Carrot Cake Style Cinnamon Rolls

Carrot Cake Style Cinnamon Rolls 
Topped with Cream Cheese Cake Batter Frosting
and garnished with Marzipan Baby Carrots!

This year for Thanksgiving dessert I made a variation on the standard Cinnamon Rolls. That's what I do. I took my favorite carrot cake recipe which includes pineapple and spun it into the yummiest, tastiest cinnamon roll. And because of the carrots it was healthy, too! Ha ha ha ha.

Anyway, the funny things is all the guys at the table passed up this delicious treat. They turned their noses up to the carrots... their loss - because these were darn right tasty.

Here is how I made them: 

Dough:
Proof yeast, in a small bowl combine 2 tablespoons warm milk with 1 1/2 teaspoon yeast with 2 teaspoons brown or regular sugar. In a larger glass bowl, combine 1/2 cup warm milk, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, and 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg. In another bowl, combine 1/2 cup finely shredded carrot with 2 cups flour. Once the carrots are evenly distributed throughout the flour, add it to the wet ingredients. Add in the proofed yeast and up to another 1/2 cup of flour if necessary. Turn out onto floured surface and knead 5-10 minutes. Shape into ball. Put back into oiled glass bowl and turn to oil top of dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place (oven, if available - probably not available on Thanksgiving day though - I put mine right next to the oven to receive heat from the baking turkey) and let rise till doubled - usually takes about 1-2 hours. 

Meanwhile, prepare filling. I used 1/2 a large carrot for the shredded carrot above in the dough. The other 1/2 carrot I cut into small pieces and put in a small pan with water to boil till soft. Then I added brown sugar - about 2 tablespoons, 1 tablespoon honey, 2 teaspoons cinnamon and about 2 tablespoons butter, also 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and mixed it all together. Remove pan from heat and blended this mixture till smooth with my immersion blender. 

When the dough has doubled remove to prepared surface to roll out into rectangle. I like shortcuts and easy clean up so I roll out the dough on baking parchment paper. Spread with carrot puree mixture and roll up into long log shape. Pinch seams if possible. I always have a hard time because this liquid fillings make such a mess. Do your best. Then cut into 8-12 equal slices. I got about 10 good size slices out this time. Put the slices into a prepred glass baking dish or if like me - I shape the slices into a circle and then pick up the parchment paper by the corners and lift into my pie tin and then I arrange the slices again evenly in the pan. Why, because I don't want to clean any extra pans or dishes... "shortcuts" remember!

Now let this rise for another 1/2 hour or so - until doubled. Right before I bake it I push down an indentation in each roll and spoon 1 heaping teaspoon of pineapple jam into each roll. (Because my favorite carrot cake recipe includes pineapple... this made the rolls so yummy, too).

Now, bake them in pre-heated oven 175-C degrees for 10-15 minutes. It seemed like my oven was taking forever to cook them, I thought it quit working after being on all day baking the turkey, that I turned the heat up to 200 and switched it to hot air oven - and after 2 minutes they were done.

Remove from oven. Prepare frosting. Whip together 1/3 cup butter and in 1/4 cup cream cheese. Mix in 1 cup powdered sugar. If it's not thick to your liking, mix in 1/2 cup yellow cake dry mix. Taste and adjust to your liking. Scoop large spoonfuls of frosting onto each roll. 

At some point while the rolls where rising, second time, I made the marzipan carrots. I bought some reddish orange colored marzipan, opened the package and took off pieces of marzipan and roll them in my fingers till they were the shape of little carrots. Topped the rolls with them... and I don't really like marzipan but they did taste really good with this frosting. It was a nice touch to add them to the rolls. I would do that again!

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At the end of Thanksgiving meal and a long day - it may seem like these rolls are a lot of work, but really, there is just a lot of waiting while they rise and stuff. It's not that bad to be the treat maker. I didn't have to make any of the other side dishes... so I got off easy :) It's good to be me!

What is your favorite sweet treat at Thanksgiving?

Butternut Squash + Ginger Syrup Sweet Rolls

It's been a long time since I've published a Sweet Rolls that Rock recipe because I've been trying to eat more healthy and I've been trying to follow the Primal Blueprint - which is kind of like similar to the Paleo diet.

