Cinnamon Rolls w/Fondant Glaze

I’m catching up on my Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge with Peter Reinhart’s recipe for Cinnamon Buns (which you can get from his book above, starting on page 143-146). Everyone loves a good Cinnamon Bun recipe on lazy mornings! It’s a delicious recipe for any time of day and we especially enjoyed this recipe’s hint of lemon.

The dough is made by combining sugar, salt, butter, egg, lemon zest, lemon extract, flour, yeast, and buttermilk. Once a silky, supple and slightly tacky dough is achieved, it’s left to rise.
While the dough rises, I combine sugar, cinnamon and toasted pecan pieces which will be used as the sweet filling for the cinnamon roll. You can pretty much play around with your spices to create a filling to suit your tastes such as ginger, allspice, etc.

After the dough has doubled in size, I rolled it out into a rectangle and sprinkled my cinnamon sugar pecan filling over the top.

Now here’s the fun part – rolling it up! Carefully taking one edge, I rolled the dough towards making sure no pecan piece was left behind. Once it’s been completely rolled up, I seal the edges and carefully cut slices of the roll.

The slices are then placed in a baking pan. At this point, you have the option to cover and chill up to days before baking. Or you can bake up the rolls right away.

While the cinnamon rolls are baking up, now’s a good time to make the white fondant glaze with powdered sugar, lemon extract and milk.

When the cinnamon rolls come out of the oven, allow the rolls to cool before streaking the fondant glaze over the tops… and enjoy with a cup of hot coffee. Sadly, I wasn’t able to snag a pic once they were done. I brought them into the office and they were eaten up before I had a chance to take a pic. However trust me when I say they were delicious!