Grandma Thorn's Cinnamon Rolls

Growing up I ate lots of yummy baked goods made by my Grandma Thorn. I always took them for granted because I had never had yucky baked goods. Now that my grandma has passed and I don't live by my aunt who inherited the great baking gene from her mom, I miss the yummy goodness that I grew up with. After trying multiple recipes for cinnamon rolls and hating all of them, I had almost given up making cinnamon rolls thinking that I just didn't have the knack for it. Then, last week I was making my grandma's bread recipe and was really getting caught up in nostalgia and remembered that my grandma made great cinnamon rolls. Then I remembered that my aunt made those same great cinnamon rolls, so I called her for the recipe. It ended up being easier than I thought it would be and they turned out so good. Next time I will cook them a little less time because my husband said he liked his a little gooier. One thing I learned when talking to my aunt is that there are two basic kinds of cinnamon roll recipes out there. One is with a regular bread dough and one is with a sweet bread dough. I realized that all the recipes that I had tried and they just didn't taste sweet enough for me were made with regular bread dough and my grandma's is with a sweet bread dough. So, without further adieu here is the recipe.

What you will need:

1/4 cup warm water

2 tsp. yeast

1 cup milk

1/4 cup shortening

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

enough flour to make a soft dough

Here is what you do:

Mix the warm water and yeast in a small bowl and set aside. Scald the milk and shortening in a saucepan. In the main bowl you will mix in, mix the eggs, sugar and salt. Add the milk, then add about 2 cups of flour. Add the yeast, water mixture. Continue to add flour until a soft dough forms.

Let the dough raise in a lightly coverd bowl until double in size. Roll the dough into a rectangle. Add melted butter to cover the entire rectangle of dough. Next sprinkle cinnamon over the dough and also sugar. I used brown sugar for extra goodness. I also put a thin coating of butter on the bottome of my 9x13 pan.

Roll the dough width wise making sure to keep the dough tightly rolled. Slice the dough into slices as thick as you would like. I got 12 rolls out of this recipe and they were big rolls!

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Glaze with your favorite icing. I tried a cream cheese icing and my family gave it two thumbs down. Next time I will use just the standard powdered sugar icing.