Cinnamon Roll Bars

I love cinnamon rolls, so I've been collecting recipes for them or anything else that provides the same flavor to satisfy my cravings.  This is one of those recipes that I decided to try recently.  The first time I made them was for a tea I was hosting for the ladies in my Royal Ladies Tea Society.  They were so well liked by the attendees, my boys and my neighbors, that I made them again this past Saturday for my mom's birthday celebration.  Everyone who tries these bars loves them! My youngest son would eat the whole pan if I'd let him!

Not only do these bars taste great, but they are so easy to put together.  I found the recipe on Pinterest where the link led me to blissfulwhimsy.blogspot.com.  A big thank you to the author for sharing this recipe!  My guys all give these bars 9s on the Melnarik rating scale.

In a large bowl, I combine a yellow cake mix with some white and brown sugars and some cinnamon.

 To that mixture, I add the melted butter and eggs.  I melt the butter in a measuring cup in the microwave before combining the dry ingredients.  This way, the butter won't be so hot that the eggs will cook.  That's also why I make two wells in the dry ingredients, so the eggs won't mix with the butter until I mix them into the other dry ingredients first.

As you can see above, the dough is thick and somewhat sticky.

I pressed the dough into a greased 9x13-inch baking pan and then baked it in the oven at 350°F for 30 minutes.

When it came out of the oven, it had risen a bit and was golden brown around the edges.  I let the pan sit on a cooling rack until it was completely cooled.

Once cooled, I prepared the icing by combining the butter with powdered sugar using a hand mixer.  I added one cup of the powdered sugar at a time, adding the milk in between to get the proper consistency.  The original recipe called for a milk and powdered sugar icing, but I think a buttercream frosting on cinnamon rolls is the best, so I chose to make that instead.

I frosted the bars with this mixture and the bars were ready to cut and serve!

For my tea party I decided to cut the bars using a hexagon cookie cutter, to make them look a little more special.  They can be cut into any shape you like; it's the taste that makes these bars so special!  Enjoy!

Cinnamon Roll Bars

1 box yellow cake mix

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

1/2 cup (1stick) melted butter

2 eggs

2 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup softened butter

1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 350°F.  In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, sugars and cinnamon.  Add butter and eggs; mix thoroughly.  Spread into a greased 9x13-inch baking dish.  Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool completely.  In a medium bowl, mix together powdered sugar, butter and milk to make icing.  Spread on cooled bars.  Cut and serve.

Mini Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are one of my favorite things to eat.  I don't eat them often, which makes it a real treat when I get to have one.  I'm not a morning person, so making them from scratch is normally out of the question because of the time needed to let the dough rise.  When I find a recipe that sounds good and cuts out that rising time, I like to give it a try.  This one uses refrigerated crescent roll dough and bakes in only 13 minutes!   

In addition to the ease of putting these treats together and the short time invested in doing so, another great thing about this recipe is that the rolls are baked in a mini muffin tin, so you get 16 mini cinnamon rolls from each batch.  The first time I made them, I took them to a Bible study I was attending and everyone loved them and asked for the recipe.  I originally found this recipe on Pinterest by Iowa Girl Eats.  She didn't give exact measurements on a couple of the ingredients, but I've added them to my recipe below for your convenience.

I begin by putting a little flour on my work surface so the dough doesn't stick.  When I open the can and take out the dough, I "peel" off the first rectangle of dough and place it on my surface.  Then I pinch together the perforated seams, flip the dough over (making sure there is more flour underneath) and pinch the seams on the other side.

I then lightly roll the dough with a rolling pin to smooth out the seams and to make the dough a uniform thickness.

In a small bowl, I combine the brown and white sugars with the cinnamon.

Next, I spread half of the butter on the dough.  This helps to make the cinnamon/sugar mixture adhere a bit to the dough and contributes to the ooey, gooey goodness once baked.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this step before I started adding the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Using a tablespoon, I sprinkle half of the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the dough, then using the back of the spoon, spread it over the dough, almost to the edges.

The next step is to start rolling the dough into a log, beginning on the long side.  Because of the dry cinnamon/sugar mixture, this won't be a tight roll.

I didn't measure it, but I would guess it is about a foot long when rolled up (left).  Make a cut right in the middle to make 2 pieces (right).

 Cut each of those pieces in half (left), and then each of those pieces in half (right).  I then have 8 pieces.

I spray my mini muffin pan before carefully placing the cinnamon rolls in the pan, cut-side up.  Then I repeat with the other piece of dough from the can.  Most mini muffin pans hold either 12 or 24 muffins, so either one large pan or two of the smaller pans should be used.  Hint:  Whenever you use muffin tins where not every space gets used, put some water about half way up in the empty spaces to aid in even baking.

Don't they look scrumptious?  They are a beautiful golden brown and smell heavenly!

About 5 minutes before the rolls come out of the oven, I begin making the icing.  I work the softened butter into the powdered sugar before adding the maple syrup and milk.

Once all of the ingredients are incorporated and smooth, it should be thick enough to spread where the heat of the roll will allow it to melt into the cinnamon crevices!  Hint:  Let the rolls sit for a minute once they come out of the oven so they aren't so hot that the icing all melts to the bottom of the pan.

