Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

One winter, my family and I were snowed in over Christmas and New Year's, and so we had to come up with things to do and make for the duration of our "confinement." We had no problem devising things to keep us occupied while snowed into our house: we watched movies, we put TV series on, we played games, and we cooked. It was so much fun, because a couple different times over this particular snowy Christmas break, Mom decided to whip up some delicious cinnamon rolls. If you want to move on from your experience with store-bought cinnamon rolls, then try this recipe and up your expectations of cinnamon rolls.

You will need the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of margarine
• 2 cups of lukewarm water
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• 2 tablespoons of yeast
• 1/4 cup of very warm water
• 1 teaspoon of sugar (for proofing the yeast)
• 6–8 cups of flour
• 2 eggs
• Cinnamon sugar
• Butter (not melted)

Start off by melting the margarine and mixing it with the lukewarm water. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and the salt, and then pour in the warm water mixed with the margarine that you combined earlier. In a separate bowl, proof the yeast by combining the yeast, very warm water, and teaspoon of sugar. Once the yeast starts to look bubbly, it is ready to add to the water and sugar mixture. Now you need to add three to four cups of flour to the mixture and beat well. Once you have beaten the flour into the mixture and it is combined well, add the eggs and beat well again. Now, add another three to four cups of flour and knead it until it is smooth.

Place the dough in a large, greased bowl (be sure to also grease the lid), and let it rise, if you live at a high altitude, the dough should rise for forty-five minutes the first time, thirty-five minutes the second time, and twenty minutes the third time; after every period of time (including the last one), make sure that you punch the dough down to let it rise again. If you live at a low altitude, let it rise for two hours the first time and one hour the second time. (There is no third time like the instructions for high altitude.)

Once the dough is finished rising, you can start rolling our your cinnamon rolls. You will probably have to divide the dough into two and three different sections and make cinnamon rolls from each of those. Pat the dough out so it is about fifteen inches wide and seven to eight inches across; the dough should all be distributed evenly. Now take some butter (not melted) and spread it around the dough with a spoon, and it's fine if there are some places where the butter is more than in other places. All you have to do now is sprinkle some cinnamon sugar over the butter on the dough. Now roll the dough and use dental floss to slice the rolls off. Put the rolls on a large jelly roll pan. Bake the rolls in an oven preheated to 375 degrees for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Now you have the best cinnamon rolls ever, and you'll be set to be snowed in for as log as the snow permits!