I love lazy Sunday mornings. I’m usually up hours before the rest of the family and it’s such relaxing time to sip coffee, read and relax. We try to keep Sundays for family and really limit any social activities. It’s the only day everyone can sleep in as long as they want since there’s no specific thing to wake up for. (Except me. I can’t sleep in past 6am, ever…)

I also like to put together a special breakfast on Sundays. During the week, my husband makes breakfast and we often go out for brunch on Saturdays with either friends or family, so Sunday is all mine. And I like to make it a little special.

Sometimes I’ll whip up a batch of my Belgian waffles. Other times I’ll surf the web until something catches my eye. This morning I decided I’d make cinnamon rolls. Just one problem. Every recipe I found seemed to require 2+ hours of prep (and fed 9-12 people!). Way too much effort and time and I really did not want 12 servings of cinnamon rolls in the house.

I thought about walking to the grocery store and buying a tube of stuff and just calling it a day…but I had once made the mistake of reading the ingredients label. I could no longer, in good conscious, buy a tube of the stuff for my family.  Also, I felt like a challenge. Here is a quick 45 minute recipe for cinnamon rolls from scratch!

Ingredients

Dough:

• 1 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 rounded teaspoon yeast
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1 egg

Filling:

• 1 Tablespoon butter, softened (microwave for 10-15 sec)
• 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar (or sub white sugar)

Glaze:

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 Tablespoons milk

Instructions

1. To Make dough: In a large bowl, stir together the flour, the sugar, salt, and yeast. Set aside. In a small glass bowl, mix together water, milk, and the butter. Place this mixture in the microwave and heat for 30-45 seconds until butter is melted. Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and lightly stir. Add the egg and continue stirring until mostly incorporated. Knead dough by hand for approximately 4 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when the dough is no longer sticky. Place in a lightly greased bowl and let rest for 5 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Once it’s reached temp, turn oven off.
3. To Make Filling: After the dough has rested for 5 minutes, roll it out in a large rectangle -roughly 10×6 inches. (Tip: I like to tape down a sheet of parchment paper and roll the dough on top.) Spread the softened butter on top. Mix together the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle it all over the dough. Lightly press cinnamon and sugar into the dough. Roll up the dough and cut into 10 even pieces. Rolls will be small. Place in a small, buttered baking dish and loosely cover with foil.
4. Place the cinnamon buns in the heated oven (make sure you’ve turned it off!) to rise for 20-25 minutes. Then remove the foil cover and keep the rolls in the oven. Set oven to 375F. Bake the cinnamon rolls for 17-20 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and top with glaze.
5. To make glaze: Mix the powdered sugar, vanilla and 2 Tablespoons milk together until smooth and lump free. Use a spoon to drizzle over warm rolls.