And in case you are wondering why it didn't last - it's because it's a fad diet - not for everyone - but for me it was. The thing that bothered me was all the meat and you often hear people say I get to eat bacon, so niener niener niener, you know. But let me tell, I love bacon, but everyday - it gets boring pretty quick. 

And then I watched a couple documentaries - like Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and also Forks over Knives... and that got me thinking - you know, I'm a Mormon and we have this document called the Word of Wisdom. It's basically a revelation from our loving Heavenly Father and he promises us that if we live according to it we will have health. Some basic do's and don't's of the Word of Wisdom are to eat meat sparingly - and at that only in times of famine and winter. He tells us to eat grains and He says to avoid other harmful substances like alcohol, coffee and tea. 

I think in regards to the coffee and tea - it's caffeine that he means because just steaming the leaves of certain plants is pretty healthy - but caffeine is a big no-no. I mean, it's incredibly addictive. Had the Word of Wisdom been revealed right now with all those popular fizzy drinks - those would probably be included too - but that's just something I've come to learn for myself.

Any way, I haven't been doing the Primal Blueprint - although I do really enjoy some grain-free treats - like I have this one good recipe for grain free zucchini cake that is just super duper good... but nothing and I mean nothing can replace the deliciousness of yeasted breads!

So, if you have some kind of gluten intolerance - and you have been baking for a while and know what to do - do what you gotta do to alter this recipe... otherwise, here is my version... oh yeah, and because of the documentary Forks over Knives - we are eating and drinking less cow's milk so I use coconut milk in this recipe.

And just one more thing - I am really trying to bake less - because for anyone that is trying to lose weight - no matter which diet you are following - what it all comes down to is that you have to take in fewer calories than your body needs and I noticed that when I bake yummy stuff - I can't eat just one... that's just me, though - so I recommend only baking for a purpose - like you are bringing a treat to share with another family, etc. etc. etc.

Butternut Squash + Ginger Syrup Sweet Rolls

For the Dough, combine and let rise 2 tablespoons warm milk (coconut milk), 1/2 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon instant yeast. After 5 minutes or until it's bubbly, add 1/2 cup room temperature, luke warm milk (coconut), 2 tablespoons honey, 1/4 cup melted coconut oil (ghee) and 1/4 cup butternut squash (roasted and pureed). Mix well. Then add in 2 cups sifted flour plus 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir together till mixture forms into dough. Let rest a few minutes then knead another 5 - 10 minutes. Turn into large oiled bowl and cover with wet towel. Then let it rise 60-90 minutes in a warm place (oven).

Dust counter top with flour and roll out dough into rectangular form and spread with filling (see below). Roll up and cut into 8 equal slices. Place on prepared baking sheet (I use parchment paper and I usually bake 8 in a pie tin) and let rise again in warm place (oven at 50-C degrees) for 30-45 minutes. Adjust oven temperature for baking (175-C degrees) and bake for 10 minutes. Then adjust temperature down to 150-C degrees and continue to bake for another 10 minutes or until the dough springs back easily when lightly touched.

Remove from oven and drizzle with Ginger Syrup topping (below). Serve warm or cold.

Filling:
1 tablespoon ghee + 1/4 cup butternut squash + 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie/ginger bread spice mix + 1/4 cup raw sugar = blend together till smooth. Spread onto dough. Sprinkle with handful chopped walnuts or pecans (optional).

Ginger Syrup:
Finely dice 1/2- 1 tablespoon fresh peeled ginger. Fry in a little ghee till caramelized. Add in 2 tablespoon raw sugar and cook till sugar is syrupy. Pour in 1/4 cup water and a squeeze of lemon juice and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in another 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar. Drizzle to taste over hot rolls. Reserve any remaining syrup for other uses - such as over ice cream, to sweeten tea or stir into tomato soup.

