Snow Day Rollin’

That stuff that looks like smoke? Yeah, that was snow… later that night there was thundersnow, which was bizarre in itself! By early this afternoon, it was evident exactly how much snow we’d gotten:

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What you can’t see is that the fire hydrant is completely covered, and at the end of our street, the pole holding up the stop sign is all but covered too! The stop sign is just sticking out of a mound of snow! Though, no one is really driving much…

Onto my mission for the day. After I woke up from a much-needed 10-hour sleep, having a cup of coffee, and watching a few episodes of old Top Chef, I got to it. What is “it”?

I started with a great recipe for brioche dough from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I substituted the water for warm milk for a richer final product, and let it rise slowly in my slightly cold kitchen. If you’ve never made brioche, I highly suggest this recipe as it’s very simple to make and produces a perfect final product! But I wasn’t done at brioche. If I was, there would’ve been pictures already!

While the dough chilled after its rise, I mixed together a few delicious ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 3 Tb. good cinnamon
• 1/4 stick softened butter

Any ideas yet?

I rolled out the brioche dough until it covered nearly half of my very long counter, and then slathered one side of it with even more butter. Yes really, you can close your mouth now Image may be NSFW.
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I cut it into two sections and rolled them up separately. Why two sections?

One was to do this:

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And the other was to do this:

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Then they rose again. They got gloriously poufy, and then I baked them at 325*F for about 20 minutes for the cupcakes and 30 minutes for the full-sized rolls. While they baked, I made some icing.

What, you thought I was done with just the cinnamon rolls? NO WAY!!!

I whisked together:

• 1 brick (8 oz.) cream cheese
• 3/4 c. milk
• 2 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (homemade stuff from CandidRD!)

Is your mouth closed after gaping at the amount of butter? It better be, because your jaw will drop again in

3….

2….

1….

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(check out the gorgeous Sutton Gourmet paper liners!)

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And, of course there were the full-sized rolls as well:

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Let’s look at this beauty from another angle, shall we?

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My mom and David stopped by to drop Stella off for a weekend at our house. Just look how cute the dogs are together!

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While they were here I insisted that they have a cinnamon roll each. My mom is a true cinnamon roll connoisseur, and always attacks the middle of the roll first. David ate his from the outside in. They both agreed that they were FANTASTIC cinnamon rolls!

I truly think what makes them so good is that the bread part of the roll isn’t sickeningly sweet. It’s rich and flaky, but not terribly sweet. The filling is brown-sugar sweet, and the frosting is just decadent. It’s truly a perfect combination.

I’m a little nervous about having SO many of them in the house… I guess they’ll freeze well, or worst case, they’ll be our food for tomorrow.

Oh yeah. Tomorrow’s another snow day!!

Now… what shall I make tomorrow? Suggestions?

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