Memory Monday: My Family and Cinnamon Rolls

My paternal grandmother

OUR FAMILY AND CINNAMON ROLLS

Through the generations, homemakers have made cinnamon rolls to feed their family and friends. Through the years, the recipes have changed on how to make these wonderful breads. Following are three recipes—the first one could have been used by one of my grandmothers (unfortunately she passed away when my dad was nine). The second one was made my other grandmother and I ate them when my husband and I visited her. The last one is one I made almost every week for a coffee service I did on Sunday morning at church. It’s interesting how the recipes have changed through the generations.

White Yeast Bread
(from the pamphlet Five Cent Meals, 1914)
3 quarts flour
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 quart hot water
2 yeast cakes stirred into cup of lukewarm water
2 tablespoons lard or other fat
Put lard, sugar and salt in large pan or bowl and add the hot water. When lukewarm add the dissolved yeast and about 5 pints of flour. Stir until smooth, add the remaining flour and mix well. Turn the dough on to a board and knead until it is smooth and elastic. Place in a well-greased pan, greasing the top of the dough and cover with clean cloth. Place where it will keep at a warm, even tempera ture. When the dough has raised to double its size, which will be in about 11/2 hours, knead it again, form into loaves, grease the outside of the loaves and place them in a baking pan. Let the dough rise until it is again double its size, which it should do in about one hour, and bake for one hour in a moderately hot oven.
The temperature at which bread dough is kept is one of the most important things about bread making. Yeast is a plant, and too much heat will kill it, while a low tempera ture will keep it from growing and forming the gas bubbles which make the bread light. Bread must be baked thor oughly in order to be wholesome. For this reason it is best not to make the loaves much, if any, larger than the common bakers' loaf, which weighs 12 ounces. This recipe will make eight such loaves.
When the loaves are done place them sidewise on a rack or table, so that the air will circulate freely around them. If a soft crust is desired, cover the bread while cooling. When perfectly cold, place in a jar or tin box.

Cinnamon Rolls
Roll bread dough to inch thick, at second kneading, spread with fat and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, roll into a long roll, cut into inch slices, grease these on the outside, place in baking pan, when they have risen to twice their size, bake.

My maternal grandmother

CINNAMON ROLLS

(as near as I can remember how she told me to make them)

1 package frozen Rhodes rolls

Cinnamon

Sugar

Powdered Sugar

Margarine

Milk

Thaw rolls. Pat each one slightly to make a small disk. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar over each flattened roll of dough. Fold each on in half to make a semi-circle, then fold again to make a pie-slice shape. Place dough pieces in a greased 9” x 13” pan and allow to rise until double in size. Bake for 20 minutes in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. When done, remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before topping with icing. Icing—mix powdered sugar, margarine and milk.

Me, years ago

CINNI-MINNIS

3 c. + 6 T bread flour 

2 eggs 

1/2 c. pineapple juice 

1/2 c. water 

3/8 c. granulated sugar  

1/2 t. vanilla extract 

1/2 stick butter or margarine (4 T.) 

1/4 t. salt 

2 1/4 t. active dry yeast

1 lb. powdered sugar

Cinnamon

3 T. butter or margarine

1 T. vanilla

2-4 T. milk or more depending on how thin you want it

Put in eggs, pineapple juice, water, sugar, ginger, vanilla extract and softened butter or margarine in the tub of the bread machine. Add flour. Then add the yeast last. Set bread machine to dough stage.

When cycle ends, take dough from bread machine and knee it on a floured surface a few times. Pat it out to a rectangle apx. 16” x 8” (This is not a set size. Sometimes my dough rises more than others, then I have more dough to press out.) Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough in half length-wise. (At this point, I usually pat and stretch it a little more.)

Taking one of the dough halves, sprinkle cinnamon down the middle (this again isn’t an exact amount—depends on if your family likes a lot or a little). Roll the dough jelly-roll-fashion, then pinch the edges closed tightly. Cut it into fourths, then each piece into six slices. Put slices into a greased/sprayed 9” x 13” pan. Repeat with other half of the dough.

Let rise until double or triple in size in a warm place for about an hour or so. (I usually turn the oven on to “Warm” while I am shaping the dough, then turn it off. I also put a small bowl of water into the warm oven to keep the dough from drying out as it rises. This way it only takes about 30 minutes to rise.) Take pan from oven when ready to pre-heat oven.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Bake for appox. 19 minutes. 

While rolls are baking, make icing. Mix powdered sugar and butter together with a fork. Add vanilla and enough milk to make a thin icing (more of a drizzle). 

As soon as you remove the rolls from the oven, spoon the icing over the rolls. The icing will melt down around the rolls and everyone will get their fair share.

I know mine seems the most involved, but remember the bread machine does most of the work—and I get all the credit for how good they are.

Do you have recipes which you make differently from your mother or grandmother?