Twirly Swirly Organic Nature

I haven't made sweet rolls in about 3 months. The last time I did was for my birthday. Now we have Easter this weekend and I've decided that despite this Primal lifestyle that I've been trying to adopt - we would go ahead with some of our new traditions... by making bunny buns again. Only this time I added some turmeric to make them extra yellow-orange and I added in some other alternative flours. The ratio of all purpose flour to the Primal approved flours is still like 85/15 but every little bit helps I'm sure. I had a mixture of flax seed, chia seed and quinoa flour that I used... and I didn't want to add too much to this recipe because that might change the way it rises. Luckily we didn't have any problems. We also used butter in place of oil and honey in place of sugar. They turned out yummy. [Found a traditional bunny bun shape here]


And in case any one is wondering, it is not hard to adopt the Primal Blueprint - and I have lost weight effortlessly, but it is hard to do it all the time especially when other people in the house are not on the PB and there are Easter treats around. But I will start up again Tuesday - after the Holiday :)


Okay, so earlier today I did my first post using my Android application for Blogger and it didn't work. I can't find the post that I supposedly posted. I may have accidently selected for it to post later, in which case I should be able to find it as "scheduled" and still in my post list, but it's just not there... and it was such a nice post about Nature... in any event, I shall try to recall my wording again - doubt it will sound as good the 2nd time...


I was out in the garden and noticed that one particular plant we have has a twirly swirly way in which it grows. It's the fern. It starts out like a ball and then it shoots out "branches" of curly twirly whirly swirly green organic sweet rolls. I have some photos to prove it.

Pretty cool huh?!

Stracciatella Sweet Rolls

These are a 10, ten, Ten, TEN. They are good. Okay, maybe I'm a little too confident. My man rated them a 9 out of 10. And one of my best girlfriends rated them a 8.5 out of 10. That's a pretty good rating especially for two people who went to the higher level high schools here in the Netherlands. I'm told it's pretty much impossible to earn a 10. Unlike the United States where A's are given left and right. Just sayin' ...so in my opinion anything above 8 is pretty much the same thing as a 10.

Anyway, I was walking through the Aldi checking out new products when I come across Stracciatella boterham pasta - that's Dutch for sandwich spread. That's one of the sweet things about living in Europe... we don't just have Nutella - we have just about anything you can think of to spread on bread. So, I see it and grab a jar of it and try it out at home immediately... and to be honest, on bread it's a bit boring... but I know I can do something more with it. I try it sandwiched between to ginger cookies and I like it. 


Yeah so I figured it would be better as dessert, obviously.


I knew I would need to create a Stracciatella sweet roll that featured this spread. So, I did. But I didn't just smear it inside regular dough - I made the dough -  yes, but I sprinkled it and kneaded it throughout with chocolate pieces. Then I topped the baked rolls with more yummy delish stracciatella glaze - three times we have stracciatella and it works. It's just plain awesome. They are so good... and for once, I'll be making these for Thanksgiving dessert instead of pumpkin sweet rolls - which, let's admit - are a little overdone. Pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cinnamon rolls - I've had enough pumpkin... I'm having stracciatella!


I like to think of myself as trend setter - I'm just ahead of my time.


I go back to the Aldi, only about a week later, and this stuff is completely cleaned out... so I searched and I hoped and down under all the caramel sandwich spread, I find one lone jar of stracciatella spread - yes... it's mine, it's all mine!

• In a large glass bowl, combine 2 tablespoons warm milk and 1 package vanilla sugar plus 1 teaspoon active dry or instant yeast. Let rest. 
• Add in 1/2 cup slightly warm milk, 1/4 cup caster sugar, and 1/4 cup light colored oil (vegetable oil) plus 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix in 2 to 2 1/4 cups white all purpose flour. Knead until dough is not too sticky and then put into oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. 
• Let rise in warm place until doubled. After about one hour, punch down dough. Knead in about 2 tablespoons dark chocolate flavored flakes or finely chopped dark chocolate pieces. Let rest 10-20 minutes. 

• Roll out into rectangle. Spread with 1/4 to 1/3 cup Stracciatella sandwich spread and sprinkle about 1/2 teaspoon gingerbread or pumpkin pie spice over that. Roll up and cut into 8 equal slices. Place into a buttered glass casserole or pie plate. Let rise again in warm place till doubled - about 30 minutes. 

• Bake in preheated oven 175-C for 10 minutes, then adjust the heat to 150-C and continue to bake 5-10 minutes till dough springs back lightly when touched. Remove from oven. Let cool slightly. 
• Prepare glaze: mix together 1 cup sifted powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk and 1/4 teaspoon clear vanilla extract. Blend in 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dark chocolate flakes. Then stir in about 2 tablespoons stracciatella sandwich spread. Drizzle this mixture evenly over rolls. 

Makes 8 sweet rolls that rock - serve warm. Even yummy the next day - just warm them in the microwave for about 30 seconds on high power.

