Cinnamon spice and everything nice...

Have you guys heard of/been to the famous and opulent Cinnamon Grand and Cinnamon Lakeside hotels in Colombo, Sri Lanka?
Did you know that one of the names that we were toying with before naming Oreo 'Oreo' was 'Cinnamon'?
Have you ever eaten freshly baked warm Cinnamon rolls right out of the oven with hot chocolate on a monochromatic day?
These are some of the many wild reasons why cinnamon is one of my favorite spices, be it in baking, cooking or aromatic oils. Cinnamon is flavourful, sweet and the fine aroma can transport me to places. Besides, is'nt it wild to have a sweet spice?

Cinnamon rolls (recipe adapted from here)

For the dough:

Milk- 1/8 cup

Water- 1/8 cup

Butter- 1 tbsp

Dry yeast- 1 1/2 teaspoons

Salt- 1/4 tsp

Plain flour- 1 1/2 cups 

Granulated sugar- 1/4 cup

1  Egg

For the Filling:

Butter- 1 1/2 tbsp, melted

Brown sugar- 4 tbsp

Cinnamon powder- 1/2 tbsp

Glaze (Optional):

Powdered sugar- 1/2 cup

Butter- 3/4 tbsp, melted

Milk- 3/4 tbsp

Vanilla essence- 1/4 tsp

First off, let's make the dough: Heat the milk, butter and water until warm. 

Mix in the yeast and let it rest for ten to 15 minutes

In the meanwhile, beat the egg, add in the sugar  and then mix in  the flour.

Pour in the yeast-ed mix into the flour mix and knead till it starts pulling off the sides of the bowl. Make sure the dough is not a sticky mess, it should ideally be pliable and non sticky (meaning, if you touch it, you should be able to pull away your finger without having bits of dough sticking to it). If your dough is too wet/sticky (and chances are it will be if you are in a humid place like Chennai), we can fix it. Add flour little by little and knead till you reach the favorable consistency.

Lightly oil the sides of a bowl and leave the dough in it and leave the bowl in a humid corner of your kitchen. 

This will help the dough rise. Leave it on for 2 hours.

Check on the dough after two hours, it ought to have doubled in volume. Punch it down and place on a clean lightly floured surface (very little flour).

Roll out the dough in a rectangular shape with about little less than half an inch thickness.

For the filling: Mix the cinnamon and brown sugar. Brush the dough with the melted butter. Sprinkle the cinnamon-brown sugar mix over the butter. Make sure you cover every bit of the dough and be generous.

You are good to get rollin'!! :D

Roll the dough from the longer side and and as inconspicuously as possible, pinch the ends once you reach the ends, to seal in. 

With a sharp knife, cut the log into slices with thickness of an inch.

Place the slices on a buttered baking tray and leave it to rise for another hour.

Once it will have doubled in size, pop it into a preheated oven and bake for twenty minutes at 180 C.

You could make the filling in the meanwhile. Whip all the ingredients for the glaze together till it thickens.

Remove the rolls from the oven and let them cool before getting greedy and wanting to check on it. 

Once the rolls have cooled, drizzle the glaze. It'll taste yum with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book.