Cinnamon rolls

Having gone through the weight loss process I did, I NEVER thought I could eat a cinnamon roll again. I say that like it was high on my prioiety list when in fact, it was FAR from. I have these moments of wanting to feel "normal" which means eating the way I did before I lost weight. Of course, that would be foolish to do because I'd just gain the weight back. All of that leads to this blog where I make the the foods I miss or want to try in a healthier way.

OK - my point...I made cinnamon rolls! YAY! This is something I put togehter from watching Daphne Oz, on the Chew, and Giada, on the food network. I sort of combined the two and then made it my own. All of this was originally inspired by my sis-in-law - she made homemade (dough from scratch) cinnamon rolls but I couldn't try them because of the sugar.

Daphne used puff pastry, so did I, Giada used a can of crescent roll dough. I guess I'll tell you what I did and you can check out their sites for their recipes. I softened one stick of butter in the microwave, added cinnamon - maybe a tbsp? - then a tsp of vanilla. Then I added some brown sugar. I kept one roll/sheet of the puff pastry folded in thirds and rolled it out so it was long and narrow. From there, I spread half the butter mixture and rolled the dough so I had around a 12" log and repeated with the second piece of pastry dough. I cut the dough into pieces roughly 1 1/2" - 2". Now here's the tricky part. I went all Giada and put brown sugar and chopped pecans into the bottom of a baking dish, put the rolls down and baked them at 375. The first mistake was using a baking dish, the second was the brown sugar. As I watched the rolls fall over and turn messy, I decided to follow the advice of someone who gave feedback on Daphne's recipe and moved them to muffin pans. Let them finish cooking and it was so much better!

Did I add that I FROSTED THEM!!!! Oh yes I did! Frosting was easy, slowly melt 1/2 a stick of butter on a really low heat, add 4 oz of cream cheese cinnamon, sugar and vanilla to make the frosting. Smear the frosting on the roll while the roll is still warm and oh, enjoy!

By the way, the heart shape is merely by chance.

Enjoy - Be well!