White Chocolate and "Pepernoten" Sweet Rolls

It's fall - it's that time of year again when suddenly I feel like baking a whole lot more - nice to warm the house up with yummy cinnamon-y smells. Can't think of anything better than sweet rolls to make - that's because there is nothing better!


My very good friend requested a special sweet roll for a special occasion. She gave birth to her second daughter and wanted something yummy to eat. She said, please make me some with that good buttercreamy frosting - you know I like it thick!


She also requested white chocolate and a little something extra - so we decided together that pepernoten deserves a chance in these rolls. Pepernoten are little spice cookies that come out this time of year in the Netherlands. They are kind of like gingersnaps - but not that gingery. Originally, they were spiced with black pepper - until more spices came along. We still call them pepernoten - translated literally as pepper nuts - however, they also sell under the name "kruidennoten" - meaning spice nuts. Although there are no nuts contained in - they are just small and snackable like nuts.


So I used a very sticky dough - that rises a lot. They turned out very large - extra large - kind of like a Cinnabon - large roll. Here's what I did:


In a large glass bowl, combined 1 cup warm water with 2 tablespoon sugar, 2 teaspoons yeast, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon oil. Mix around then blend in 2 cups white flour (I used a combination of 1.5 cups white all purpose flour and 1/2 cup fresh ground whole wheat flour). Cover with plastic wrap then let rise 1 hour in warm place. Mix again to get bubbles out and let rest 20 minutes. Then pull out of bowl and knead slightly with 1/2 cup flour - and roll out with rolling pin into good size rectangle.


Filling: melt 2 tablespoons white chocolate together with 1 tablespoon butter and spread over dough. Sprinkle with 2 handfuls crushed pepernoten and about 1/4 cup brown sugar. Sprinkle a generous amount of ground cinnamon over that. Roll up and slice into 8 equal slices - careful - it's sticky. Place cut side up into buttered pie plate or casserole dish. Let rise in warm place 20-30 minutes then bake 15-20 minutes at 190-C degrees.


Prepare frosting: warm a small bowl of about 1 tablespoon whipping cream together with half vanilla pod - slit down the center. Scrape out vanilla speckles into the cream. Melt 25 grams white chocolate, set aside. In a mixer, whip 4 ounces cream cheese and 1/4 cup butter till creamy. Blend in melted white chocolate and vanilla cream. Blend in around 2 cups sifted powdered sugar or a bit more or less to desired consistency. 


When rolls come out of oven, you may pour the frosting over top - and then you will have more of a glazed effect with the frosting. Or you can wait till they cool a little and then put the frosting over - which is how my friend prefers the frosting... she likes it thick! Then sprinkle another handful crushed pepernoten over top.


(Note: in the photo, I did not use a lot of frosting - definitely should have poured quite a bit more on top - it's just that it was so so sweet!)

Creepy Green Halloween Sweet Rolls

These are definitely creepy for the kids - because not only are they green - but the ingredient list is also green - it's not food dye - it's vegetables! This is sort of a mix between trick or treat! Literally - it's a treat because it's sweet - but it's a trick because you are gonna try and trick people into eating things like spinach, avocado and wheat grass! Yes, that's right!


These are my - good for you - good for your body - excuse to eat one more - sweet rolls :)


Okay, here's what I've done... I've used fresh ground whole wheat, freshly juiced apples, fresh ingredients - and to my surprise - it's kind of good. 

without the green stuff...

But the kids can't be fooled... my picky eaters, took one look and said, no thanks Mom... and "if you don't tell me what's in it, I'm not going to eat it" - what a wimpy Dad. ;) ha ha


So - to make 8 creepy beastly-goblin-ogre-monster-whatever ya theme sweet rolls do this:


Mix together 1.5 teaspoons active dry yeast and 3/4 cup warm apple juice (cored and juiced). I say to core the apples (I used 3 small to get approximately 3/4 cup of juice), because we are gonna use the leftover pulp in the filling!

Steam a couple handfuls of fresh spinach greens till slightly wilted. Then puree with handheld blender. Measure out 3/8 cup (6 tablespoons) of spinach puree and add to the yeast mixture. Use any remaining spinach puree in the filling.


Add 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil or butter to the yeast mixture. Blend in 2 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour to the mix. Now add in 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix around with a good spoon. And then add up to 1 cup more of the whole wheat flour - turn out onto floured surface and knead till you have a good elastic textured dough.