I usually frost them in the pan before removing them to a serving platter.

I use a spoon to remove each roll from the pan to serve.  This way I don't loose any of the gooey cinnamon goodness that has made it's way to the bottom of the pan.  The only problem with these tiny cinnamon rolls is their size.  It's easy to keep popping them in my mouth before realizing I've eaten more than I would have if I had eaten one normal size cinnamon roll!  It really is hard to stop eating these scrumptious little cinnamon rolls!  Enjoy!

Mini Cinnamon Rolls

  

1 (8 oz.) tube crescent roll dough

3 tablespoons softened butter

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¾ cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons softened butter

1 teaspoon maple syrup

1 teaspoon milk

Preheat oven to 375°.  Lay out half the dough (4 triangles) on lightly floured work surface and pinch all seams together.  Flip the dough and pinch seams together.  Using a rolling pin, smooth the seams and roll the dough until about ¼ thick, keeping the rectangular shape.  Spread half of the butter on the dough coming almost to the edges.  In a small bowl, combine the sugars and cinnamon.  Sprinkle sugar mixture over butter, covering completely.  Starting at the long side, carefully roll dough into a log.  With a sharp knife, make one cut in the middle of the log, cutting it in half.  Cut each of these pieces in half, then each of the resulting pieces in half again.  You should have 8 pieces.  Place each piece in a mini muffin pan sprayed with a non-stick coating.  Repeat with the other half of dough.  Bake at 375° for 13 minutes, or until golden brown.  Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together powdered sugar and butter; and syrup and milk.  Remove buns from oven, let sit for 1 minute before icing.  Enjoy!

Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread

Let me begin by telling you that I love cinnamon rolls!  Not all cinnamon rolls are created equal; some are good and some are not so good.  This doesn't stop me from collecting recipes for cinnamon rolls or those using cinnamon rolls.  This recipe I found on Pinterest (it originated at bakemore.com) and I'll be forever grateful that I found it and tried it.  The first time I made this cinnamon roll decadence, it was for the ladies in my discussion group at a Bible study I attend every Thursday.  I think every single one of them asked for a copy of the recipe, which I gladly handed out the next week.  Now to have my family try it.

I probably should have mentioned before that I try at least one new recipe each week.  In order to determine whether or not a recipe should be kept and made again, I ask my guys to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best ever.  They, however, never give anything a 10 as they think there is always room for improvement, so in my house, 9 is the new 10!  This offering got one 8 and two 9s on the Melnarik rating scale.  I believe in giving 10s, and that's what I give this recipe.

This recipe takes a bit of preparation.  I began by putting the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and mixing thoroughly.

Then, I opened the Grands cinnamon rolls and placed them on a cutting board.  Next, I cut each roll into quarters.

Each quarter got rolled in the cinnamon sugar mixture and placed in a greased bundt pan.  (The buns rise during baking, so make sure to use a pan where there's room to spare once all of the cinnamon roll pieces are in the pan.)

I used a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup to melt the butter in the microwave.  This allows plenty of room for stirring in the brown sugar and it makes it easy to pour in the next step!



After putting one-half of the rolls in the bundt pan, I poured about one-third of this mixture over the rolls.  This gave all of the rolls the ooey-gooey, buttery goodness.  Then I added the remainder of the rolls.






Finally, the last of the butter/brown sugar mixture was poured on.  About 20 minutes into the baking time, I  covered the pan loosely with foil to prevent the top rolls from getting too crusty.

The aroma in the kitchen was intoxicating and this is how wonderful the cinnamon roll pull apart bread looked when I inverted it onto my serving platter.  But there was one more step to add to the decadence of this breakfast treat!  If you remember, the containers that the cinnamon rolls came in had icing in them . . .

I waited about 5 minutes before adding the icing to the top and letting the hot cinnamon roll goodness melt it down the sides.  If you don't wait for it too cool a little bit, you'll have a pool of icing on the platter instead of mostly on the rolls.  This has got to be one of my favorite ways to feast on cinnamon rolls!  Enjoy!

Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread

½ cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ cup butter, melted

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 – 17.5 oz. cans Pillsbury Grands Cinnamon Rolls

Preheat oven to 350°.  In a shallow bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside.  Combine butter and brown sugar and stir until smooth; set aside.  (I melt my butter in a 2-cup measuring cup in the microwave and then add the brown sugar to the butter.  This way it’s easy to pour over the rolls in the pan.)  Remove cinnamon rolls from cans and cut into quarters.  Roll each piece in cinnamon sugar and place in a greased bundt pan.  After placing half of the rolls in the pan, re-stir the brown sugar/butter mixture if necessary and pour about 1/3 of the mixture over rolls.  Continue adding the pieces, which have been rolled in the cinnamon sugar, into the bundt pan.  Pour the remaining butter/brown sugar mixture over the rolls.  Bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until the rolls are firm or “springy” when pressed.  To prevent over-browning of the rolls at the top of the pan, loosely place foil over the top of the pan after approximately 20 minutes.  Invert onto a large plate or platter.  Let stand for 5 min. before adding the icing.  Only add the icing to the top as the heat melts it and it runs down the sides on it’s own.  Enjoy!