I have not been baking much this month! I prepped a lot of cookie dough for our classic Christmas cookies, and so with my family in town we’ve been having lots of cookie plates, and the recipes were not new. So it’s been a slow month on the blog front. Which is fine! I hit my goal for posting ages ago, and there’s nothing wrong with a little end-of-year reset. I’ve got plenty of ideas percolating for the new year, and that’s a good way to start it!
I’ve been baking so little I didn’t even have to bake my niece’s 2nd birthday cake – it’s tradition for my dad to bake her birthday cake. So I’ve been off the hook! He made a very tasty blueberry cinnamon crumb cake (my dad and my niece have very similar favorite flavors). And then, I got to benefit from the leftovers – both some blueberry filling and cinnamon crumb were leftover and sitting in the fridge. And I am never one to let food go to waste, so I turned them into these cinnamon rolls.
If you don’t feel like going all out, you can just use blueberry jam for the filling. And the cinnamon crumb on top is option (just, encouraged).
I made these cinnamon rolls a week or so ago for a family brunch, and they were both delicious and incredibly easy. The dough recipe is a little weird (adding baking powder and baking soda after the yeast dough rises?) but it is incredibly simple. One pot, on the stove, and it can then rise in the pot with the lid on. It only has one rise, and it comes together to a great consistency that makes it incredibly easy to roll out. It also can be easily cut down to a recipe for only four cinnamon rolls! Which is the perfect amount of cinnamon rolls when you just want them for breakfast one morning.
So with that recipe fresh in mind, I made the dough, added in the blueberry filling instead of butter, and then sprinkled the crumb on top of the icing. Bada-bing, bada-boom. This could be a new era. There is a world of roll recipes out there – cinnamon or otherwise – that I never bother making because it seems ridiculous to bake a whole pan. But if I can scale them down to just four?? Well…. sign me up!
So, as this holiday season winds down, I highly recommend baking some cinnamon rolls. Not that you need any more treats after a whole string of them. But it’s nice to have a little breakfast treat. And it’s not like there’s leftovers! It’s just a one-meal thing! As we ease out of Christmas and float around in this last-week-of-the-year limbo, it’s nice to keep the fun things coming.
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PinDescription
This recipe is for 8 cinnamon rolls, but can easily be halved to make 4.
Ingredients
Blueberry Filling
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp water
- 1 cup blueberries
Cinnamon Crumble
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp brown sugar, packed
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter, cold, sliced
- 1 tbsp quick-cooking oats
Rolls and cinnamon filling
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 2 cup + 1/4 cup of flour, divided
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- ground cinnamon, to taste
Glaze
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 to 3 tbsp milk
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- For the crumble: Combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar and butter in a medium-sized bowl and use a fork to press the butter into the dry ingredients until it all forms a crumbly mixture.
- Add the oatmeal and use the fork to press it into the crumbly mixture.
- Sprinkle the mixture over a lined cookie sheet and bake at 350°F (176°C) for about 5-8 minutes, until the crumble pieces starts to brown around the edges. Remove and set aside to cool.
- For the blueberry filling: Combine the sugar, cornstarch and water in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat and stir to combine. Heat until the mixture is wet and the sugar begins to melt.
- Add the blueberries and stir to coat with the sugar mixture.
- Continue to cook until the blueberries start to soften and let out juice.
- Remove from heat when blueberries are a bit juicy and the juice has begun to thicken. Pour the mixture into another bowl and refrigerate until cool.
- For the dough: heat the milk, oil, and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat to just below a boil. Set aside and cool to warm. You’ll want the mixture to be just warm to the touch. Not hot at all. About 105 degrees F. Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it sit on the milk for 1 minute.
- Add 1 cup of the flour directly to the saucepan. Stir until just combined, then cover with the lid to the pan (or a piece of plastic wrap if your pan doesn’t have a lid), and set aside in a relatively warm place for 1 hour. Check the dough after 30 minutes to ensure that it’s rising well. If the dough hasn’t risen at all, you may want to start over. After 1 hour, remove the lid and add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and the remaining 2 tbsp flour. Stir thoroughly to combine. Use the dough right away, or refrigerate for an hour before using. You can also cover the dough and refrigerate it to use the next morning at this stage, or you can continue on to fill and roll and slice the dough before allowing the rolls to rest in the refrigerator overnight.
- Place racks in the upper third and center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease an 8×8-inch square baking pan. Set aside
- To assemble the rolls: remove the dough from the pan/bowl. On a floured surface, roll the dough into a rectangle, about 12 x 4-inches. The dough should be rolled fairly thin.
- Spread your blueberry filling (or jam) over the dough. Sprinkle generously with the sugar, and sprinkle with as much cinnamon as you’d like. Then, sprinkle on about half of the cinnamon crumb.
- Now, beginning at the end farthest from you, roll the rectangle tightly towards you, finishing seam side down. Tuck in the ends if they’re particularly loose and floppy. Slice the dough into 4 equal slices and arrange in one of the prepared pans.
- Allow rolls to rest for 15 minutes.
- Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until the rolls are bubbling and golden brown. While the rolls are baking, make the glaze by whisking together powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract.
- Remove baked rolls from the oven. Allow to rest for 10 minutes then drizzle the glaze over the warm rolls. Sprinkle with the remaining crumb. Serve warm (or room temperature, or cold… they’re good no matter what)!
Notes
Adapted from Joy the Baker