Butter a large glass bowl. Turn dough into bowl and turn around in bowl to cover dough with butter. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest in warm place till doubled in size (about 90 minutes).

...with just a sprinkling of cinnamon...

To prepare filling, combine juiced apple pulp, any remaining spinach puree and another half to 1 small apple, cored and finely diced. Stir in 1/4 cup honey and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon. 


When dough has doubled, turn out onto lightly floured surface and roll out into rectangle. Spread filling mixture evenly over dough. Roll up jelly roll style and slice into 8 equal pieces. Arrange pieces in buttered pie plate or casserole dish. Let rise second time in warm place - another 45 minutes. Bake in oven heated to 190-C degrees for 15-20 minutes - until when you poke lightly with your finger, the dough bounces back.


Prepare topping: with handheld mixer, or food processor fitted with whip attachment, whip together till smooth half avocado and 1 heaping tablespoonful of honey. If desired - totally optional here - blend in 1/2 teaspoon powdered wheat grass or spirulina (kids really might not like the flavor though - so watch out). To thicken it a bit - blend in 1 tablespoon sifted cornstarch. Then refrigerate until ready to use.

Optional honey chocolate glaze - I have some in the freezer and I just defrosted it for this recipe, and then it went back into the freezer for later use - but here it is: 3/4 cup Dutch-processed Cocoa powder, mixed with 2/3 cup honey and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream - blend together and heat in small sauce pan until all the cocoa lumps are well blended - lightly bring to boil then remove from heat. Set aside to cool and use as an awesome topping for all kinds of desserts.


After the rolls are out of the oven and have cooled off a bit, scoop a tablespoonful of the avocado-honey frosting onto each roll and spread around. Optional - add the honey chocolate glaze in a spiral-spider web effect if wanted. And sprinkle with some cinnamon powder... if you have any cool plastic black spiders, add those too - I'm much too wimpy to use anything like that on my food though. I really detest spiders.

Bunny Buns - Easter Weekend

I totally thought I was just gonna make one kind of sweet roll this weekend, but then I finally got my April edition Friend magazine and saw this:

You can find a link to it here: Bunny Buns @ Friend Magazine

And I couldn't resist. So, I decided to make two kinds of sweet rolls and I'm so glad I did. I made the Bunny Buns together with the kids. I let Kailea roll up and twist the dough. She and Ella also got to help with kneading the dough. That was fun. Next time I'm gonna loosen up even more and let her crack the eggs - she's gotta learn sometime, right?

The making of bunny buns - see I'm not doing all the work, Ella is putting decorations on...

Here are our bunny buns... I gotta tell ya - the hardest part was putting the decorations on the finished roll... well, actually the hardest part was eating just one and putting the rest away for later... but you know what I meant, right ;)

yum yum  - bunny buns

I pretty much followed the recipe exact, the one minor adjustment I did was I added a wee bit of vanilla extract to the glaze - everything else I did follow to a T. The dough was excellent and I love the citrus smell throughout the house.

This one turned out the best... then we got lazy.

I totally want to make this my Easter tradition just like that family did - that's mentioned in the inside front cover of the Friend. Our family is young and we need some good holiday traditions like these.

Here we have our Picasso-style bunny buns - the kids being quick to finish - they just wanted to eat one already - and I did, too.

Stay tuned... next week I 'll show you the other sweet roll we made this weekend - they tasted like Toaster Strudels... and Kailea and I made one that looks like an Amish girl with a braid :)


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UPDATE: I am making these Easter weekend again (2013) and I am not letting Kailea crack the eggs. Apparently, I haven't lightened up yet. Not only that, but I'm using the bread maker to make the dough - boy I've got lazy.

Shamrock Sweet Rolls

Happy St. Patty's Day!


I really loved this combination of chocolate filled sweet rolls with minty frosting. The dough was moist and not too dry. It was excellent.


I used the BASIC ROLL MIX and then filled it with chocolate mousse filling from Wilton.com and then used up some left over minty frosting we had from a Birthday party at the beginning of the month and just had those sprinkles in the cupboard as well.


Baking sweet rolls just comes naturally to me :)


Simply put four sweet rolls together in the shape of a shamrock or 4-leaf clover and then frost as desired. Serve warm!




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