, then spread melted chips with spatula. Sprinkle nuts over this and press down lightly. Cut on diagonal immediately or cool until firm, then break up. Pieces can be frozen.