Exceptional Caramel Rolls
Last month we visited our friends in LA for a week and I learned that our friend Alex Horab was craving caramel rolls and couldn't find them anywhere in town. I haven't really noticed them at any of the bakeries in San Antonio, but I also have not looked for them specifically. Wikipedia tells me that the "sticky bun" is of Germanic origin, so it would make sense for them to be more popular up in the North Dakota/Minnesota than in Los Angeles.
Well, of course then I started craving caramel rolls too. I went through all my church cookbooks for a good recipe and found many that used melted ice cream in the caramel sauce and many that used frozen bread. Finally, I found this recipe from my Norway Lutheran Church cookbook (credited to C.S. Krieger) that starts completely from scratch.
Exceptional Caramel Rolls
2 cups water
3/4 cup crisco or margarine
1 1/2 tbsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
Heat above ingredients. Cool to lukewarm. Add 2 beaten eggs. Dissolve 2 packages of yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm water. Add yeast to other ingredients. Add 6 cups of flour. It will be very goopy. Pour 1 cup of flour on table. Knead 125 counts or more, adding no more than 1/2 cup additional flour. It will be very soft. Place in a greased bowl. Grease top of dough. Cover with plastic wrap and towel. Put in a warm place. Raise until over bowl's edge. Punch down and place on buttered counter. Press into rectangle. Spread with melted butter and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. In each cake pan, melt 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup whipping cream and 3 tablespoons butter. Cut rolls about 1" thick. Roll up and place in pan. Let raise until double. Bake at 350° until golden brown, about 30 minutes.
I've never made rolls from scratch before, so I was mostly just hoping the dough would actually rise. It turned out to be pretty fun and easy to make, it just takes a little patience for the dough to rise twice. I began making these at 9:30 a.m. and they were done and ready to eat just before 1 p.m. I let them rise for about an hour in a warm area both times, so much of that time was not spent actively making these. I will also note that this recipe makes around two dozen rolls and I chose to make a half batch.
After the rolls had been in the oven for about 20 minutes, Danny walked into the living room and said, "Ah, it smells enchanting in here!" and he was absolutely correct. My oven took a little more time to get these golden brown (about 36 minutes) but it was worth the wait. I turned the whole pan over onto a platter and we dug in. Two of them disappeared down my greedy maw before I knew what hit me.
The dough soaks up a lot of the caramel (which I liked), but if you want your caramel rolls drowning in it, I would suggest making an extra bit of caramel sauce to either add to the pan before baking or for pouring over the top once they're finished.
Final Rating: 5/5 of course these are good. It's right there in the name!